Topic: Witold Lutoslawski (1913-1994)

[Scion7]

No.

" He had a fluent command of English – a language he had learned from his mother as a child, but which he only mastered as an adult. "

I remember news on the beeb back in the day - a light Polish accent.

[CRCulver]

I always got the impression that those videos were dubbed. His English is just too perfect.

There are plenty of videos where Lutoslawski is speaking extemporaneously and the audio perfectly matches his mouth, so no, obviously not dubbed.

It is not particularly astonishing that Lutoslawski could learn English so well. The Eastern European elites who came of age in the entre deux guerres or before often learned French or German to the same high standard, and Lutoslawski came from an aristocratic family. My question was only about how he managed to immerse himself in an English environment for a time, because this wasn’t covered in any of the biographies which I have seen.

[vers la flamme]

There are plenty of videos where Lutoslawski is speaking extemporaneously and the audio perfectly matches his mouth, so no, obviously not dubbed.

It is not particularly astonishing that Lutoslawski could learn English so well. The Eastern European elites who came of age in the entre deux guerres or before often learned French or German to the same high standard, and Lutoslawski came from an aristocratic family. My question was only about how he managed to immerse himself in an English environment for a time, because this wasn’t covered in any of the biographies which I have seen.

Yeah, I don't know. Just a suspicion I had after watching this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdDE5owPUMc

The fact that I couldn't really read his lips due to the low resolution of the video didn't help. I had the same question as you; I couldn't reconcile his speaking as if he were someone who was totally immersed in the language, with what I know of his biography.

[CRCulver]

Watch this video, for instance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVlq6zihyjg