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Lutosławski: Concerto for Orchestra; Symphony No 3; Chain 3 – review

This article is more than 13 years old
BBC SO/Gardner
(Chandos)

Lutosławski's folksy and Bartókian Concerto for Orchestra from 1954 is evidently a bit of a party piece for Edward Gardner. He included it last month in his concert with the City of Birmingham Symphony, when his new position as that orchestra's chief guest conductor was announced. Their account of the concerto is lively and crisply virtuosic, but the performances of the other two, much later works on this disc are the more significant. Completed in 1983, Symphony No 3 won the very first Grawemeyer award and is arguably the composer's masterpiece, a brilliant rethinking of symphonic form that provides the perfect framework for the controlled aleatory techniques that Lutosławski introduced into his music from the 1960s onwards. Gardner's performance is impressive – vivid, incisive and well controlled – and he does an equally good job on the slighter and more elusive Chain 3 from 1986.

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