The Essential Lutoslawski (Incls Symphony No 3 & Cello Concerto)

"Lutoslawski's music sounds to me like an early modern sensibility moving to incorporate more recent techniques. The two earliest pieces here are both superb - "Concerto for Orchestra" (better than the Bartok piece by the same name!) and "Dance Preludes" from the early/mid 1950s. Following the post-Stalin thaw, Lutoslawski made contact with the West, and the two works from that initial encounter, "Funeral Music" (for Bartok) and "Venetian Games" are perhaps the highlights of the disc - resolutely modern music that, again, maintains the accessibility of Bartok or Stravinsky. I don't find the "Cello Concerto" of 1970 compelling, but the "Concerto for Oboe, Harp & Chamber Orchestra" of 1980 is brilliant.

"Symphony No. 3," finished in 1983, is widely considered to be Lutoslawski's masterpiece, but I am not convinced. Similar structurally to his "Symphony No. 2" (avoid!) and his "String Quartet," but better, most of the work is development, but it never seems to develop into anything very noteworthy. Lutoslawski was trying too hard to be radical in these works, while his strength was in carrying on in a less radical style with light touches of serialism and later developments.

The range of fantastic music on this disc alone reveals Lutoslawski's level of accomplishment among the late 20th century greats."
(Amazon.com)