Lutosławski's writings and substantial interviews reveal that the author of Musique funebre was a composer who thought, spoke and wrote not only about his own music. On the other hand, Lutosławski was hardly renowned for loose talk, and he was rarely more circumspect than when he was invited publicly to express his opinions on the music of other living composers. Lutosławski specialists know the rumours about certain fallings out (e.g., Boulez), misgivings (e.g., Xenakis) and surprising admirations (e.g., Ferneyhough), but only rarely did Lutosławski speak openly, and especially negatively, about the output or artistic aims of his colleagues. He was always reserved, tactful and delicate. That is why his published texts do not express fully his reflections, opinions and evaluations of music by other contemporary composers. In private, however – as a correspondent with trusted friends, and especially in the notes he made for his own purposes when judging composer competitions – a different Lutosławski emerges: an incisive and sometimes caustic critic, plainly spoken of his admiration or distaste for different compositional styles.

This essay offers a glimpse at this less guarded Lutosławski and suggests the manner in which these little known documents add nuance to our understanding of his music and other activities. Proceeding from a general overview of the Lutosławski Correspondence Collection (LCC) housed in the Paul Sacher Foundation in Basel, the essay focuses on letters and other texts (such as his notes from composing competitions) that reveal Lutosławski's sometimes highly critical and firm opinions on the work of other musicians. Comparing Lutosławski's remarks with the scores of the pieces in question permits a novel approach to reconstructing the composer's preferences and disinclinations. Assessing the documentary traces of these ‘microcosmoses’ of his musical activities (as a correspondent and competition juror) offers, in turn, a new perspective on his relationship to the ‘macrocosmos’ of mid-tolate twentieth-century compositional aesthetics.

The Lutosławski Correspondence Collection at the Paul Sacher Foundation

After Witold Lutosławski's death in 1994, Lutosławski's family allowed the Archive of the Paul Sacher Foundation to take almost all of the writings, sketches, notes, letters and documents not yet taken by the composer to Basel from his house in Warsaw. Except for just a few items (for example several notebooks), all of the non-music material was gathered together, creating the Lutosławski Correspondence Collection (LCC).