• WL100/79: Jeux vénitiens conducting score

As a follow-up to yesterday’s post on the pitch designs for Jeux vénitiens (1960-61), here is Lutosławski’s complete conducting score.  It is a bit tattered, especially the back pages.  There was no indication of how long he had been using it, but it is quite possible that he marked it up for the first time that he conducted Jeux vénitiens, in Basle on 14 May 1968.  Lutosławski has tidily marked it up with conducting cues etc., some harmonic reminders in the first movement, rhythmic reductions in the second, timings and upbeats in the third, and sfpp sequences in the finale, and various other indications.

Jeux vénitiens was co-published by PWM in Poland and Moeck in (West) Germany.  Lutosławski’s score was the Moeck imprint (large format, 40cm tall), published in 1962.  I don’t remember how many of his other conducting scores were still there in his study in September 2002.  One that I did photograph, and to which I will return in due course, was of the Cello Concerto.

Meantime, here is the complete score of Jeux vénitiens, rather variably photographed (some are in black and white, although most show his blue-pencil markings), but I hope its 45 pages will be of some interest.