Symphony No. 3 (Lutosławski)

3 employ Lutosławski's by-then well developed technique which he called "limited aleatorism", in which the individual players in the orchestra are each asked to play their phrase or repeated fragment in their own time — rhythmically independent from the other musicians.

During these passages very little synchronisation is specified: events that are coordinated include the simultaneous entrances of groups of instruments, the abrupt end of some episodes, and some transitions to new sections.

By this method the composer retains control of the symphony's architecture and the realisation of the performance, while simultaneously creating complex and somewhat unpredictable polyphony.

The composer specifies completely the music for each player, leaving the interpretation to the individuals: only the co-ordination between the parts is unspecified.

The strings (notated at the bottom of the page) join the texture by sections: first the violins, then the violas, the cellos and lastly the basses, all playing rapid repeating figures.