Grychtołówna turns 95 in July.
This year she is also marking the 70th anniversary of her official artistic debut, even though she made her first public appearance at the age of five and gave her graduation concerts in 1951.
Fans said Grychtołówna’s recital on Sunday was an extraordinary event, not only because she is in great form at such an advanced age but also because of the quality of her performance.
Music critic Dorota Szwarcman wrote on her blog that Grychtołówna played the over 70-minute programme from memory and without an interval.
According to Szwarcman, it was a "meticulously constructed programme," opening with Schubert’s delicate Impromptus in E flat major and A flat major, followed by Schubert’s moving Scenes from Childhood, Brahms’ Intermezzi in A major and B flat minor, Liszt’s Liebestraum, Witold Lutosławski’s "charming and somewhat jocular" Folk Melodies, and three Chopin waltzes: Waltz in D flat major, Waltz in C sharp minor, and Waltz in E flat major.
The recital rounded off with Chopin’s Nocturne in C sharp minor, Op. posth. as an encore.
After the recital, Grychtołówna entertained the audience with several interesting anecdotes during a quarter-of-an-hour Q & A session with two music critics.
Grychtołówna won Seventh Prize at the International Chopin Competition in Warsaw in 1955. She was also a prizewinner at piano competitions in Berlin, Bolzano and Rio de Janeiro.
Foreign tours took her across Europe, the Americas, Australia, Japan, China and Thailand.
From 1986 to 2007 she taught piano performance at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany.
(mk/gs)