Classical Music in Poland and the Europe of Chopin - From the Reviewer's Notebook

 A still from Roman Polanski's film Knife in the Water - Noz w Wodzie set in the Mazurian Lake District of Poland Click on photos to enlarge I have just returned from a few days recreation in the superb lake district of Poland known as Mazury . Although not a secret destination for Russians, Poles or Germans (it was the former East Prussia) it is fairly unknown among English and other European travellers. In many parts one drives though tunnels of dappled shade along deserted roads lined with arching lindens and alder. Grasslands and peatlands open out onto lakes fringed with reeds, the occasional yacht leaning into the soft wind,  smoothly  and gently progressing across the waters as if in a dream. Birdsong fills the air and storks clack their long beaks like castanets, nesting and tending their young arrogantly exposed on impossibly high electric poles or disused chimneys.  Wildlife abounds. Pine forests form on the horizon below immense open skies touched here and the