The Controlled Indeterminacy in Lutoslawski’s

D.M.A Document

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Arts

in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University

By

Shuo Shen, DMA

Graduate Program in Music

The Ohio State University

2019

D.M.A Committees:

Jan Radzynski, Advisor

Anna Gawboy

David Clampitt

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Copyrighted by

Shuo Shen

2019

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Abstract

Since 1960, Lutoslawski started to use the musical technique of controlled indeterminacy in his Jeux vénitiens, this musical technique had become one of the most crucial terms linked to him. the premiere of his Concerto for Cello and

() in 1971, this piece had become one of his most celebrated works.

This document introduces the development of Lutoslawski’s personal musical style, including the intervals, the musical forms, the musical characters, etc. Chapter III introduces the background of indeterminate music and the development of Lutoslawski’s controlled indeterminacy. In the second part of Chapter III, I analyze the Cello Concerto by using all of his personal musical techniques.

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Dedication

This document is dedicated to my dear professor, Jan Radzynski.

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Acknowledgments

First, I want to sincerely express my deepest gratitude to my professor, Dr. Jan

Radzynski. Dr. Radzynski’s teaching has far-reaching influences on me. In the last three years, he taught me how to compose by using different methods. In addition, Dr.

Radzynski coached me to find my own musical style. He taught me independence and confidence, the abilities which will affect my future.

In addition, I want to sincerely thank to my family. They gave me the greatest support they have.

Finally, I am eager to thank my dear lover and soul mate, Dr. Kehui Wu. Without her support, I will not have such inspirations to compose my musical works.

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Vita

2009 ...... Music Composition, BA,

Shandong University of Arts

2013 ...... Music Composition, MM,

University of Arizona

2019 ...... Music Composition, DMA,

The Ohio State University

Fields of Study

Major Fields: Music

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Table of Contents

Abstract ...... ii Dedication...... iii Acknowledgments...... iv Vita ...... v List of Figures ...... vii Chapter 1. Introduction ...... 1 Chapter 2. Lutoslawski’s own style ...... 3 Background of Lutoslawski ...... 3 Sound Language of Lutoslawski...... 5 The Form of Lutoslawski's Music ...... 12 Chapter 3. The Controlled Indeterminacy in the Cello Concerto...... 22 The indeterminacy in the 20th century...... 22 The Cello Concerto...... 36 Chapter 4. Conclusion...... 52 Bibliography ...... 55

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List of Figures

Figure 1. Reduction of Chords in Lutoslawski’s Music ...... 7 Figure 2. Reduction of ten-pitch chords in Lutoslawski’s Cello Concerto ...... 8 Figure 3. Hexachord in Funereal Music ...... 11 Figure 4. The chord of ’s Winter Music for ...... 24 Figure 5. , December 1952 ...... 25 Figure 6. , Zeitmaße...... 28 Figure 7. 61 of Lutoslawski’s Cello Concerto ...... 35 Figure 8. Rehearsal 7-9 of Lutoslawski’s Cello Concerto ...... 43 Figure 9. Rehearsal 10-12 of Lutoslawski’s Cello Concerto, beginning of the first episode ...... 45

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Chapter I. Introduction

After Lutoslawski heard John Cage’s Second on the radio, the idea of chance music inspired him to open a new method to use his musical ideas.1

“…, nowadays, more and more often engaging the attention of music writers, not only professional publications, but also in articles intended for a wider public. The subject I am referring to is aleatorism… which is published under the title ‘Indeterminacy’ in a collection of Cage’s writings titled Slience; and article titled ‘Aléa’ by Boulez, which appeared in 1957 in Darmstädter Beiträge; and parts of an article by Werner Meyer-Eppler in the first column of the journal Die Reihe.”2

Lutoslawski divided aleatoricism into two different kinds: in the first kind, the whole work, includes the form and texture is based on chance; in the second kind, the chance only can be used to decide some details. He explained the first kind of aleatoricism that for the audience who only listen to the music once may not have any opportunity to hear the whole materials from the special performance. The music will be decided by the performers on the stage and even the will not know which part will be played or never be performed. Thus, based on this situation, the audience will not know the whole creation or have any surprise of the work until they listen to the piece by some different performances several times.

1 Zbigniew Skowron (. and ed.), Lutoslawski on Music (Maryland-Toronto- Plymouth, UK: The Scarecrow Press, INC,2007), 98. 2 lbid., pp. 40-41. 1

Lutoslawski preferred to use the second kind of aleatoricisim in his music rather than the first one. He mentioned that the second one will give the performers more room to show their personal artistic skills and musical expression than the first kind, called whole- aleatoricism works by him. By using the second kind of aleatoricism, no matter how many unexpected elements in each performance, the music is still limited by the framework of the music. In other words, the composer still controlled the music and the audience can realize the expression of the work from the composer much more comfortably than in the first kind.3

Lutoslawski did not use this music technique until the 1960s. The second kind of aleatoricism which he used was called “controlled aleatoricism”. As one of Lutoslawski’s most celebrated works, his Concerto for Cello and Orchestra (Cello Concerto) was called

“the story of the twentieth-century ” by , wife of

Mstislav Rostropovich who was the first and the most known performer of this piece and the dedicatee of this music work.4

The second chapter will introduce the composer’s background, and Lutoslawski’s own musical style which he uses in his cello concerto. The third chapter will introduce the history of indeterminate music and some music pieces from some other that might influence him on writing this cello concerto. Then, the Cello Concerto will be analyzed in detail from the beginning to the end.

3 lbid., PP. 41-45. 4 , Lutoslawski and his music (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 172. 2

CHAPTER II Lutoslawski’s Own Style

Background of Lutoslawski

Unlike the music works from his generation of Polish composers, Lutoslawski’s music does not have a lot of influences by following nationalism or some of the new developments of Western music technique. His music has a more personal style than some of his contemporaries that has his own choice of whatever the use of musical technology and theories he wants. However, it does not mean that Lutoslawski’s music has never used this musical language. According to Stephen Peter Lawson, the word

“refinement” can explain Lutoslawski’s style more clearly. Lawson states that when

Lutoslawski learned the new musical theories or technique no matter from nationalistic music or any other contemporary composers, he would not just use them directly. He was more inclined to adopt whatever he likes, then develop them into his personal style.5

“To this day I am not sure if it was good for my development that I had studied precisely those subjects so superficially. Maybe it was bad. But it was because of this that I was induced to be my own teacher later on, as a more mature composer, and work out harmony and that suited my own purposes…as I have said, I never studied from textbooks, but worked out my own system. That

5 Stephen Peter Lawson, “Lutoslawski’s Cello Concerto,” 95 (Winter, 1970-1971): 34-36. 3

is true to this day: I work according to a wholly individual, independent system.”6

Considering his background, it seems that Lutoslawski had tried to create his own style or system since he was young. Born in 1913 in , Lutoslawski's family gave him a productive and intellectual environment that let him have the opportunity to contact and study music since he was a child. Lutoslawski started to take piano lessons with his mother when he was six and then studied with Helena Hoffman. Soon after, he began to improvise on the piano with nonsense since he had learned about musical theory.

But he still finished his first composition at nine. One of the earliest compositions which influenced him was ’s no. 3, op. 27 that Lutoslawski mentioned often:

“When I was a child, I did not understand much of his music. But when at the age of eleven I heard his Third Symphony, the whole of modern music, the world of the 20th century suddenly opened before me.”7

When Lutoslawski was fourteen, he met Witold Maliszewski and started to take lessons in harmony and counterpoint with the professor. Maliszewski was a former student of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. He was belonging to the Russian school and was not interested in any twentieth-century music. However, fortunately, he encouraged

Lutoslawski to compose without any restriction of harmony and counterpoint.8 After he

6 Bákint András Varga, Lutosławski Profile (: Chester Music, 1976), 4. 7 lbid., 19. 8 Irina Nikolska, Conversations with Witold Lutosławski, trans. Valeri Yerokbin (, Sweden: Melos, 1994), 25.

4 enrolled in the Warsaw Conservatory, Lutoslawski started to study the scores from some twentieth-century composers, such as “early Stravinsky, Debussy, Ravel, etc.”9 If hearing

Szymanowski’s third symphony gave him a new inspiration for modern music, then studying the scores from those composers attracted him to learn the new musical theories and use them in his work with his own way. After he graduated from the Warsaw

Conservatory, Lutoslawski tried many ways to create something new for himself.

Sound Language of Lutoslawski

As has been discussed above, Lutoslawski liked to create his style by studying some musical materials and ideas from some other composers and developing them in his own method. The first example is the inspiration of function from Debussy:

“An important feature of Debussy’s world of music is his sensitivity to vertical aggregations, and also the independence of functional thinking in determining the logical sequence of music events… The German method… is characterized by the absolute need for some kind of a system which determines the transition from one chord to another. Debussy organizes the sequence of chords in a very individual manner—and the need for an individual system is also something that makes me similar to him.”10

To study his harmonic development clearly, the timeline of the process should begin from Lutoslawski’s early years. As he said in an interview: “I began to look for new roads in this field as far as back as the forties…”11, one of his early works can be found in

9 Bákint András Varga, Lutosławski Profile (London: Chester Music, 1976), 4. 10 Bákint András Varga, Lutosławski Profile (London: Chester Music, 1976), 16-17. 11 Irina Nikolska, Conversations with Witold Lutosławski, trans. Valeri Yerokbin (Stockholm, Sweden: Melos, 1994), 120.

5 that time is his Symphony No. 1, “a work of culmination, the largest and most impressive achievement of Lutoslawski’s early years,”12 which was premiered in 1948.

In the opening measure, Lutoslawski used an eight-note chord as the beginning. The chord is created by the notes of C-sharp, E, G, B, D, F, a-flat, and C (Figure 1.A). The chord is based on the interval of third. The use of harmonic creation by thirds reflects his thinking of harmony:

“I came to the conclusion that the fewer the number of constructive intervals is the more characteristic the resultant chords. Sometimes I use chords constructed from three or four intervals, though; but the building material of my chords never amounts to Schönberg’s Allintervallreihe (‘row consisting of all intervals’), because such ‘omni-intervallic’ chords cannot but turn out colourless, insipid, flat, and tame…”13

According to an explanation by Steven Stucky, the intervals have been divided into s different classes such that every semitone from C to B can create an interval. Thus, there are twelve different intervals that can be used. For instance, the of C, from 0 to 0, is class 0; the minor third from C to E-flat, which contains three semitones, is class 3.

Based on this theory, there are twelve interval classes in an . However, to make the different divisions of classes simpler and more apparent, the twelve classes can be seen as six classes. For example, the biggest interval in one octave is the major seventh, which is class 11 that contains eleven semitones. But if the major seventh is inverted to minor

12 Steven Stucky, Lutosławski and his music (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 23. 13 Irina Nikolska, Conversations with Witold Lutosławski, trans. Valeri Yerokbin (Stockholm, Sweden: Melos, 1994), 121.

6 second, it also belongs to class 1. In this case, any interval bigger than the tritone can be inverted to a smaller one.14

This style of using the different intervals, as few as possible, was developed in

Lutoslawski’s later works. The eight-note chord then became a ten-pitch chord, eleven- pitch chord, and twelve-pitch chord. In his Funereal Music for , which was completed in 1958, the twelve-pitch chord (Figure 1.B) was used in the third section named Apogeu.

Figure 1. Reduction of Chords in Lutoslawski’s Music A. Reduction of eight-pitch chord in the string part, the first measure of Lutoslawski’s Symphony No.1 B. Reduction of twelve-pitch chord in the third section of Funereal Music for String Orchestra, m. 239

As Lutoslawski has mentioned, he uses the different intervals as fewer as possible to construct those chords. The twelve-pitch chord which is showed above is based on class 3 and 4 that each interval between the neighbored notes is created by third or fourth except

14 Steven Stucky, Lutosławski and his music (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 241. 7 for the highest one. This fundamental unity of vertical aggregation then became one of his most crucial personal style in his works after the 1960s.

It also can be found in Lutoslawski’s Cello Concerto. In the rehearsal 89, after a half note played by woodwinds and brass, he creates a chain of three ten-pitch chords

(Fig. 2A, 2B, 2C) while the wind part is playing the by another ten-pitch chord (Fig. 2D).

The selected pitches of those chords in figure 2 are all based on the idea that emphasize only two or three interval classes. The maximum range of each neighbored note is the augmented fourth.

Figure 2. Reduction of ten-pitch chords in Lutoslawski’s Cello Concerto

In his music, as shown above, Lutoslawski tries to avoid the influence of the harmonic tendency from tonal music. In the meanwhile, when he receives the twelve-tone technique from Schoenberg and the Second School, he does not like the way they used to treat the intervals. So, Lutoslawski creates his own system for the twelve-note chord. He claimed that if the neighbored notes of the pitch row contain all of the intervals, the row will lose the sound character which it should have. That is the reason

8 why he uses the intervals as few as he can to construct his pitch row. The qualities, which the word he uses to explain the character instead of using the word ‘function’, has nothing about the keys or any harmonic function but only focusing on the sound itself.

Every interval has its own quality. If a chord or a melody involves too many different intervals, the character of each interval will be mixed. Then, the quality of the sound will lose and will become no character. Schoenberg, for example, likes to use all of the possible intervals in a single chord or a single melody, this technique is called

Allintervallereihe.15

There are some examples of using only a few kinds of intervals to create sound quality in Lutoslawski’s Cello Concerto. In the cello part of the third movement, there are only four classes, such as 1, 2, 3, and 5. All of the except 66 contain two classes of these four. For example, from rehearsal #63 to #64d, the composer only uses class 1 and 2, rehearsal #67 and #68 consist class 2 and 5, and from rehearsal #77 to

#81, the classes are 2 and 3.16

To create some different qualities for those chords, Lutoslawski finds a way to resolve it that uses the intervals of major sevenths and minor ninths to express the stable or tense tendency. Lutoslawski explained that “the direction of tension between both notes of the minor-ninth interval is something tending outside, and the major seventh

15 Douglas Rust, “Conversation with Witold Lutoslawski,” The Musical Quarterly Vol. 79 No.1 (, 1995): 215. 16 Charles Bodman Rae, The Music of Lutoslawski (London: Omnibus Press, 2012), 118.

9 tends inside.”17 In the research by Stucky, he also explains this idea by listing two twelve-pitch chords from the composer’s work. One of the two chords contains several major sevenths between the far-distant layers, and another one includes some minor ninths. Stucky concludes that even there is no clue to know the composer’s idea that how he defines the different tendency of qualities for creating different chord by using his interval classes, the trend of major sevenths and minor ninths can be easy to classify:18

“But for Lutoslawski, the first of these chord is ‘stable’ and the second much more ‘tense’, because he believes that sevenths, of which there are a great many between the layers of the first chord, exert an attraction inward toward each other, while ninths (in the second chord) ‘explode’ outward, repelling each other.”19

Not only are the interval classes used vertically in chords, but they also play an essential role in the horizontal line. Lutoslawski states that “the combination of intervals may repeat after transposition… with my scales, the combination of intervals may not repeat along the octave.”20 Based on his own system, the composer creates many different kinds of scales; among those scales, the hexachord scale gradually becomes one of the most crucial types. The composer establishes this scale by using two interval classes, 1 and 4.

Muzyka Żałobna (Funereal Music) is one of the good examples of this system in

17 Douglas Rust, “Conversation with Witold Lutoslawski,” The Musical Quarterly Vol. 79 No.1 (Spring, 1995): 216. 18 Steven Stucky, Lutosławski and his music (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 118 19 lbid., 118. 20 Douglas Rust, “Conversation with Witold Lutoslawski,” The Musical Quarterly Vol. 79 No.1 (Spring, 1995): 213-214.

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Lutoslawski’s works in 1950s. The original order of the hexachord scale in the first two measures is A, B-flat, B-nature, E-flat, E and F (fig. 3A). The idea of creating this scale is based on that “sometimes I compose scale in such a way that every group of notes repeats each perfect fourth—instead of the octave.”21 However, since he has explained that his goal is creating his own sound quality and avoiding the harmonic function, he changes the order, which serves as a none-third harmonic function. The converted order of the scale from low to high is F, B, B-flat, E, E-flat, A (fig. 3B).

Figure 3. Hexachord in Funereal Music A. The Original Order of Hexachord in Funereal Music. B. The Converted Order of Hexachord in Funereal Music.

Not only does he use the groups of organized pitches in one of the horizontal lines or vertical combinations each time, but also the composer uses his hexachords in both of them at the same time. In rehearsal # 24 of the Cello Concerto, for example, the interruption of the brass plays a hexachord scale. There are two , and one , each of them only plays two selected notes consistently from the scale. Both the first and the trombone play the major thirds and their inversions, which are

B-flat to D and E to G-sharp, and the second trumpet plays a tritone which are the notes

21 lbid., 214. 11 of A and E-flat. The mixed intervals make a dissonant texture here. On the other hand, since the episode here is an ad libitum section, the quality of the harmonic function becomes more ambiguous (it will be discussed later in this article); in other words, the whole chord will rarely sound together in this part.

The Form of Lutoslawski’s Music

Characters of Perception

When Lutoslawski was studying in the Warsaw Conservatory, one of the most crucial musical theories he learned from Maliszewski’s class was . To teach his students the musical form, Maliszewski analyzed and performed Beethoven’s piano sonatas for them. Through the study of Beethoven’s works, he learned that in the , there are some special music materials distributed within the whole work.

Lutoslawski called these materials characters, and he claimed that these characters are the most critical factors for creating the musical form.22 The characters were divided into four different musical functions, such as introductory, transitory, narrative, and finishing.

Composers should consider the audience’s psychology when they start to plan the form of their works. Lutoslawski called this achievement of using the characters’ drama.23

“Character was either introductory, narrative, transitory or finishing…. Of course, such distinctions of music character were based upon the psychology of the perception of music, because

22 Nicholas Reyland, “’AKCJA’ and narrativity in the music of Witold Lutoslawski” (PhD Thesis, Cardiff University, 2005), Permalink: https://ethos-bl-uk.proxy.lib.ohio- state.edu/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.583619. 23 Douglas Rust, "A Russian rhetoric of form in the music of Witold Lutosławski", Gamut: The online journal of the Society of the Mid-Atlantic 3/1 (Knoxville, TN: 2010), 206.

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without this psychological factor you couldn’t feel whether a passage has finishing character or introductory or narrative…. For instance, only in narrative character is the musical content more important than the role that the section plays in the form. All other characters consist of music whose content is less important than the role – the form role.”24

In Lutoslawski’s formal theory, every character has its own role. The different characters are used to help the audience perceive the part where the music will be: the introductory leads the listers to realize that something is been introduced; the narrative is the part to attract all of the audiences’ attention for the content and nothing else will appear in their perception; the transitory gives the listeners a signal that something else will be appear in the future; the finishing character tells the audience that the section or the whole work is ending.

In these four characters, the most crucial one is the narrative. As Lutoslawski mentioned, this is the only character that listeners’ attention will be occupied by nothing else but only this music material when they are listening to it. The narrative typically uses in the theme part. For example, through the research of Stucky, scholars know that

Lutoslawski structures the first movement of his Symphony No.1 based on the sonata form. Rust borrows Stucky’s analysis and marks the corresponding character of each part.

The narrative appears several times in exposition and the recapitulation, and it is only used for the first theme and the second theme.25 In a sonata form, the subject can be seen

24 Douglas Rust, “Conversation with Witold Lutoslawski,” The Musical Quarter Vol. 79 No.1 (Spring, 1995): 208-209. 25 Douglas Rust, "A Russian rhetoric of form in the music of Witold Lutosławski", Gamut: The online journal of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic 3/1 (Knoxville, TN: 2010), 209. 13 as the priority material for the whole work. It contains most of the basic ideas for the composition, such as melody, rhythm, harmony, etc. According to the content of the narrative, which only corresponds to the theme part, this character then is the primary one in Lutoslawski’s view.

In Lutoslawski’s lecture, Problems of Musical Form, he described the specific content of each character. In his own terminology, Lutoslawski separated the four characters into two kinds depended on their different features. The two terms were called static and dynamic.

“…a kind of static musical character…in a state of balance, directing our mind neither forward nor backward…. dynamic, because they are distinguished by a lack of balance, they exert some sort of force, and direct our attention to what is just about to follow.”26

According to the explanation from Lutoslawski, the feature of static belongs to the narrative character. He also explains that the moment of static will not change through the sudden change of the musical materials. Without any process of development and any changes of the musical elements, the sudden change can only offer the listeners the contrast between the two different moments. In other words, the listeners’ attention will still focus on the music which they are hearing. To move the music to another stage, composers need to use the dynamic, includes the other three characters.

Lutoslawski also uses static and dynamic in his Cello Concerto. The Cello Concerto

26 Zbigniew Skowron (trans. and ed.), Lutoslawski on Music (Maryland-Toronto- Plymouth, UK: The Scarecrow Press, INC,2007), 18. 14 includes four sections, such as introduction, episode, cantilena, and coda. The static is used in the episode section. The section includes four episodes, and there is no any undergo change between each of them. Lutoslawski does not use any new sound material to connect each episode. On the contrary, the composer leaves the rest of a few seconds between each of them. Every episode begins with the of the solo cello and ends with the sudden interruption of brass instruments.

The composer uses the rest to remind the listeners that the next episode will start.

According to the features of narrative and static, whenever the listeners hear the pizzicato after the rest, they will know that the new episode starts and pay attention to it without any other expectation. The four episodes can be seen as four paralleled parts that all of them use the same music idea to compose. They begin with the pizzicato after a rest of a few seconds and end by an interruption. The brass instruments only play the interruption, and the other instruments play the accompaniment. The texture in these episodes is similar because of the use of the selected instruments.

The dynamic can be found in the other three sections. For example, Lutoslawski uses the transitory in the cantilena section. The solo cello plays the motive of repeated Ds, which is the central tone of the introduction, then modulates it to E. It is a development that listeners can perceive the music, which is gradually changing to another stage.

Meanwhile, the development will direct their attention to expect the music that something is coming in the next second. Here, the development part is the dynamic in Lutoslawski’s own terminology.

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Use of characters

The use of the four characters can be traced to the classical period. Because of the different features of each character, it is easy to explain how these musical materials work by analyzing a piece from that time.

One example is Beethoven’s Sonata No.8 Op. 13, which Lutoslawski might learn from Maliszewski’s class. The introduction offers a slow and short ascending motive in the first measure. This ascending gesture then repeats another two times with upper registers in the second and third measures followed by a brash descending scale in the fourth measure. The rising motive is used to evoke the listeners’ passion gradually, but the sudden and rapid descending scale leads the listeners’ emotions back to the start. The next six measures of the introduction still follow the gesture that the one measure ascending motive is repeated several times, then followed by a more extended and chromatic descending scale. In contrast to the first four measures, Beethoven uses the motive with the octave doubling, so the register goes to a higher peak before the descending scale. This contrast of the higher register and extending length in the second part attracts more expectations from the listener that something is coming. The use of pitch in this introduction reflects the introductory so that when the audience hears this character, they should be aware that the composer tries to introduce something to them.

Especially, Beethoven uses the same idea of the rising scale for the first theme in the exposition section.

Although the introduction and the first theme use the same idea, they also can be distinguished easily. First, in the first four measures, the right hand and the left hand play 16 the same rhythm with the slow tempo. Second, the harmony is stable in the tonal center of C minor. On the contrary, after the accumulation of emotions from the introduction, the exposition suddenly changes to the fast tempo. The left hand plays the pedal tone of

C. Instead of using the dotted notes, the chain of quarter notes is more powerful. The rapid descending scale is changed to the continuous chords of half notes. The introduction lets the listeners perceive something is introducing, but they may not sure.

Then, when they hear the first theme, they can finally realize that the music idea of the rising scale is the thing they are looking for.

The Idée

The composer claims that “we are all aware of the fact that our epoch has produced very little in the way of musical form as thus understood.”27 Lutoslawski acknowledges that many contemporary composers are not interested in the old form, such as the sonata and variation. Nowadays, more and more composers do not like to build any connection between the materials of their compositions. They prefer to lead the listeners to concentrate on the moments of music which they hear and let them feel the different degrees of the works by themselves, without any clue.28

Lutoslawski then states his personal choice that he does not like this form; he thinks that there is no difficulty in studying this style. In his view, no matter melody, rhythm, harmony, or any other elements, the materials of each moment in the music should relate

27 lbid., 12. 28 lbid., 12

17 to others. The listeners should experience the function of each section by following the composers’ designation of using the characters.29

In the classical period, the interactions of these elements in each section give composers the opportunity to establish the relationship of every moment in the construction of the whole work.

“It seems to me that when embarking upon a construction of a large form, our first consideration should be the moments of intense musical significance, that is, those that have a certain measure of independent interest, and which, even if taken out of the context of the overall form, would still have an intrinsic meaning... because the significance of such moments depends above all on their relationship to other moments of the form and also to the whole. In other words: their significance depends first and foremost on their formal function.”30

In Nicholas Reyland’s thesis, ‘AKCJA’ and narrativity in the music of Witold

Lutoslawski, Reland highlights the moments of intense musical significance in

Lutoslawski’s lecture.31 These moments in Lutoslawski’s music are the most important elements of attracting the listeners’ attention. Not only are they used in the narrative character, but also, they are used in every character. To compose these moments, the composer claims that “we must possess a certain number of ideas of intrinsic value.”32

Lutoslawski calls his “a certain number of ideas of intrinsic value” idée clef.

29 lbid., 13-16 30 lbid., 14-15. 31 Nicholas Reyland, “’AKCJA’ and narrativity in the music of Witold Lutoslawski” (PhD Thesis, Cardiff University, 2005), Permalink: https://ethos-bl-uk.proxy.lib.ohio- state.edu/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.583619. 32 Zbigniew Skowron (trans. and ed.), Lutoslawski on Music (Maryland-Toronto- Plymouth, UK: The Scarecrow Press, INC,2007), 18. 18

The idée clef means the key idea in French. Before he starts to compose the music,

Lutoslawski will design several vital elements and use them to construct his work.

According to his lecture, the key ideas need to be appropriate with the context. In other words, whenever composers want to use these ideas in the music, they should consider about the listeners’ perception at the moment.

The key idea includes five special types: 1. Disposition of sounds in the musical gamut; 2. ; 3. Types of rhythm and frequency of impulses; 4. Intensity; 5.

Harmony.33 In the Cello Concerto, each of these types has their own value.

As Lutoslawski explains, the disposition of sounds in the musical gamut is “… for example, of placing a given section of the music within a certain compass bounded by two sounds, provided that these latter are not overstepped in this particular section of the form.”34 The first idea which attracts the listeners’ attention is the repeated Ds in the introduction. This motive is not only used to confirm the harmonic center, but it also is the compass that restricts the whole section in a limited area.

The area means a lot of music elements, such as the range, the development, the boundary of the sentence. In the introduction, the repeated Ds are used to divide the different gamut. The register of the beginning of every sentence is around the last note of the previous sentence, every sentence has its own range. Also, the repeated Ds divide the compactness and looseness that Lutoslawski alters the rhythm within every sentence from

33 lbid., 16-17. 34 lbid., 17.

19 slow to fast. However, no matter how many differences in these sentences, the musical gamut is still around the note. The Ds are what Lutoslawski said, “the compass of the sounds of the structure in a given period time”35.

The timbre means the tone-colors which are produced by the combination of different instruments. The sound should not only be operated by the familiar groups but also contains some instruments from other degrees, such as the dynamic, the duration, the register etc.

In the episode section of the Cello Concerto, all of the sections are used to play the accompaniment expect the brass. It is worth to notice that Lutoslawski uses the combination of these instruments to be the extended timbre of the solo cello. For example, in rehearsal 11, the solo cello plays a pizzicato of B flat, the and the play the descending scale. It seems that the sound of these instruments is used to simulate the vibration of the solo cello rather than paly the typical accompaniment.

According to Lutoslawski’s theory, the key idea of the moments of intense musical significance cannot design without the context. After the ad libitum section of rehearsal

76, the suddenly starts to play the unison with the solo from rehearsal #77 to #80 then interrupted by the entire . The unison is a development that, after a chaotic situation, the soloist abandons its opposition to the orchestra and starts to cooperate with it. The pianissimo changes to fortissimo, and the music starts to accelerate until an interruption at rehearsal #81. The combination of these difference here has its

35lbid., 17. 20 unique role that attracts the listeners’ attention to perceive that something is building up a few seconds later.

The unison also relates to the third type, types of rhythm and frequency of impulses.

Here is the only moment that the composer uses number of instruments to play the unison. It inserts between two limited-aleatory sections. According to Stucky, at this moment, the music becomes bright and attractive.36

In Reyland’s thesis, he summarizes that the intensity means “dynamic level and the number of instruments playing.”37 As a development, from rehearsal #76, the music plays pianissimo, then the dynamic level gradually becomes more powerful until it finally reaches to fortissimo in rehearsal #77. To build up toward to the climax, all of the instrumental groups start to join in the long interruption each by each: first is the whole brass instruments, second is the woodwind groups, then the string section continuous to play, after that, it comes back to the brass and the percussion follows.

36 Steven Stucky, Lutosławski and his music (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 175. 37 Nicholas Reyland, “’AKCJA’ and narrativity in the music of Witold Lutoslawski” (PhD Thesis, Cardiff University, 2005), Permalink: https://ethos-bl-uk.proxy.lib.ohio- state.edu/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.583619. 21

Chapter III: the controlled indeterminacy in the Cello Concerto

The indeterminacy in the 20th century

The music of indeterminacy is one of the most innovative musical approaches to composition in the twentieth century. The indeterminate music allows the choice open to the composers, the players, and the listeners themselves. Thus, all of them have the chance to participate in the creation of the music work. For performers, each time they play will be different based on their thinking. For the audience, they will have a new experience each time and probably get more entertaining than listening to the same piece hundredth times. The idea was developed in the early 1950s, musicians attempted to find a new way that all of the composers, performers, and listeners should be involved in the progression of creating music, and the music should be unpredictable that every time it is played should be new for everyone.

John Cage is regarded as one of the pioneers of the indeterminate music. He did not consent with order and personal expression, and he agreed with chance and opening experience. He states that the music should express the sound from nature, and the essence of humanity should be regarded as same as nature. It means that nobody knows which will sound in the next second, and composers should abandon the motives, the

22

implications, and any other instructions in their music.38

The idea of indeterminacy

In 1951, Cage wrote a work called Music of Changes, a solo piano piece for David

Tudor. In this work, he first used indeterminacy to create the music. Although Cage used indeterminacy in this work, it is still regarded as chance music by himself. He mentioned that even the Music of Changes was composed without any intention from the composer but chance, it did not permit any indeterminacy for the performers that they still need to play the music, which is unchangeable and specifically on the score. In other words, the indeterminacy of this work only involves the process of composition so that every parameter is fixed before their performance.

Cage believed that indeterminate music should also involve the choice from the performers. At the beginning of 1957, he followed this idea and composed his Winter

Music for Piano. This work contains twenty pages for two , and each page randomly has one to sixty chords, which are scattered on anywhere of the pages. Each chord includes a different number of pitches from one to ten, or even a cluster, and each of them is signed by two clefs. In Cage’s instruction, if the two clefs are the same, the chord is read in them. If the two clefs are different, the chord needs to read separately by

38 Bryan R. Simms, Music of the Twentieth Century (New York: Schirmer Books, 1996), pp. 343-346.

23 each clef (Figure 4). However, Cage did not provide any explanation about how to separate the chord; he left this choice to the performers.39

A.

B. Figure 4. The chord of John Cage’s Winter Music for Piano

A. Reduction of a chord in John Cage’s Winter Music for Piano

B. The possible combinations from the chord

Another composer, Earle Brown, wrote a piece called December 1952 (Figure 5). In addition to using graphic notation, this work is freer for the performers. He draws some lines and rectangles with different sizes in a square, and they are scattered horizontally or vertically in different locations. Brown does not leave any specific description for this music, and he gives most of the choice to the performers themselves. He explains that performers can start to read the notation anywhere they want no matter which orientation

39 James Pritchett, The music of John Cage (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 109-112. 24 it is placed, and any direction is allowed. The music does not have the time limitation, and the performers can play it as long as they want. Those shapes do not represent any special music meaning or relevance, and performers need to translate them into sounds by themselves. It can be played by solo, duo, trio, or any number of instruments.

Figure 5. Earle Brown, December 1952 (New York, NY: Associated Music Publishers, Inc., 1961).

All of the music elements in this work are free for the performers, it brings a question that which part is more critical to indeterminate music, or which kind of music can be regarded as indeterminate music if only one element is free, and all of the others are defined.

The music includes lots of elements, such as pitch, duration, dynamic, articulation, etc. If only one or two elements are not defined, the music is still regarded as the indeterminate. After what has been mentioned by Cage in his Winter Music for Piano, 25 many composers started to use the “pitch indeterminacy” in the late 1950s and the early

1960s.40 A good example of the idea is Ligeti’s Volumina for organ. After composers took the idea, they developed the note cluster more freely. Unlike Cage’s Winter Music for piano, whose pitch choice is free but is still limited by the notes in the score, Ligeti does not compose any note in the score. And the choice is freer than Feldman’s

Projection, whose notes are not mentioned but still are limited by the divided ranges.

Ligeti uses the varied thickness of graphs to show the music intention. The performer just needs to follow the approximate tendency to play it. The range is relative which is decided at the beginning. If this work is played on an organ with two manuals, the range of both hands could expand to the whole keyboard; if the composition is played on a single keyboard, the range can be divided into half of it for each hand. The duration and tempo are not noted, so the performers can choose the length of the rest when they research to the blank between the clusters. And for each cluster, they can decide how many notes and clusters they want to play, depending on the different sizes of context.

Another aspect of the indeterminacy is the freedom of the music form or the combination of sections. The indeterminacy in form can be called “open form”, according to Reginald Smith Beindle, he argues in his book, The New Music: The Avant-garde since

1945, that the open form may relate to the visible arts. He states that in the 1950s, sculptors, painters, architects, and some other artists whose works are related to visual aspect found that when people see an object from some different angles, the units of the

40 Reginald Smith Brindle, The New Music: The Avant-garde since 1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975), 62.

26 object will change to other combinations, and the relationship to each other would no longer exist.41

In 1956, Karlheinz Stockhausen followed this idea and composed his Klavierstück

XI. He wrote nineteen sections with the different length which were scattered on a huge sheet of paper. The performer can start at anyone he/she picks up at random and chooses another one to play after that. Each section has its own indication for speed, attack, and dynamic for the next section and the second time of playing the same section. Whenever the performer plays the same section three times, the performance is finished. This being so, the form of this work is free that the player decides the order of the combination, the duration of the whole work, the participation of each fragment by his/her own taste.

Because of the freedom, this work has unimaginable number versions. It may only last one minute if only two sections are played, or it can last as long as fourteen minutes if all of the fragments are chosen.

This conception of the “time indeterminacy” was sooner adopted by some minimalists. In 1962, La Monte Young formed a group called the Theatre of Eternal

Music, members in this group focused on the drone music, a type of minimal music that emphasizes the use of sustained sounds, notes, or tone clusters. Terry Riley, a member of this group, followed Young’s limited repertory of pitches and high-frequency repetition in his own compositions. He used the conception of open from in his best-known piece,

In C. As an piece, he suggests that the group of thirty-five performers is

41 lbid.,75. 27 desired, but it still works if the number of the group is reduced or enlarged. It contains fifty-three short melodic patterns, the musician’s control which they want to play. Riley also suggests that every performer starts at the different time even they all choose the same melodic pattern. Because of the different motifs they choose, the different time they start, the different number of the performers, and the different times they repeat, the performance duration will be different every time.

In 1956, Stockhausen composed a work called Zeitmaße (time measure in German)

(Figure 6). In this piece, he explored the possibilities of the contrasting to each layer when they play together. It is a wind , and he uses five different types of tempo with each instrument:

Figure 6. Karlheinz Stockhausen, Zeitmaße.

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1. so schnell wie möglich: as fast as possible based on the performer’s personal skill; 2. so langsam wie möglich: as slow as possible based on how slowly a phrase that the performer can play in one breath; 3. schnell-verlangsamen: fast, then slowing down to about a quarter of the initial tempo; 4. langsam-beschleunigen: slow, then speeding up to the fastest the performer can play; 5. tempo: metronomically measured tempos.

It seems that there is no performance can play in exactly the same way twice. Each of the instructions is used by one of the five instruments when they are playing at the same time. In this way, the contrasting tempo will create unpredictable harmonies, rhythms, and melodies. However, according to Brindle, the contrasting tempo still has its own limitation. He argues that unlike some other indeterminate works which do not leave any note about what instruments to use, this work is written for , , English , clarinet, and . He questions how the English horn can play septuplet slowly then getting faster to play the quintuplet. In his view, instead of using the graphic notation, the conventional notation which composer uses for this work makes the conception illogical in some way. In other words, if the speed begins from fast then slows down, the rhythmic relationship between each note in the score may be changed already.42 However, no matter what Brindle argues, the indeterminate tempo is still a new attempt. The difference of each performance is not only based on the performers’ choice but also on their skills.

“Let us imagine that the whole works consists of several sections, for example, A, B, and C, and that the composer leaves the

42 lbid., 62-62. 29

performer full freedom to determine the order of these sections, that he makes the ultimate form of the whole form dependent on chance… he has become the author of six very similar works, and moreover, he never knows which of them will be performed…. To the listener hearing the work for first time all these facts are no significance whatsoever. He hears a certain piece of music and that’s all.”43

All of these works above belong to the first kind of indeterminacy music in

Lutoslawski’s division that he does not prefer to use in his work. In his lecture,

Aleatorism, Lutoslawski calls this “larger scale”, which means that all of the music materials are decided by chance. He borrows a conception termed alergy from György

Ligeti to explain the reason. He states that contemporary composers attempt to avoid any repetition in their works. By the different combinations of harmonies, rhythms, pitches, and any other elements which may change by the performers, the performance will never have an exact repetition with another one.44

Lutoslawski’s conception of indeterminacy

“Composer often do not hear the music that is being played: it only serves as an impulse for something quite different—for the creation of music that only lives in imagination. It is a sort of schizophrenia—we are listening to something and at the same time creating something else. That is how it happened with Cage’s Piano Concerto. While listening to it, I suddenly realized that I could compose music differently from that of my past. That I could progress toward the whole not from the little detail but the other way around—I should start out from the chaos and create order in it, gradually. That is when I start to compose Jeux Venitiens.”45

43 Zbigniew Skowron (trans. and ed.), Lutoslawski on Music (Maryland-Toronto- Plymouth, UK: The Scarecrow Press, INC,2007), 42. 44 lbid., 41. 45 Bákint András Varga, Lutosławski Profile (London: Chester Music, 1976), 12-13. 30

Generally, the sound of indeterminate music is unexpected. The composer creates an idea and writes it down on the papers. Usually, the composer will write a direction to help the performers understand how to read the score no matter it is a traditional notation or a graphic proportional notation. Through the direction from the composer’s explanation, performers can know how to read the score they have. Then, they will start to practice the music by their own understanding since the direction will not give them lots of restriction to follow. Because of the different understanding by each performer, every particular performance will be different.

The second kind of aleatoricism is called “small scale” by Lutoslawski. Contrary to the first kind, the aleatory in the work of the second kind is restricted by composer that the indeterminacy only exists in some designed parts. In other words, the second kind of aleatoricism is used to provide some special texture at some moments which the composer needs it to be, the whole work is still controlled by the composer.

“The form aspects essentially conventional to European music are, for instance, the presentation of a whole as an object in time having a beginning, a middle and an ending, progressive rather than static in character, which is to say possessed of a climax or climates and in contrast a point or points of rest.”46

In the quotation above, Cage introduces the basic organization of the traditional form. Aleatoricism, in Lutoslawski’s statement, does not need to break or ignore the basic

46 John Cage, Composition as Process, II—Indeterminacy, in Silence (Middletown, conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1961), 36. 31 conventions of the traditions. No matter how unpredictable the texture is, it is still based on the design that the composer needs the texture to appear at the particular moment to present the special sound.

One of the most important devices of Lutoslawski’s controlled indeterminacy is ad libitum. It is the combination of sound by several instruments or voices in some particular sections. Generally, the ad libitum section is none-meter notation, it gives the performers more opportunities to show their own expressions. Lutoslawski will write down the pitches, dynamics, rhythms, articulations, and the signs of entrances for each instrument, the only freedom he will leave to the performers is the coordination of the rhythms between each instrumental part.47

During these sections, the performers do not need to care about any other instruments or the overall effect when they are performing, the only thing they need to do is playing their own parts independently. There is a white arrow at the beginning of sections. If there is nothing but the sign of ad libitum or ad lib. after the arrow, it is an ad libitum section. It is the sign for the conductor to use the baton indicate the cue of the beginning of a section. The players may start to perform together, or, they may enter each after each. Then, there will be another white arrow to show the end of the section.

“…first, he indicates the lengths of many ad libitum sections in numbers of seconds; second, all accidentals apply only to the pitch that immediately follows; finally, in all ad libitum sections any visual coordination of parts in the score is purely incidental and

47 Michael Klein, “Texture, Register, and Their Formal Roles in the Music of Witold Lutoslawski”, Indiana Theory Review Vol. 20, No. 1 (SPRING 1999), 40.

32

should not be interpreted as a rhythmic coordination preferred by the composer.”48

The quotation above summarizes basic ideas of Lutoslawski’s ad libitum. First of all, there are many ways which Lutoslawski uses to indicate the length of the sections. In the first movement of Jeux Venitiens, the first work of using the controlled aleatory technique, the composer composes several sections and makes an order for each section from A to H. The first section, for example, has the order letters of A, C, E, G. It means that after the B section has been played, the music should return to the first section since it has the order letter of C. Lutoslawski writes an indication on this page that every return has its own duration. A section needs to be played 12 seconds, C is 18 seconds, E is 6 seconds, G is 24 seconds.

The score does not have any conventional bar lines, there are some dotted lines to divide the section into different parts. Every part has its individual length, no one is same to another. However, if only the location of the dotted lines is different, each time of performance will still be the same since the instruments will start to play together. Thus, there are some other indications need to be followed. There is a caesura above every dotted line, Lutoslawski explains that the caesura does not have a specified length, that the length of the break depends on the performer’s choice. Besides that, in every section, each instrument has a different length. Therefore, although they start to play together, they will not end at the same time. In the section of order A, if any player performs his/her part to the end before the time is end, he/she should repeat the part from the

48 lbid., 41. 33 beginning. In the sections of the order C, E, G, performer should not repeat from the beginning but from any part between two dotted line.

According to the summary, the unpredicted combination of pitches is the only accident in the ad libitum section. It can be proved from an interview of Lutoslawski:

“Within an aleatoric section, pitch can be strictly fixed. That may appear strange if you think of the loosening of time relation between sounds…. This is the simplest way of organizing pitch within an aleatoric section. We compose a twelve-tone chord which serves as the basis of that section. The instruments only play the notes belonging to that chord. It may occur that the chord never actually sounds in its entirety—it is supplemented by our memory and imagination.”49

To understand how Lutoslawski creates the accident with the pitches, there are some elements which he uses in the ad libitum section should be discussed. According to the quotation above, when listeners are hearing the ad libitum section, they will never hear the chord sounds together that they need to use the sound in their memory to create it. In the ad libitum sections, typically, each of them will only contain one chord or one harmonic aggregate. The composer will choose a few notes from the chord or the harmonic aggregate for each of the instruments in these sections. The instruments will only play these notes during the whole section. Thus, although the whole chord or the whole harmonic aggregate will not appear together, the listeners can still realize it because of the repeated performing of the selected notes by each instrument.

49 Bákint András Varga, Lutosławski Profile (London: Chester Music, 1976), 24-25. 34

Another element in the ad libitum sections is the various rhythmic variation for each instrumental part. For example, in the rehearsal 61 of the Cello Concerto, there are four instrumental lines, such as the trumpet I and II, and trombone I and II. This section only plays one hexachord which is created by the notes of F, F sharp, G, B, C, and C sharp. As what has been discussed above, each of the instruments only plays some notes from the chord. In this section, trumpet I plays B and G, trumpet II plays F sharp, trombone I repeats C, and trombone II only plays F and C sharp. To avoid these notes sounding together, each of these instruments has different rhythms. Trumpet I starts with a dotted eighth note followed by a quarter note, then connecting with a combination of sixteenth and eighth notes; the rhythm of trumpet II is the group of eighth and sixteenth notes; the trombone I repeats the C with the sixteenth notes which inserts some sixteenth rests between them; and the rhythm of trombone II is a half note followed by a group of eight sixteenth notes. By using all of these elements above in the ad libitum sections, the sound can fulfill the requirement of Lutoslawski that the rhythmic coordination cannot be preferred by the composer (Figure 7).

Figure 7. Rehearsal 61 of Lutoslawski’s Cello Concerto 35

The Cello Concerto

The background of the Cello Concerto

According to Charles Bodman Rae, “no piece of Lutoslawski has discussed more extensively in terms of analogy to theatrical situations than the Cello Concerto.”50 This work had been gestating in Lutoslawski’s mind for years before he took this commission.

In 1969, a year after he received the commission, he started to compose this piece and finished it in 1970.

In 1968, Lutoslawski received a commission from the Royal Philharmonic Society in

London that it asked him to write an orchestral work for its 1970-1971 season.51

Lutoslawski explained why he decided to compose a cello concerto for this commission in an interview. He recalled that several years before he received the commission, he met a cellist, . The composer remembered that Rostropovich asked him if he could write a cello piece. Rostropovich played a cello piece by Britten in their later meeting to let the composer know that he could play whatever Lutoslawski wrote. Then,

Rostropovich asked Lutoslawski to play some records of his compositions and told him that he would like to play a piece like Paroles tissées. However, Lutoslawski explained

50 Charles Bodman Rae, The Music of Lutoslawski (London: Omnibus Press, 2012), 114. 51 Steven Stucky, Lutosławski and his music (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 91.

36 that he did not plan to write a cello concerto until the society asked him if he can write a concerto for cello and orchestra for it.52

It is hard to say whether Lutoslawski promises to compose his Cello Concerto because Rostropovich also has requested, but there is one thing can be sure that the Cello

Concerto is one of Lutoslawski’s best works. Through years after he started to create his own musical style, Lutoslawski’s path of compositional technique had become mature in

1960s. The system of controlled indeterminacy or limited aleatoricism which he had used in all of his pieces after 1960s had become the most crucial word linked to him.

The analysis of Cello Concerto

This piece is divided into four movements, such as Introduction, Episodes, Cantilena and Finale. There is no break or any apparent difference between each of them. Thus, without the description, listeners may not realize these movements. To study how the controlled indeterminacy and some of Lutoslawski’s other music techniques have been used in his Cello Concerto, this work should be analyzed by every detail.

The idea of the relationship between the solo and the orchestral part does not follow the traditional role of the concerto. In the typical concerto, the orchestral part is normally used to play the accompaniment, the dialogue, and the tutti. When it plays the dialogue and the tutti, usually, it will separate with the solo. In the Cello Concerto, however,

Lutoslawski creates a new relationship which he borrows from other arts, and the

52 Irina Nikolska, Conversations with Witold Lutosławski, trans. Valeri Yerokbin (Stockholm, Sweden: Melos, 1994), 52. 37 relationship between the solo and the orchestral part more is like battle rather than cooperation. In this work, the orchestral part is used to be the intervention, interruption, and disruption during the whole time. Lutoslawski states his conception that:

“My aim was to find some justification for employing these two contradictory forces: the solo instrument and the orchestra. The relationship between these two forces undergoes a change in the course of the concerto. There is even a moment of complete harmony in the cantilena, but this provides the opportunity for the most violent of the , this time from the whole brass section.”53

The first part of this work is an introduction. It starts with a beautiful of the unaccompanied cello, which lasts around four minutes. The repeated note of D at the very beginning is the first use of controlled indeterminacy in the Cello Concerto. Lutoslawski gives the soloist a direction that the D should repeat between fifteen to twenty times.

Moreover, the repeated Ds play some other vital roles in this work. The repetitions of D appear several times during the long solo introduction, no matter how many Ds need to repeat, Lutoslawski still uses the sign of indifferent with these repetitions. It means that when the soloist plays these repetitions, he/she should not express any emotion or play any personal intention. Every D should play exact same with piano except the last repetition. During the solo part, there are several different expressive marks such as un poco buffo ma con eleganza, marciale, grazioso, etc. Every time after a repetition, the new short phrase has a different indication. In other words, the repeated D will suddenly

53 Tadeusz Kaczyński, Conversation with Witold Lutoslawski (London: Chester Music, 1984), 61. 38 appear and interrupt these phrases when they attempt to develop widely. Second, the intention of using these repetitions is that Lutoslawski attempts to predict the reception of the listeners. Considering the different characters which have been introduced in chapter one, those phrases belong to the narrative that listeners will pay attention to. The repeated

Ds create a center of tonal gravity toward which other pitches gravitate. From a different point of view, they also belong to the transitory character which give the listeners a signal that something new is coming. According to the explanation by Lutoslawski himself, these short phrases involve some different motives: “jaunty or playful, sometimes slightly melodious, occasionally with the character of a march or .”54 Every time when listeners hear the repeated Ds, they realize that something new will happen soon, just in line with the characteristic of transitory.

Another element that needs to be discussed is the use of microtones. Microtones are intervals smaller than the semitones. Typically, in the system of twelve-note tone, an octave is divided into twelve equal semitones. The system of microtones can be divided into twenty-four equal quarter tones in an octave. Normally, the microtone means the quarter tone which the sound between two neighbored notes. The quarter tone is a tone of a quarter higher or a quarter lower than a note. Also, it can be written as three quarters higher or three quarters lower depends on the composer’s intention. For example, a quarter tone which is a quarter higher than C also can be written as a tone three quarters lowers than D; a quarter tone which is a quarter lower than D also can be written as three

54 Zbigniew Skowron (trans. and ed.), Lutoslawski on Music (Maryland-Toronto- Plymouth, UK: The Scarecrow Press, INC,2007), 148. 39 quarters higher than C. Based on this explanation, every semitone between two neighbored notes includes two quarter tones. Thus, the system of quarter tones can be divided into twenty-four equal quarter tones.

Sometimes, the quarter tones may not satisfy composers’ demands for the sound of the works, so the microtones in their compositions do not only mean the quarter tones but some others. For example, in Lutoslawski’s Chain 2, he requires the string performers to put the fingers to each other together as close as they can when they play microtones in the rehearsal 8 and 9. Thus, depending on the different registers and the different places, the microtone will sound different.

In the description of the Cello Concerto, Lutoslawski explains four marks which he uses for the microtones:

: a quarter lower than the tone;

: a quarter higher than the tone;

♭ ：three quarters lower than the tone;

: three quarters higher than the tone.

In the meanwhile, a quotation from a letter which Lutoslawski sent to the cellist explains how to play the quarter tones. Lutoslawski stated that “the quarter-tones’ passages in the solo part are so conceived and written that the separate notes could be

40 heard and would not merge into glissandi.”55 And he explained his intention of use quarter tones for cello:

“I could afford to suggest to the soloist and entirely different method of fingering. This was necessitated by the constant use of quarter-tone sequences, which are possible on the cello, where the distance between the notes on the are greater on smaller instruments—the or , for instance. It’s quite possible to play quarter-tones on the cello but a problem on the violin.”56

As Lutoslawski states in the quotation above, the quarter notes in the Cello Concerto needs the performer to use a new manner of fingering to play. Typically, when the player uses his/her left hand to play the on the stringboard, the neighbored finger will play a note that creates an interval of minor second with the pervious note. For example, if the first finger plays D, the second will play D sharp and the third finger can play E. Lutoslawski evolves this technique that the first finger plays the prime note, then the second finger plays the quarter note and the third finger plays the minor second.57

One more thing needs to be noticed is the use of gettato in the last repetition of Ds. It is first used in Lutoslawski’s Jeux vénitines. The composer writes an explanation that

“the number of notes at places like the third bar of section B in the first viola part depends on the strength of the players bowing.”58 In the Cello Concerto, Lutoslawski write the gettato above the groups of sixteenth notes of Ds. In terms of this situation,

55 Witold Lutoslawski, ‘Remark on my Concerto for Cello and Orchestra’, The Program of 17th International Festival of Contemporary Music Warsaw Autume (Warsaw: 1973), 192. 56 lbid., 194. 57 Zbigniew Skowron (trans. and ed.), Lutoslawski on Music (Maryland-Toronto- Plymouth, UK: The Scarecrow Press, INC,2007), 344. 58 In the first page of Juex vénitines, Lutoslawski leaves a description of playing technique for each sech section from A to H. 41 although each group includes four sixteenth notes in the score, the number may be less or more during the performance, depending on the performer’s concept.

The first intervention is in the last repetition of Ds. Three trumpets enter abruptly in fortissimo while the soloist is playing piano. It seems like that the solo has been shocked by the intervention of the brass. After the first intervention, the solo cello pauses shortly for about three seconds, then restarts the repeated Ds. Lutoslawski explains that the relationship between the solo and the orchestral part is not accompaniment but conflict.

He mentions that the word “reprimand” may be better to describe the relationship.59 The conflict is more evident at the end of the introduction than the first intervention.

Probably, it is easier to understand the relationship of reprimand if using metaphor to describe it. The brass tries to the repetition since the solo has repeated Ds for more than sixty times before the intervention of rehearsal #1. Although there are many decorations and differences, like the change of the expression between forte and piano, the use of gettato, and the grace notes of the harmonic sounds, the solo still cannot stay off the range of Ds. After the first intervention, the three trumpets appear one by one as if trying to stop the cello while the solo is constantly repeating the Ds without any expression. Then, the trumpets seem to be enraged by the solo that they perform together to stop the solo. However, the cellist still repeats Ds after the intervention of rehearsal #5

59 Zbigniew Skowron (trans. and ed.), Lutoslawski on Music (Maryland-Toronto- Plymouth, UK: The Scarecrow Press, INC,2007), 149.

42 by trumpets.60 Finally, they suddenly appear together with a long statement to interrupt the solo.

Here, in the orchestral part of the introduction, there are some Lutoslawski’s elements of style which have been introduced in Ch. #1. The first thing is the pitch selection. All of the pitches in this part are from only one hexachord, C sharp, D, E flat,

G, A flat, and A natural. Each trumpet plays two selected pitches from the hexachord.

Depending on the positions of the pitches in each trumpet, the interval of each trumpet is a major second larger or smaller than the neighboring line (Figure 8).

Figure 8. Rehearsal 7-9 of Lutoslawski’s Cello Concerto

60 In the score, Lutoslawski writes the direction for the solo that “keep repeating the same until the last trumpet stops, then repeat the same 3-4 times and stop too.” 43

The second element is the rhythmic modes. Lutoslawski creates six rhythmic modes, each instrument only includes two of them. Unlike the ad libitum section in his Jeux

Venitiens, Lutoslawski does not use the dotted line to separate the rhythmic modes within the ad lib. section of Cello Concerto. Instead, he uses some rests of sixteenth to split these modes. Meanwhile, to make the individual instrument play more independently, he puts the sign of above every rest to avoid rhythmic coordination between the players. It has the same meaning of the caesura in the Jeux vénitiens that the length of the pause depends on the performers’ choice.

The interruption of the brass at the end of the introduction is one of the most basic ideas in Lutoslawski’s Cello Concerto, and also, it probably is the best example that can reflect the relationship of reprimand that after the brass intrudes for several times, this is the first time the solo is stopped by the three trumpets. There are six such interruptions throughout the piece. Each time after the interruption appears, the music will enter the next section or the next step.

The second part of the Cello Concerto has four episodes which have the same form.

After a short pause of around five seconds, the work enters to the first episode. This section still starts with the pizzicato notes by the solo. In the meanwhile, some small groups of instruments appear. It seems that after a long monologue in the introduction, the cellist tries to invite the orchestral instruments to join the conversation.61

In the beginning, the harp and the play very carefully that only a few notes

61 Steven Stucky, Lutosławski and his music (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 173. 44 have been played rapidly. Here, at this moment, these small instrumental groups also can be heard as orchestrating the reverberation of the solo. They use the note which the cellist plays as the start note, then establish the chords to play. In rehearsal 10, for instance, the notes D and F sharp played by the harp are based on D, played by the solo; in rehearsal

11, the chord of B flat, A, and F sharp is extending from B flat, which the solo plays at this moment. Moreover, unlike the use of thirdless harmony in Lutoslawski’s previous works, in the String , for example, the interval of the third is one of the essential elements in the Cello Concerto. In this piece, Lutoslawski builds up lots of passages with thirds piled up. Although these short note groups can be heard as of some chords, more importantly, they are all created by the interval of thirds (Figure 9).

Figure 9. Rehearsal 10-12 of Lutoslawski’s Cello Concerto, beginning of the first episode

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After the intermittent intervention, the orchestra gradually becomes coherent that no longer leave any room for the cellist to play alone. The ad libitum sections appear again from rehearsal #17. In these rehearsals, from #17 to #22, the last repeat signs of instrumental lines do not follow the wavy lines but the straight lines. When players perform the ad libitum section with the straight lines, they should stop on the beat whenever the conductor gives a signal. In his later work, Chain II, Lutoslawski writes the instruction to explain the differences between the wavy lines and straight lines in the ad libitum section:

: at the conductor’s signal break off the repeated passage immediately;

﹋﹋﹋﹋﹋ : at the conductor’s signal play up to the next repeat sign and then stop.

In the second part, starting at rehearsal #10, the four episodes have a similar form.

Beginning with the pizzicato by the soloist, small instrumental groups gradually join to the conversation with the soloist. At the end of each episode, the cellist plays a dance-like motive which sounds like “a provocation to the brass section.”62 Finally, the brass section interrupts violently to stop the performance of the cello.

There are some features typical of Lutoslawski’s style in these episodes. First, the string section only plays the pizzicato notes in the four episodes. Second, the small

62 Zbigniew Skowron (trans. and ed.), Lutoslawski on Music (Maryland-Toronto- Plymouth, UK: The Scarecrow Press, INC,2007), 149. 46 instrumental groups do not only engage in the dialogue with the soloist, but they are also provided the reverberation for the cello. Moreover, rotating around the notes which the cello plays, the intervals in most of the instrumental passages are built up by thirds, fifths, and sevenths. Finally, each interruption in these episodes only plays the notes from one hexachord.

At the end of the episodes, the fortissimo and pizzicato notes interrupt to become silent. Then, the music enters the third section, Cantilena. The soloist plays the repeated

Ds indifferente like at the beginning to accumulate more power after the noisy interruption.

The Cantilena is a ternary-like form from rehearsal #63 to #80. The tonal center modulates to E and finally regains the energy from pianissimo to fortissimo. The double basses start to enter one after one until the whole section appear. Meanwhile, for the first time, the string section plays arco in the Cello Concerto. The Cantilena is seen as a ternary-like form by some different reasons. The first reason is the use of expression.

There are two important expression designations, dolente and sostenuto. Each only includes two interval classes by the soloist: the melodic line only plays the interval classes of two and three with the dolente; when the melody is marked the sostenuto, the melody of the soloist is composed by the interval classes of two and five. In this division, these expressions only appear in rehearsal 64d to 69 and rehearsal 76 to 80. In the middle part of the first section, occupying the position of the second section in the , does not have these expressive marks. Another reason is the closely related materials in these two passages. After the whole section of enters, E plays the pedal 47 throughout the passage. The soloist, by playing an against melody, finally reaches to the

G sharp that creates the major third of E. This tonal center has been kept in the middle passage. With a long ascending melody in rehearsal 76, the soloist arrives the central note. Then, the dolente appears again and the tonal center modulates to A that E becomes the dominant of the new tone.63

The third passage is a powerful unison playing by the whole string section and the soloist. All of them play the exact same tone which makes the sound extremely intensity.

To surprise the listeners, Lutoslawski explains that:

“the cello meets with the whole string orchestra on one unison note and, as though leading the string in faster and faster tempo, it brings them to the moment where we expect the Cantilena’s culminating point to follow, but this does not happen.”64

The fourth part, Finale, starts at rehearsal #81 when the intervention suddenly interrupts the growing unison. Unlike the interruption before in the episodes, the first passage of the long interruption is played by the whole brass section followed the wind section with the , the , and the piano. Then, the string section starts to play when the wind and piano disappear. The brass comes back after the strings and the and piano play a short passage after the brass.

At rehearsal #86, the whole orchestra plays tutti for the first time. Also, this is the first time Lutoslawski uses the whole-note chord. Compared to the Introduction and

63 Steven Stucky, Lutosławski and his music (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 175. 64 Zbigniew Skowron (trans. and ed.), Lutoslawski on Music (Maryland-Toronto- Plymouth, UK: The Scarecrow Press, INC,2007), 150. 48

Episodes, the music of the Cantilena has accumulated much more tensions than them.

Thus, the short intervention by only three trumpets is not enough to break the music.

There should have a strong interruption. In this ad libitum section, all of the orchestral instruments play varied speech-like rhythms. To avoid the instrument playing the same rhythmic motives together, the composer indicates that “each particular player performs his part independently from the others. It is particularly undesirable if anyone tries to be together with his neighbor playing the same part.”65 There is an unexpected phrase of soloist between rehearsal #88 and #89. The cello seems to give up his resistance at this moment that plays a few rhythmic motives from the massive interruption with piano.

Then, the orchestra plays again to deride the soloist.

After a few seconds silent at rehearsal #90, the cello becomes angry and restarts to against with the orchestra. The cello starts to play a chain of double stops with fortissimo, and the composer also marks an expression of furioso (furious in Italian) here. The orchestra then has a loud dialogue with the cello from rehearsal #91 that they fight to each other both with some very short phrases.

Beginning at rehearsal# 96, the cello starts to play some new things, called “a kind of fast escape”66 by Lutoslawski. This part can be seen as the recapitulation that the listeners can recall the opening part by the use of the repeated notes, the quarter-tone

65 Lutoslawski left the indication under the score of rehearsal #86 in the Cello Concerto. 66 Zbigniew Skowron (trans. and ed.), Lutoslawski on Music (Maryland-Toronto- Plymouth, UK: The Scarecrow Press, INC,2007), 151.

49 scales, and the similar rhythms.67 The cello starts with rapid quarter-tone scales, accompanied by the percussion. Similar with the Episodes, only some short interventions by the small instrumental groups try to attack and stop the vigorous cadenza. After an ascending quarter-tone scale when the cello seems to escape, the orchestra finally reaches the climax at rehearsal #133. The tutti orchestra plays a nine-note chord here, and at rehearsal #134, the whole orchestra is required to the sound of the chord for twelve to fifteen seconds. It follows a sorrow statement that the cello plays the glissandi with the sign of dolente. The wailing by the cello can be heard from each downward note:

“So deeply does Rostropovich identify with the dramatic persona of the solo part that before the premiere he confessed to the composer that he always wept during this passage. ‘It is my death’, he said. Lutoslawski replied, ‘But Sława, you will triumph in the end!’” 68

The work enters to the coda at rehearsal #137. Under such a violent attack by the orchestra, the soloist cannot join the climax. The cello restarts here with piano, then it gradually becomes more powerful. The orchestra appears and tries to stop the cello again.

However, after the dramatic moment of the climax, the orchestra has used all of its energy. The string section starts first from piano to forte, then other orchestral instruments join the last attack which finally arrive fortissimo again. The cello continues to repeat A and triumph in the end with the reverberation instruments, piano, harp, and tom-toms. It’s worthy of nothing that the highest register of the cello at the end also is a

67 Stephen Peter Lawson, “Lutoslawski’s Cello Concerto,” Tempo 95 (Winter, 1970- 1971): 36. 68 Steven Stucky, Lutosławski and his music (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 176. 50 respond to the very beginning of the work because of the tone-dominant relationship between D and A.

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Chapter iv: Conclusion

Lutoslawski’s family gave him a productive and intellectual environment to study music, and his most influential teacher, Witold Maliszewski, allowed him to compose whatever the music without any limitation. Under the background, Lutoslawski developed his personal music style as one of the most individualities in the twentieth century.

Lutoslawski’s personal sound language and musical style attracted the attention of the musical scholars and students to study. He studied the twelve-tone technique then adopted it into his individual musical theory. He believed that the sound quality was much more crucial than the music created by all of the possible intervals. Learning from

Maliszewski, the musical form was also crucial in his composition. In his music, by using the different roles of the characters to control the listeners’ perception, Lutoslawski could easily to break the expectation and create the surprise.

After 1961, when the Juex vénitines was completed, the controlled indeterminacy had become the closest musical technique linked to Lutoslawski. He gained the idea from hearing John Cage’s music; but he only used it in his works for some restricted parts, called ad libitum sections. In these sections, the pitches are written precisely in the score; the indeterminacy devices only use to create an unpredictable rhythmic context

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The Cello Concerto probably is one of Lutoslawski’s most distinctive works. The idea of conflict and battle between the soloist and the orchestra has never appeared in any of his other orchestral music. This idea may relate to his personal experience. After the

Word War II, the Soviet Communist Party published that music belonged to formalism. In 1947, this situation spread to . Lutoslawski’s First Symphony was divided into formalism and was banned in 1949. As Lutoslawski said in an interview, he was shocked by the division; and he was afraid that his musical life may be dead.69

In the Cello Concerto, the soloist may relate to Lutoslawski himself. The soloist constant struggles under the attack of the orchestra, and it has never given up fighting with the orchestra. As Lutoslawski said to Rostropovich, at the end of the Cello

Concerto, the soloist will win the final victory.

69 Bákint András Varga, Lutosławski Profile (London: Chester Music, 1976), 8. 53

Bibliography

Brindle, Reginald Smith. The New Music: The Avant-garde since 1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 1975. Cage, John. Composition as Process, II—Indeterminacy, in Silence. Middletown conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1961. Kaczyński. Tadeusz. Conversation with Witold Lutoslawski. London: Chester Music, 1984. Klein, Michael. “Texture, Register, and Their Formal Roles in the Music of Witold Lutoslawski.” Indiana Theory Review Vol. 20, No. 1 (SPRING 1999), 40. Lawson, Stephen Peter. “Lutoslawski’s Cello Concerto.” Tempo 95 (Winter, 1970-1971): 34-36. Lutoslawski, Witold. “Remark on my Concerto for Cello and Orchestra.” The Program of 17th International Festival of Contemporary Music Warsaw Autume (Warsaw: 1973), 192. Pritchett, James. The music of John Cage. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Simms, Bryan R. Music of the Twentieth Century. New York: Schirmer Books, 1996. Skowron, Zbigniew (trans. and ed.). Lutoslawski on Music. Maryland-Toronto-Plymouth, UK: The Scarecrow Press, INC, 2007. Stucky, Steven. Lutoslawski and his music. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981. Rae, Charles Bodman. The Music of Lutoslawski. London: Omnibus Press, 2012. Rust, Douglas. “Conversation with Witold Lutoslawski.” The Musical Quarterly Vol. 79 No.1 (Spring, 1995): 215. Reyland, Nicholas. “’AKCJA’ and narrativity in the music of Witold Lutoslawski.” (PhD Thesis, Cardiff University, 2005. Rust, Douglas. "A Russian rhetoric of form in the music of Witold Lutosławski." Gamut: The online journal of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic 3/1 (2010), 206. Varga, Bákint András. Lutosławski Profile. London: Chester Music, 197

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