September 17, 2010 / Warsaw Autumn Festival

The Great Symphony Orchestra of the National Philharmonic in Warsaw

cond. Reinbert de Leeuw

Anna Górecka, Magdalena Lisak, Iwona Mironiuk, Małgorzata Walentynowicz – pianos

The content of these letters will remain my secret. They were written to friends, composers, and musicians: Tomasz Sikorski, Kazimierz Serocki, Louis Andriessen, Rolf Lieberman, Michael Nyman, Pascal Dusapin, Sukhi Kang, Toru Takemitsu, Elżbieta Chojnacka, Kazimierz Bronisław Przybylski, Arne Nordheim, Gérard Grisey, Simeon ten Holt, Helmut Lachenmann… Some of them are no more with us. A composer has the opportunity to speak through his music, express his feelings and thoughts in a totally open and frank way, with no need for self-control or censorship; the semantic meaning will remain hidden in sounds anyway. And these letters are exactly that. The listener, on the other hand, can only presume and assume, imagine what the content of the letters is. And it should remain so. … The ensemble of four pianos is a type of orchestra, which in this case is treated homogeneously, frequently heterophonically. On the other hand, the symphony orchestra has two tasks: commentary on the solo piano parts and interaction with them. The pianos, however, always have a leading role. The letters are a collection of independent fragments. Some of them repeat, others appear only once. Some are like unfinished sketches, others form a closed entirety. This is a one movement piece.

Order: PWM