Stanisław Leszczyński, festival originator and artistic director, and deputy director of the Fryderyk Chopin Institute, talked to Mirela Hein prior to the event's opening Aug. 15.

This is Warsaw's third "Chopin and his Europe" festival. Where did the idea come from?
Fryderyk Chopin is Poland's only internationally recognized cultural icon. Warsaw was his true home although he is usually associated with his birthplace of Żelazowa Wola about 50 km away. He grew up in Warsaw, absorbing the ambiance of the city's intellectual and artistic circles, and composed his early works here, including his two brilliant piano concertos.

2010 is the bicentennial of the birth of our greatest artist and one of the greatest composers of the modern era. We want Chopin's name to be indelibly linked with Warsaw, as do the city authorities, and this festival has already become a red-letter day in Europe's cultural calendar.

The title of the festival is very broad and ambiguous, and it includes works from the 18th century to the present.

The festival's name is meant to convey the manifold ramifications of Chopin's music so as to underscore its phenomenal power and uniqueness, and to eloquently portray its influence on both contemporaries and later generations. The subtitle "From Mozart..." came while researching Chopin's influences, which is why we've included the music of Bach. We want the festival to show how Chopin shaped, and continues to shape, the minds of composers and performers of varied aesthetic sensibilities. For this reason, we've included jazz improvisations, 20th-century composers like Szymanowski, Takemitsu and Panufnik, and contemporaries like Kawalerowie Błotni.

This leads us to the second part of the festival subtitle "… to Tomasz Stańko." Why Stańko?
Musicians who cross boundaries and play without prejudice or false reserve are an indispensable part of Chopin's Europe. These are musicians who epitomize genres not normally thought of as classical, but who play an essential role in forging a pan-European culture by dint of their strong personas. We featured the late Austrian pianist Friedrich Gulda as one such artist last year. This year, our countryman, Tomasz Stańko, an outstanding trumpeter and composer, and one of Europe's most original jazz musicians, will be stepping up to the podium. Japanese pianist Makoto Ozone, who is equally at home with the classical and jazz idioms, will be joining Stańko for a series of improvisations on Mozart and Chopin entitled "Classic Jazz Romanticism." They will be accompanied by young musicians, including violinist Kuba Jakowicz and violist Ryszard Groblewski, both of whom have won prestigious competitions, and cellist Andrzej Bauer, a winner of Munich's ARD International Competition who experiments with composition. Contemporary trends will also be captured by Kawalerowie Błotni, a Polish group of composers associated with Krzysztof Knittel, when they interpret Chopin through improvisation and quasi-performance art.

Getting back to the main part of the program, there's going to be eight symphony concerts, nine piano recitals and chamber concerts in two weeks. That's 17 concerts and 200 performers. What's in store for music lovers apart from Chopin?
The festival's subtitle "In the Orbit of Romanticism" is significant in that it not only refers to a specific historical period but also to the mindset of experiencing, rather than attempting to understand, the world.

In historical terms, "The Great Romanticism" obviously refers to the 19th century's iconic repertoire for solo piano and piano with orchestra by Franz Schubert, Johannes Brahms, Franz Liszt, Peter Tchaikovsky and Edvard Grieg, the "Chopin of the north." These old favorites will be performed along with Beethoven's 3rd and 4th Piano Concertos and his immortal 5th Symphony, and Mozart's Symphony No. 40 in G minor. This year's festival coincides with the Year of Karol Szymanowski, who was the first to appreciate Chopin's importance to European culture. The festival will open to the strains of Szymanowski's 1st Violin Concerto. "The Great Romanticism" will close with Symphony No. 6 in F minor, La Pathetique, by that great doyen of the Slavic cultural circle, Peter Tchaikovsky.

Up-and-coming artists will be interpreting Chopin as well as seasoned performers. Who are the stars playing here in August?
George Emmanuel Lazaridis and Gilles Vonsattel are both coming to Poland for the first time. Hinrich Alpers and Alexander Melnikov, both winners of prestigious piano competitions, will also be making an appearance. All these young artists have already won considerable recognition.

Brazilian pianist Nelson Friere has set himself an unconventional program of playing Chopin's Piano Concerto in F minor and Brahms' Piano Concerto in D minor. Kevin Kenner, winner of Warsaw's 15th International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition, is also going to break with tradition and play Szymanowski's Symphony Concertante No. 4 and Grieg's Piano Concerto in A minor on the same evening.

Lilya Zilberstein, one of the world's greatest pianists, is making her second visit here to perform Tchaikovsky's Concerto in B-flat minor and to give a recital of Brahm's Variations. British pianist and Tchaikovsky Competition winner Peter Donohoe, Schubert specialist and Clara Haskil Competition winner Michel Dalberto, and Russian Stanisław Bunin, winner of Warsaw's 11th International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition, will all be here together with other Chopin Competition veterans including Tatiana Shebanova, Nelson Goerner, Wojciech ¦witała, Ka Ling Colleen Lee.

I should mention that the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra of the under the direction of Antoni Wit and Sinfonia Varsovia under the baton of Jacek Kaspszyk will also be taking part in this year's festival.

The variety of the program and the caliber of the artists performing are reason enough to come to the festival. But I know that you have also prepared something for lovers of historic performances.
The festival is not only an opportunity to showcase different ways of interpreting Chopin's music. We also want to recreate Chopin's music as he himself would have heard it. Eminent pianists such as Nelson Goerner and Michel Dalberto will be playing period instruments such as a 1849 Erard piano, a 1848 Pleyel and a Graf-a copy of the famous "Schubert" instrument built around 1819, on which Chopin scored his first international success in Vienna.

The 18th Century Orchestra will also be recreating the epoch with original instruments. A legend among authentic instrument aficionados, the orchestra will be performing works by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and other 18th- and 19th-century composers according to the musical traditions of the day. The orchestra is making its third visit here to perform Chopin's complete oeuvre for piano and orchestra and to record it for the second time.

At our request, German ensemble Concerto Köln will be giving a historically accurate performance of Haydn's 98th Symphony in B-flat major and John Field's 2nd Piano Concerto in A-flat major. This will be the Warsaw premiere of the very works on which Chopin modeled his own concertos.


The Fryderyk Chopin Institute was established in 2001 to protect the composer's legacy and promote his music. The institute issues publications, organizes concerts and runs an online Chopin Information Center.
The Institute oversees the Fryderyk Chopin Museum in Warsaw, which has the largest collection of Chopin paraphernalia in the world. The museum is housed in the Ostrogski Castle, and its branches are the Chopin Parlor in Warsaw and the Chopin Mansion in Żelazowa Wola, the composer's birthplace 50 km west of Warsaw. Chopin concerts are held at Żelazowa Wola every Sunday between May and September.
In the next few years, the institute will be busy organizing events to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the composer's birth in 2010. The celebrations, which will be held as part of the Frederic Chopin Heritage 2010 government program, will include the 16th International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition, one of the oldest and most prestigious music competitions in the world, held in Warsaw every five years since 1927. Other projects associated with the composer's birthday include the opening of a new institution called the Chopin Center, the modernization of the Fryderyk Chopin Museum, and the renovation of the Żelazowa Wola park.
The Chopin and his Europe International Music Festival, organized by the Fryderyk Chopin Institute since 2005, is closely associated with the Fryderyk Chopin Heritage 2010 program. Its main aim is to showcase Chopin's musical achievements "in a wide cultural context," showing the variety of sources that inspired the Polish composer.
This year's festival, subtitled "In the Orbit of Romanticism: From Mozart to Tomasz Stańko," will be held in Warsaw Aug. 15-31 under the auspices of the Polish president, the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, and the mayor of Warsaw. The festival has been organized in cooperation with the City of Warsaw, Stołeczna Estrada, Polish Radio 2, the National Philharmonic and the Teatr Wielki/Polish National Opera. The main sponsor is the PKN Orlen oil company, and other sponsors include Warsaw's Frederic Chopin Airport.
Detailed information about the festival and the Fryderyk Chopin Institute can be found at www.nifc.pl