If you are collecting Naxos’s super-bargain Lutoslawski releases this, the third in the series, should be of particular interest, containing as it does two of his finest vocal compositions alongside his major work of the early-1980s, the Symphony No. 3.
Of the vocal works, it’s the earlier Paroles tissees – a particular favourite of mine – that disappoints in this performance, partly because the singer is so evidently uneasy with both the musical idiom and the French language, and partly because the recording places his rather strenuous and uneven voice in such high relief. The sensitive and subtle performance by the work’s dedicatee, Sir Peter Pears, with the composer conducting, is now available from Decca at mid price, and could hardly be more different. Fortunately for Naxos, however, the other works fare better.
In Les espaces du sommeil the singer is far better suited to the music’s demands and is also less forwardly balanced, to the benefit of both textural clarity and musical atmosphere. Adam Kruszewski’s French is less idiomatic than John Shirley-Quirk’s on Sony Classical, but this is nevertheless a more than adequate performance. So is that of the Third Symphony, even though it lacks the inspired forcefulness and flow of Barenboim’s Chicago version on Erato. Despite the restricted sound picture that I’ve noted in my earlier reviews of the Naxos Lutoslawski discs (10/96 and 1/97), Antoni Wit doesn’t linger over the work’s duller patches, and makes an excellent case for its expansively romantic final stages. With the lively Paganini Variations (in the version for piano and orchestra which Lutoslawski made in 1978) this generously filled disc – even allowing for the deficiencies of Paroles tissees – still deserves consideration.'