Composed 1941; 6 minutes

During the Second World War, the concert halls and theaters of occupied Poland fell silent. Musicians turned instead to the kawiarnie—local coffee houses—where two young composers, now earning their living as pianists, found an audience. Witold Lutosławski and Andrzej Panufnik, former classmates at the Conservatory, performed regularly at Sztuka i Moda (Art and Fashion) on Warsaw’s Królewska Street, their concerts quickly drawing a loyal following.

The need for fresh repertoire forced the duo to produce a steady stream of arrangements—over 200 in total—including works by Mozart, Brahms, Debussy, and Szymanowski, as well as excerpts from Carmen and Strauss waltzes. All were lost during the Warsaw Uprising and its aftermath.

However, some of their original music survived, most famously Lutosławski’s brilliantly witty Paganini Variations, now a staple of the two-piano repertoire. Using Paganini’s 24^th Caprice for solo violin as his theme, Lutosławski closely follows its outline, treating it more like a paraphrase than a set of free variations. Violinistic display is transformed into equally dazzling piano writing. A particularly humorous moment comes in the slow variation, where Lutosławski’s polytonal harmonies gently parody the challenge of playing double harmonics on the violin.