Witold Lutoslawski: "Trio" (score & parts) - OB/CL/BSN
Trio
for oboe, clarinet, and bassoon
by Witold Lutoslawski (1913-1994) - Polish composer
I. Allegro moderato
II. Poco adagio
III. Allegro giocoso (rondo)
The Trio, performed by Seweryn Snieckowski, Teofil Rudnicki and Bazyli Orlow in Cracow early in September 1945, was to arouse ''very contradictory judgements''. At least this is how Stefan Kisielewski reported the feelings of listeners in his review, while he himself ranked the piece among avantegarde, “forward-looking works” and its author as one of the composers raising exceptional hopes. “And perhaps in his slow, methodical and material gathering work, emanating from some concentrated, focused fire, he has yet to create a synthetic work, in which his fully expressed 'credo' is fully presented? The Trio is a laboratory work, a creative study, showing certain elements, out of which Lutoslawski builds his works: a meticulously precise formal rigorism and his own, absolutely individual world of harmonies, conditioned by some essential, although concealed necessity. It is exactly this harmonic world which makes me see in Lutoslawski an author who may create works of the highest importance to the development of contemporary music.
Written in 1944 and "lost" for many years, the Trio is best described as "conventional neoclassicism." From the notes, "it sounds elegant and even witty."
This edition is a reprint, by Chester Music, of the original printing by PWM.