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Programme Note

LUTOSLAWSKI - CHAIN 2


I composed Chain 2 during the years 1984-85. The title of the work relates to its form. Over the last few years I have been working on a new type of musical form, which consists of two structurally independent strands. Sections within each strand therefore begin and end at different times. This is the premise on which the term ‘chain’ was selected.

I had already composed Chain 1 for an ensemble of soloists but this does not mean that the Chains form parts of a cycle. They are completely independent compositions.

Chain 2 for violin and orchestra (commissioned by and dedicated to Paul Sacher) is in four movements:

1. Ad libitum
2. A battuta
3. Ad libitum
4. A battuta – Ad libitum – A battuta

In the Ad libitum movements and in the Ad libitum section of the fourth movement the element of chance plays a part within the fixed parameters. This has been a feature of my compositional style since 1960 and always offers new possibilities. However, in the last few years I have been particularly preoccupied by the shaping of the pitch (i.e. Melody, harmony and polyphony) as the organisation of time. In my opinion, the traditional scale with its twelve notes has not yet been fully exploited in terms of harmony. I believe that there are till many possibilities to be discovered, even independently from Shönberg’s twelve-tone technique.

Chain 2 was commissioned by Paul Sacher who conducted Collegium Musicum, Zurich with Anne-Sophie Mutter (violin) in the first performance on 31 January 1986 at the Grosser Tonhallesaal, Zurich.


© Witold Lutoslawski
January 1986