And what of us, if we were alive then? In my case I was in no position to be exposed to either unless by chance a well-distributed budget label came out with a recording. That was more or less the only chance I might have had of hearing the music then. That says a great deal of the importance of those budget lines to the musical upbringing of a young lad such as I. At any rate I do not recall either composer being accessible to me in any way in those days.
All the better to have something new and worthwhile to hear later in life. We are fortunate with the present-day release of the works that they are played with Promethean drama by cellist Johannes Moser and equally, spectacularly seconded by Thomas Sondergard conducting the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin.
The Lutoslawski is an expressive landmark of the period, vividly filled with alternating High Modern brimstone and reflective meditation in ways we find Lutowslawski especially superior in setting about. The cello part is in every way heroic and transcendent while the orchestra parts comment upon the solo passages and create new expressive situational possibilities in ever masterful and convincing ways.
The Dutilleux is no less monumental in its ambitions, and no less successful in its results. Nevertheless he looks inside his musical creative self for another kind of inventive moment, more memory intensive perhaps, in a Modern-Impressionist reverie. The music moves forward in ever vibrant, rhythmically linear terms. Perhaps the music is somewhat less momentously High Modernist, but then there is a color-lyric element that replaces the Lutoslawski dynamic and we feel on different grounds, no less vivid but stylistically other. That is good.
It would be hard to top the performances. Moser is fully prepared and also fully in tune with his part and the orchestra has passion and intelligence under Thomas Sondergard. The works are central highlights of the last part of last century. Indispensible I would say.
