English Section

Polish music at BBC Proms

02.09.2019 07:20
The Silesian Quartet from the southern Polish city of Katowice is billed to perform on Monday at London’s Cadogan Hall as part of the BBC Proms Festival.
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The concert includes two works by Polish 20th-century composers Mieczysław Weinberg and Grażyna Bacewicz.

Weinberg’s String Quartet No. 7 will be followed by Bacewicz’s Piano Quintet No 1, in which the Silesian Quartet will be joined by Polish pianist Wojciech Świtała.

Weinberg was a Polish Jew who fled Warsaw to escape the Nazis and spent most of his life in Moscow.

In 1953, he was arrested as part of Stalin’s anti-Semitic purges, but was released after the Soviet dictator’s death thanks to support from Dmitri Shostakovich, the well-known Russian composer and pianist.

Weinberg died in Moscow in 1996, leaving behind an extensive output of symphonic, chamber and vocal music as well as six operas.

He is described in the BBC Proms programme book as “one of the 20th century’s great unsung heroes.”

The festival celebrates the centenary of the composer’s birth, and two other of his compositions, Cello Concerto and Third Symphony, were performed last month.

Bacewicz was one of the world’s leading women composers. Her vast legacy includes symphonies, violin concertos, string quartets and a wide range of other works. She died in 1969, aged 60.

(mk/gs)