I had already written the first sketches for the Third Symphony in 1972; later I totally abandoned a part composed in the following years. The score was only definitively completed in January 1983; meanwhile I wrote a number of other pieces, such as Les Espaces du sommeil Mi-parti and Novelette. In composing the Third Symphony I always had in mind the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and its exquisite sound. It was a powerful stimulus to my imagination. At the same time always, in writing for such an interpreter, I felt the weight of responsibility that had forced me to be more exacting with myself. This was perhaps the reason that work on the Third Symphony went on so long.

The form of the Third Symphony is the result of my experiences over several years as a listener to music, in particular to larger forms. I was always fascinated by the extraordinary strategy of Beethoven in this field, and this was also for me the best lesson in musical architecture. My model for the large form, perfectly balanced, was, however, the pre-Beethoven symphony, above all the symphonies of Haydn. I have not ceased to be an admirer of the large-scale forms of Brahms in symphonies, concertos and chamber music, but I must admit that, after having listened to a symphony, a concerto or even a sonata by Brahms, I always feel exhausted, probably because with him there are always two large-scale movements, the first and the last. All these reasons have inclined me to research into other possibilities. I found in the end a solution in the large-scale form in two movements, where the first is only a preparation for the second. Its function is only to draw the attention of the listener, to awaken his interest, without giving him complete satisfaction. It is necessary for the listener, in following the performance of the first movement, to be waiting for something more important to come. He may even be impatient. And it is at this precise moment that the second movement appears, bringing the principal idea of the work. Such a way of arranging the musical substance of the work in time seems to me natural, in conformity with the psychology of listening. I have used a form of this kind in a number of compositions, the String Quartet and the Second Symphony are the most typical examples.

In the Third Symphony, the first "preparatory" movement appears after a short introduction. For some time the music does not move forward from here, and its course is interrupted by pauses. This movement consists of three episodes, the first of which is quicker and the last slower. To be exact, the tempo remains the same to the end, the apparent difference only comes from the use of longer rhythmic values. A short slow passage leads to the second movement, the main part of the symphony.

The form of the second movement could be defined as "a reference to the "sonata-allegro" with its thematic contrast. The climax of the work comes towards the end of a series of tutti passages. There is still a distinct epilogue, an Adagio, where dramatic tring recitatives mingle with a broad cantilena. (Witold Lutoslawski. 1988.)

The four Es that open the symphony, like the four blows at the door of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, promise the dramatic development of the work.

In stating a motif so simple and, at the same time, so strong in expression, intense in its fortissimo, Lutosfawski seems to say "Stop your false dreams, an end to your illusions, something really important, vital, is beginning, equal in importance to the symphonies of Beethoven or Brahms, going right to the limits". The same four-note motif, always in unison, closes the symphony, providing a conclusion for the coda. It is from this that the second movement develops and it is this that gives form to the first. These movements are not so named in the score and are not separated. In performance they overlap, without any break, in conformity with the "chain" principle that marks his formal developments, a principal characteristic of Lutoslawski's work.

The Introduction starts with a short passage that last a little over a minute. This develops over the note E, in the strings, divided and then together in a blaring statement of the four-note main motif. The woodwind, the piano and the harp, free in their expressive contour, reveal the forms and processes that will give life to the sections of the first movement. Lutoslawski would not have been unhappy to learn that the introduction is considered a continuation of the sounds of the instruments tuning up, although, it is true, on motifs already indicated and composed, music that invites further attention.

Even if it always engages the attention of the hearer, the first movement continues to bear the character of an introductory prelude. It consists of a sequence of three episodes, longer sections of three to four minutes. These constitute procedural happenings which at first seem not in narrative order, a sequence of events that evolves. These are states of musical material rather than its development, states of material for strings, for woodwind, for brass and for the piano, harp and percussion. Each of the episodes is slower than the one that precedes it, the first in quavers, the most sparkling and busy, the second in crotchets, where the motifs appear in musical figures and begin to take on a certain consistency, solidifying into more concrete shapes, the third in minims, where the sound material takes on a continuous line, a cantilena. This development into a cantilena grows more intense in the ethereal Adagio that follows the third episode, distinct in form, which reveals the idea of the movement, the idea of music that becomes slower and finds its resolution in an Adagio.

The three episodes are divided by two refrains, a third of which closes the first movement, after which the Adagio dies out in a pianissimo. These are the slow exchanges of clarinets and bassoon, in short melodic figures, lyrical in character. The principal motif of the four Es in the trumpets and trombones tells us each time that an episode is beginning or, after the Adagio, that the second movement is starting. We are unaware that through the first movement, capricious and barely consistent, of less "importance" because of the melodic contours that appear and disappear again, with its patterns that sometimes seem to us anaemic, tame and unfinished, open and unfulfilled, Lutosfawski has prepared us for the second movement of his symphony. We do not know and there is no need for us to know that in the first movement the composer has suggested the principal idea of the whole symphony, its fundamental elements, had sketched them, suggested them, prepared them, and had directed the subconscious attention of the listener to them.

The second movement is the main part of the whole symphony. The idea of the sonata-allegro dominates, in the sense that the dualism of two fundamental thematic groups can be detected, with their abridged repetition, the stretto before the great climax that ends the movement, could be described as a repeat; the development as a principle and not as a separate section on the classical model is present in the whole movement, from beginning to end. The first thematic group, to continue with classical terminology, consists of the repetition of the main motif, the repeated Es that open the movement and of a broadly extended fugato episode in the strings, with the harps. The second subject begins polyphonically, with the strings mainly pizzicato. The second movement of the symphony, unlike the first, is a development, a dramatic narration in which there are varied forms and interruptions, details shaded as in chamber music and symphonic explosions of the whole orchestra which call for a deeper and more developed analysis. There is no need for that here: an attentive listener, in tune with the composer in the first movement, is seized in the second by the form of the symphony and no guidance is necessary in order to appreciate the work.

In his commentary, Witold Lutosfawski wrote that the second movement ends with a developed Epilogue. This could, however, easily be regarded as a third movement, beginning after the end of the climax of the second. The third movement, therefore, would be a slow movement, treated by the composer on the formal and expressive scheme of a unison string recitative and a rhythmic cantilena. Some melodic patterns from the first movement appear and we find again the intensified expression of the Adagio with which it ends, the ethereal character of a vision here becomes one of ardour. After the climax that crowns the second movement, it might be supposed that there would be only a conclusion to the form, an acceptance of our lot. The third movement, Lutoslawski's Epilogue, reveals itself as something quite different, an alternative principal movement, a completion of the world of this work. A form analogous to the Introduction, but different in expression, pathetic in spite of its character, is the Coda, stemming from the second movement. The last bar of this is a tutti of four fortissimo quavers. All is completed.

After the first performance of the Third Symphony in Chicago on 29^th September 1983 by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Sir Georg Solti, to whom the work is dedicated, one of the critics wrote that this symphony was exactly what might be expected at that time from a Polish composer. It must be remembered that at the time the effects of the introduction of martial law in Poland on 13th December 1981 were always apparent. Witold Lutostawski, who, after December 1981, took no part in the official life of the country, in the course of a meeting of the inner committee of musicologists in Warsaw, expressed his view of the American criticism. In accordance with his artistic principles, he did not confirm the supposition that he could have intended to express in his music the lot of the Polish people, and yet, he went on, if we agree, all the same, that music can signify anything extra-musical, we should also recognise that we must consider music to be an art of many values. Man has, nevertheless, one single soul and events lived through must have some infiuence on him. If man has a psyche, then the world of sounds, while keeping its autonomy, is a function of this psyche. That is why I should like to associate myself here with a puzzling enough proposition, that if the last movement of this symphony produces an impression of this kind and if it keeps the audience in suspense, it is not the effect of chance. I must admit that I should feel myself honoured to have expressed something that could have relevance to the events lived through not only by me personally but also by other people. If that is true, I should regard it as a mark of the highest esteem. (Witold Lutosfawski. 1983)

Writer: Andrzej Chiopecki
Translated by: Keith Anderson