The event features a Chopin recital performed by young, up-and-coming Polish pianist Szymon Nehring and a selection of poems by the Romantic poet Cyprian Kamil Norwid and the Nobel Prize winning 20th-century writer Czesław Miłosz,recited by one of Poland’s leading actors Jan Englert. The poems include Norwid’s ‘Chopin’s Piano’ and Miłosz’s ‘Ode on the 80th birthday of John Paul II’.
The Holy Cross Church is the resting place of Chopin’s heart. Brought to Poland from Paris, where the composer died, by his elder sister, Ludwika, it is interred in a pillar on the left-hand side of the nave.
The event is part of a series of concerts which began on October 1 under the motto ‘In the run-up to the Grand Competition’, that is to the International Chopin Competition. Its 2020 edition, originally scheduled for October, has been postponed for a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Among those who appeared in Warsaw earlier this month were such past prizewinners of the International Chopin Competition as Yulianna Avdeeyeva, Nelson Goerner, Lucas Geniusas, Philippe Giusiano, and Gabriela Montero.
‘In the run-up to the Grand Competition’ ends on Monday, October 19, with a concert featuring a chamber version of Chopin’s two piano concertos, performed by the American pianist Kevin Kenner, the Apollon Musagete Quartet and Sławomir Rozlach (double-bass).
(mk)