Paper Report #3

I found Rust’s interview with Witold Lutostawsky to be an interesting window into

who Lutostawsky was as both a person and a composer. To get a better understanding of who
Lutostawsky is, I had googled who this composer was and what his importance was in music
history. I will admit, not having any previous information about Witold Lutostawsky prior to
reading the article made it a little difficult to understand the importance of the interview.
Lutostawsky, as a person, seems a little full of himself. I thought his view of his instructor
from the Warsaw Conservatory to be a bit paradoxical. The composer speaks about his
influential professor on musical forms, Maliszewski with high regard. Yet, he mentions how
he didn’t really learn much from him. He further states how he felt that his instructor thought
that Lutostawsky should develop himself without any influence. If that is the case, then why
would his instructor have him study the works of Berlioz, Rimsky-Korsakov, Strauss, and so
on? In my opinion, there is no such thing of truly being without influence when it comes to
developing yourself as a composer; especially one who can create large-scale works.

He also makes a jab at Berlioz’s Romeo and Juliet Symphony. His biggest complaint
about it is that it has “extramusical” elements. In other words, Berlioz utilized elements from
Shakespeare’s play that weren’t necessarily musical. For example, he used much of iambic
pentameter of Shakespeare’s words from the play as a basis for some of his rhythms in the
work. Lutostawsky felt that people who feel the need to use “extramusical” (or
programmatic) elements to get their piece across to audience members do not have much of a
tonal imagination. I again, feel that Lutostawsky might be a bit full of himself.

However, Lutostawsky as a composer, strikes me as a man who really understands and

enjoys using different musical forms and the complexities of composing large-scale works
with rich harmonies. In the beginning of the article, Ruth asks Lutostawsky about his
conservatory studies in Warsaw. As mentioned previously, he spoke about his influential
professor, Maluszewski. Lutostawsky states that his teacher was student of Rimsky-Korsakov
and Glaszunov. It was his instructor who introduced him to the idea of seeing musical works
as dramas that unfolded as the music progressed.

As the interview progresses on, they talk about how the psychological aspects
considered in the composition of symphonic works can have an impact on the listeners’
perceptions. What really stuck out to me was Lutostawsky’s comment about how certain
composers who saw the orchestra as an instrument found to have more creativity in creating
symphonies. When creating music using musical forms like the Sonata form, there are
musical elements that he refers to as “characters”. The character was either introductory,
narrative (exposition), transitory (development), or finishing (recapitulation). When
Lutostawsky was studying the sonata forms of Beethoven, he mentions that he notes that the
composer has established “characteristics” within is music without the use of “extramusical”
elements.

Despite the fact that Lutostawsky comes off to me as a talented man with a
considerable amount of arrogance, I agree with his view on the importance on the
psychological aspect of composing symphonies.