Witold Lutosławski began to study the piano at the age of six; his teachers included Helena Hoffman, Jozef Smidowicz, and Alexander Taube. In addition he studied the violin with Lidia Kmitowa between 1926 and 1932, and composition with Witold Maliszewski for four years from 1928. His first work, Dance of the Chimera for solo piano, composed with Maliszewski’s guidance, was performed at a public concert at the Warsaw Conservatory in 1932, the year in which he formally entered the Conservatory. He continued to study composition with Maliszewski and piano with Jerzy Lefeld, graduating in piano in 1936 and in composition in 1937, meanwhile also studying mathematics at the University of Warsaw between 1931 and 1933.

Although Lutosławski considered his debut as a composer to have taken place with the first performance of his Symphonic Variations in 1938, the outbreak of World War II interrupted the development of his career. He spent the occupation in Warsaw, earning a living as a café pianist, work which he shared with another composer, Andrzej Panufnik; and the only composition of his to have survived from this period is the Variations on a Theme of Paganini for two pianos, of 1941. After the war, Lutosławski settled permanently in Warsaw, marrying in 1946. He never accepted permanent employment with any academic institution and survived during the Stalinist years by writing music for radio, film, and theatre; in addition, he arranged folk-songs and composed works for children. Following Stalin’s death in 1953, his Concerto for Orchestra appeared in 1954 and was recognised as a work of considerable significance.

As the cultural climate gradually became more favourable Lutosławski’s reputation both at home and abroad grew. His compositional style developed in parallel, moving from the folk-inspired music of his early works to a more sophisticated style based on his own development of twelve-tone techniques, which was first displayed in his Musique funèbre of 1958. This was followed by the gradual introduction of aleatoric techniques into his music, in which elements of the performance are left to chance, for instance in the Jeux vénitiens of 1961, inspired by hearing a performance of John Cage’s Concerto for Piano in 1960, and in the Livre pour orchestre (1968) in which the work’s four main sections are connected by controlled aleatoric passages. Most of his subsequent works were written for orchestra, orchestrated in a way which suggested Debussy and Ravel, and exploiting the opposition between aleatoric and metrical textures.

Lutosławski began his conducting career in 1963, when he prepared for performance his Trois Poèmes d’Henri Michaux for choir and orchestra, composed between 1961 and 1963. Thereafter he was active as a conductor for the rest of his life, appearing in France (1964), Czechoslovakia (1965), Holland (1969), and Norway and Austria (1969), before going on to conduct orchestras of the calibre of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony and BBC Symphony Orchestras, the London Sinfonietta and the Orchestre de Paris. His extensive experience conducting his own works helped him to refine his musical language even further, and his compositional style gradually became more lyrical as well as harmonically transparent. Mi-parti of 1976 introduced the idea of several interlocking themes that create a ‘chain’ structure. Among Lutosławski’s most notable later works are his Symphonies Nos 3 (1981–1983) and 4 (1988–1992), and several works written for distinguished soloists, such as Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (Les Espaces du sommeil, 1975), Heinz and Ursula Holliger (Double Concerto for Oboe and Harp, 1979–1980), Anne-Sophie Mutter (Chain II, 1983–1985), Mstislav Rostropovich (Cello Concerto, 1969–1970), and Krystian Zimerman (Piano Concerto, 1987–1988).

In addition to his work as a conductor Lutosławski took part in many composition courses and workshops: at the Berkshire Music Center in Tanglewood (1962), during which he met Edgar Varèse and Milton Babbitt; at the Dartington Summer School of Music in England (1963 and 1964); the Royal Swedish Academy of Music in Stockholm and the University of Austin, Texas (1966); and in Aarhus, Denmark (1968). During the 1970s and 1980s, he gave guest lectures on his own work. Throughout the latter part of his career he received numerous honours, culminating in the award in 1994 of Poland’s most prestigious state prize, the Order of the White Eagle. A major composer of the twentieth century, on a level with Bartók, Prokofiev and Messiaen, Lutosławski was a model both as a composer and as a conductor of the ideal balance between form and content, intellect and emotion. He was a musician to his fingertips.