Although he was the slowest of twentieth century Poland's stellar composers to develop, Lutoslawski proved to be the most distinctive, most individual, least manneristic, ultimately the greatest of his countrymen after Chopin—this in the terminal 35 years of his long life. The German occupation of Poland in 1939, soon after his graduation from the Warsaw Conservatory (with diplomas in piano and composition), limited Lutoslawski's artistic growth by driving him and his contemporaries underground. With public concerts banned, he and Andrzej Panufnik formed a two-piano team that played surreptitiously in Warsaw's cabarets for the duration of World War II. Between them they composed or arranged some 200 works, of which only Lutoslawski's variations on the 24th Capriccio of Paganini survived, and was published in 1949. Lutoslawski developed at his own tempo—mostly largo, sometimes mesto. Following a folk-music period, and a brief flirtation with 12-note mantras, he took up "chance" music, stimulated by a broadcast of John Cage's Piano Concerto. Before a fourth and final period of sharpened individuality, indeed of utter mastery, he'd become the world's leading composer of aleatoric (or "chance") music.

It was during the transition from Lutoslawski's third to last period, whilst writing the Third Symphony (1972-1982)—after Mi-parti in 1976, but before the severally delayed Novelette Rostropovich requested for Washington, D.C.—that Felicja Blumenthal asked him, in 1977, to please write something for piano and orchestra. The solo concerto he finally produced in 1987 hadn't yet taken form in his mind, and so he reworked the two-piano Paganini Variations of 1941 for one piano and orchestra.

This newer version, however, which Mme. Blumenthal introduced on November 18, 1979, with Brian Priestman conducting the former Florida Philharmonic of Miami, was no mere transcription. It is variations on variations on variations (the original form of Paganini's Capriccio that also fascinated Liszt, Brahms, Casella, Rachmaninov, and Blacher). In Lutoslawski's vivacious, virtuosic second version, a dozen of them fill a nine-minute span. Material originally divided between duo-pianists at two keyboards is assigned first to the soloist, then to the orchestra, except in the theme itself and Variations X and XI. Not all are antic, however; in Variation V, before midpoint, high spirits yield to a Poco lento of pensive beauty. The kaleidoscopic orchestra includes four horns, three each of trumpets and trombones, tuba, tubular bells, and other wood and metal percussion instruments plus harp—all of them adding spice to the composer's voluptuous sonorities.

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