There. The only piece of sacred music by the total to ski that we have that Lacrimosa is the only surviving fragment of a planned Requiem which he wrote for his composition diploma in 1937 the soup on the seller list was Lucy crow with the B.B.C. Symphony Orchestra conducted by it but God not one of the earliest and most painful memories was being taken by his mother to visit his father Joseph in prison shortly before his execution that strange scenario would set the scene for the composer's formative years in which he would be a victim of what his biographer Charles Baldwin Ray calls the inescapable forces of circumstance Well I'm delighted to have as my guide all this week through the life and work of the top of this West Nicholas rail of Siena and that drive at Kiel University Nicholas I embark on this journey with some trepidation given that we discuss He was always resistant to the idea of making connections between his music and the circumstances of its creation but anyway here goes Could you give us an outline of how the on those inescapable forces of circumstance impacted on his life he almost got off the refugee The family had to flee from the Russian position the area of Poland they were in when 1st world war broke out and they went to Moscow where his father very shortly thereafter was taken a political prisoner by the post of X. Out of the 917 revolution because he was involved as was most of the loot russkie family in the democratic movement in Poland and he was taken away with loot as was his uncle Marianne executed machine gunned I'm buried in a mass grave outside of Moscow. The family were quite cultured and relatively well off and so extraordinary family run through the professions the family have in have to their philosophers priests politicians journalists agriculturalists electrical engineers artists as well poets and novelists and a lot of the musicians both of his parents are quite competent good pianists so he's surrounded by the intellectual hubbub of early 20th century Poland there's a rather charming photograph of Lucas russkie taken in 1902 so the age of 9 sitting at his grandfather's piano looking every inch the Little Lord Fauntleroy in a sailor suit his long hair cut in a bob what despite his early interest in the piano looters didn't leave a very substantial legacy of music for the instrument though literally hundreds of doers by him were lost in the Warsaw uprising more about that later we're going to hear the 1st of looters Russkies to studies from 140 to $41.00 they're really virtual as are pieces full of scales an arpeggio runs and though they show the influence of foot music it's very much as transformed by the his musical imagination the pianist is ever. Or are. And the coop yet splayed that study by he told that his whiskey. When he went to secondary school at the age of 11 bittersweet he continued his piano lessons with a new teacher the following year he had his 1st encounter with contemporary music and what he looked back on as the most significant musical experience of his childhood a performance of his fellow countryman Carol Shimon ASCII 3rd Symphony the song of the night Nick what was it about that since the knee which was so transformational for him well he was overwhelmed by sound work by the sense US impact the ravishing orchestration such an immersive symphonic experience isn't it and he spent days afterwards he said trying to recapture the sound of the music at the piano and something of the the sensuous overload at moments in Szymanowski there are moments when the rhapsodic past is a new task he built all these huge climaxes later on in his compositional career perhaps there we feel some sort of relationship between music but interesting color in using the orchestra as a blend of harmony and color and everything expressive from Repsol taken challenging I think there was a lot in the Szymanowski that must've inspired him although he said there are she has no real musical relationship to what I'm doing compositionally I'm not sure that's quite true in 9031 after graduating from high school litters Ruskin role was so university to study mathematics and the following year though he went on with his studies of math he formally joined the composition classes at the Warsaw conservatory alongside his fellow students and Jaipur new flick and Stephanie. They all looked at each other scores and encouraged each other this is Russkies composition teacher was vetoed by the shifty an eminent Polish composer who'd studied with Korsakoff and glasses off at the St Petersburg Conservatory. In 133 Little gave up his mathematics studies to concentrate on piano and composition as if he had already encouraged him to give up the violin he recalled Strangely enough I do not remember ever being indifferent to music as far back as I can remember music was the most important thing for me I was driven by in a desire which had been with me ever since I was aware of the world around me his be honest were with him as he left felt and in $136.00 he was awarded a diploma for piano performance by the conservatory after presenting a Vertigo's or program the following year after submitting to fragments of the request and the music we began with he won his diploma for composition as soon as he graduated to his wife he was immediately called up for military service which he later described as medicine for my depression he was sent for training with the signals unit in the Army but he kept on writing music and he completed his symphonic variations in 138 Like most young Polish composers of his generation due to Saskia wanted to continue his education in Paris and he now spent his time preparing for a study trip to France of course once again fate would intervene most of his students' scores were destroyed in the course of the 2nd World War But fortunately we do have these symphonic variations which is the work which was rusty himself identified as the 1st significant milepost in his composing Korea it's not so much the influence of Szymanowski which makes itself felt in this music as Stravinsky and in particular his ballet Patricia the variations begin with an innocent folk like tune which is then subjected to a brilliantly and ingeniously kaleidoscopic set of treatments the composer conducts a Polish national history. 2 2 2 2 2. I. More. 6 the end. The talk Lucas russkie conducted the National Symphony Orchestra all Polish radio in his own symphony their relations what he pointed to as the starting point of his career as a composer. It was a work he seems to find very difficult to complete and he didn't and in the approval of his composition teacher at the Warsaw conservatory the top man who said Ski who was a dyed in the wool conservative he wasn't a tall in favor of modern trends because Rusty for his part looked up to him as a wise insincere man according to the composer he did not say the piece was bad he just a mark that he did not like it I respected him highly for that after all my style was completely alien to him this is composer of the week on B.B.C. Radio 39293 F.M. Online and digital you can hear composer of the week anytime you like by going online and clicking through to the composer of the week pages via the radio 3 home page the variations add that premium in 139 a year which took Lotus Rafiki in a direction he had not planned after the German invasion of Poland in September of that year there to so after he was called up he served in a signals unit he was captured by the Germans but after 8 days while they marched to a prison camp along with some of his fellow POWs he managed to escape and walked the 250 miles back to Warsaw as you can imagine that was an experience which let us russkie was never to forget his brother Henric also serving in the army was less fortunate he was captured by Russian soldiers and transported to a Siberian labor camp where he died the following year of a combination of typhoid hunger and exhaustion. During those dark and dangerous years of Nazi occupation to work in a living Lotus russkie joined the Diana on sample as a Ranger pianist playing and singing in the cafe then he formed a piano deal with his university friend and fellow composer Nick and they performed together in their ears Warsaw cafes they played jazz of course but serious music too like the pieces by Mozart Schubert and Brahms one night little sassy and punish Nick only very naturally escaped being hauled off to one of the concentration camps when a group of Germans in plain clothes made a raid on the cafe where they were playing for their cafe patrons the 2 men also made arrangements for 2 pianos of everything from Bach organ to Carter's to rather old Bolero one of these cafe concert pieces by looters Wes Gallo was a set of variations based on Paganini's famous 24th Caprice following the theme the return of sparkling variations which maintain an exhausting pace with only a few moments of rest might this performance live as it would have been in those Cathy's is by Martha Argerich and Gabrielle Montero. * And. Poor. It's ironic that those variations thrown off as a kind of sideline a byproduct of looters Russkies wartime cafe playing have become by far his most often recorded work is there on a theme of Paganini where played by Martha Argerich and Gabrielle I'm on Terra under the Nazi occupation of Poland all cultural life which was identified Li polish was banned including a complete ban on Polish music of any kind not even shop and was allowed music was largely forced to go underground Nic what was the effect of all this cultural oppression on US West. Well. It must have been extraordinary time to be a musician in the sense that the cafe society that was running it was an illusion of civility and civilized practice at a time when the the worst horrors we can imagine what happening all around literacy and his fellow musicians in in Warsaw and further afield people with me to McAfee's to gossip to get warm to drink this weird kind of coffee from ground up a coffins and to hear music the call works of the after German repertoire would be performed as well as French music and a lot of cabaret music this is where literacy became a subtle virtuoso when it came to popular music which would be very useful to him when it came to making money out of the war for example when I was in one of those cafes where they played a place called aria that lives met his future wife Maria Dunn who. The sister of the writer did get in July $944.00 that is rusty and his mother left the Polish capital to take refuge with an aunt outside the city so often for those caught up in the horrors of the war years they'd only been able to take with them what they could easily carry but also in that suitcase had been a few student works the 2 studies we heard earlier and lived as well as sketches for his 1st symphony while staying it is answer he spent some time working on the symphony. It Nic people have looked into this 1st symphony of the mirror of this music and found all sorts of things what do you hear 1st of all it's a repeat symphonic work it's not just an orchestral piece this is a significant piece of compositional thought and it's bustling with ideas that would go on to have a much longer lived life in looters Russkies out but even long after he put behind him this kind of pungent Polish neo classicism that he's working in at this period and there are certain moments in the symphony that the opening No caught the climactic huge chord in the finale which which lean towards his modernist works in the fifty's and sixty's and thereafter but also incredibly tender and touching moments like the slow movement the chromatic bartók in strings with the mournful whole melody over it which speak to the the rhapsodic looters to ask it's going to emerge a lot as well thank you very much indeed this complete performance of Louis Russkies 1st symphony is given by the Los Angeles for the money conducted by Mr pick a Southerner. Was. In the. Us. With. Listen. A little. The the. Narrow. Door. The The E.U. OK Louis you are saying thank. You. You are. The only. Clue Gluco. Length Thank you Elaine Glenn A. I am. RINGBACK RINGBACK The but. The I. I. Play up the SO. Lucky. The luck. I am. I am. The 8th. A rather serene peace the finale at least should leave a person in such a mood so said the talk little of his own 1st symphony which we had played them by the L.A. Philharmonic conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen join me tomorrow if you come when we'll hear how Poland and it was rusty fed in the aftermath of the war and about his developing interest in folk song with his ever popular showpiece the concert of our orchestra and his tribute on the 10th anniversary of his death to Bell about AUK is music. Composer of the week was presented by I don't know but cloud. Knockout performances from the world's best musician every weekday afternoon on M.T.V. And I can play the shop I'll be nice with. Well that have you I mean if you guys just a lot of fun and I'd love playing it even though it's absolute terrifying don't be terrified. That was just fabulous as. Considered a member of flexion after that was one for into week days at 5 on B.B.C. 3 you 3 called Hello saying it make nervous and. This is B.B.C. Radio 39293 F.M. On digital radio online and on B.B.C. Sounds it's 1 o'clock time for the news read by Zep sones tourism A has told leaders she still opposed to delaying breaks it be on the 29th of.