Late 60s, Lutosławski at his best in my opinion❤

I like that description. It's pretty much how I felt listening to it for the first time. To me there was also a comical element, how the lone cello held its own against all of those cacophonous voices and just determinedly carried on. I also appreciated that the flutes were, at times, somewhat in sympathy with the cello. The concert with Miklós Perényi on Cello, Simon Rattle conducting, esp seems to play on that theme as Miklós seems to embody the 'everyman' holding his own. But it's only available on the Berliner Phil paid app.

Exactly;)

Because those times in Poland were hideous? Composition is sometimes more than the sum of sounds. Please consider that the piece involved the opposition, cello vs orchestra, individual person vs system (total). Lustosławski and Rostropovich worked behind the Iron Curtain, which had its implications. Please read an opinion of a music critic Oskar Łapeta: www.nfm.wroclaw.pl/images/Sezon_2022-2023/omowienia/20_01_23_Tristan_i_Izolda__www.pdf Google translation: "Witold Lutosławski's Cello Concerto was commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Society and the Gulbekian Foundation, and the artist dedicated this composition to the outstanding cellist Mstislav Rostropowicz. This artist, valued for his phenomenal technique, told Lutosławski when writing the concerto: “Don't think about the cello. Cello - that's me. Write music." However, the result must have surprised him, as he found the concert difficult and demanding. Although Lutosławski was as far from illustrative and programmatic as possible in his work, the epic and dramatic nature of this work provoked numerous questions from Rostropowicz about the composer's intentions. When, in response, the cello suggested a conflict between the solo cello and the orchestral ensemble, the cellist immediately recognized it as a symbol of the individual's struggle against the oppressive communist regime. Rostropovich, then strongly defending the writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who was repressed by the Soviet authorities, decided to treat this work as a political manifesto. The way of shaping the music helped him in this a narrative in which the thought spun by the solo instrument is interrupted in an extremely suggestive way by the sharp entrances of the orchestra"...

This concerto is a standard of the cello repertoire. Fantastic music.

It’s the notes, the contrasting sounds, so clear, so beautiful.

If it's "unlistenable", how do you know it's a great performance?

@@rljmachen Thanks for the comment. Nothing that I ever care to listen to again. Once was more than enough. I respect the effort of the orchestra members and their talent.

I don't quite think so, even as I don't usually like modern classical music. I have heard some much worse pieces. This piece has amazing variation in dynamic, rhythmic, melodic, and expressive qualities. There is a structure which I often find lacking in modern pieces. Lutoslawski is a genius, even I must admit that.