Two Composers, Four Hands (2013)
(Centenary Homage to Andrzej Panufnik & Witold Lutosławski)

Two Composers, Four Hands – Dwóch Kompozytorów, Cztery Ręce

Two Composers, Four Hands is a work for double string orchestra, which was commissioned by the Leopoldinum Orchestra for a memorial concert (which will be conducted by Ernst Kovacic in Wrocław, 15.12.13) that straddles the centenaries of two of Poland's most eminent 20th Century composers: Witold Lutoławski (2013) and my father, Andrzej Panufnik (2014).   

I Lutoławski
I’m ashamed to say I knew extremely little about Lutosławski’s music and was delighted to have the opportunity to get to know it. I love the drama and playfulness of it and in my tribute to him I hope that I’ve captured his swift changes of dynamics, his mercurial brightness, pulsating rhythms and sometimes humorous little throw-away motifs. I confess I did try very hard to be aleatoric but I just couldn’t release that control, failing also to move away from passages in unison or thirds, which I know he would have studiously avoided! The structure is a loose Rondo, with a strident “call to arms” from the higher strings, as it’s recurring theme. Lutosławski-style four note pentatonic cells and ascending arpeggios based on a pattern of third and fourth intervals in the lower strings follow some yearning melodies in tribute to the lyricism that appeared more frequently in his later works. 

II Panufnik
In a move that I know would have pleased my father enormously, this movement is a quasi-palindrome – starting on the lowest C sharp in the orchestra, peaking at the highest C sharp at its axis and descending back down to the lowest again, at the end. I have taken our mutual love for simultaneous major-minor harmonies a step further, creating gentle layers of over-lapping bitonal chords with questioning melodies soaring above them. He had a love of the metaphysical and ethereal, so the central section is based on floating other-worldly harmonics – I like to think of his soul floating high, in that harmonic cosmos.

III LutoPanufski

A Posła niewiasta                         A Woman took her cockerel
z ko-gut-kiem do miasta,              to sell in town,
bo ji niel chcał rano piać.             Because he didn’t want to crow at dawn.
A wysła na pole,                             She entered the field
Kogutek jéj pieje,                           and the cockerel crowed'
Jak sie weźnie bab śmiać.            And made her laugh.

This final movement remembers affectionately the famous piano duo the two composers formed in Warsaw, during the Second World War. In the spirit of Lutosławski’s Pagannini Variations, which he wrote for him and Panufnik to play together, this last movement is variations on a humorous Polish folk song “A Posła niewiasta” (from the Kraków region). A woman is laughing at her cockerel who, having stubbornly refused to crow each dawn, suddenly does so when she threatens to take him to market! You can hear the laughter punctuating various sections of this piece – descending thirds and dominant seventh chords, cackling through the strings.

The two orchestras represent a composer on each piano and echo the music I wrote for them in the two previous movements, treating the folk song theme with each composers’ musical characteristics. The movement opens like the very beginning of the work but basing its tonality on that of A Posła Niewiasta. Semiquaver runs, using the raised 4th of the folksong, provide an accompaniment for the lyrical theme I gave Lutosławski – this turns into a passionate ode to its quirky and slightly chromatic tonality. The next section is the folk song Panufnik-style, layered over the yearning major-minor chords we saw in the previous movement. Then, laughing violins and cross-rhythms, mimicking the attack and sustain of the piano by some strings playing pizzicato and others arco, forming a mischievous and playful undercurrent to the theme, as I imagine the fun they must have had together - despite what was happening around them.

The piece ends with positive joy – the theme at its most beautiful and noble, to celebrate the friendship and famous piano duo these two composers had, which illuminated the darkness of World War II Warsaw.

The music lasts approximately 15 minutes and is dedicated to both composers, with love and admiration. I would like to thank the Leopoldinum Orchestra for giving me this wonderful project, the Institute for Music & Dance for supporting the commission, conductor Ernst Kovacic for being my sounding board and musicologist Prof. Adrian Thomas, who patiently taught me the rudimentaries of these Two Composers.

Roxanna Panufnik, 5th August, 2013