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

Click on photographs to enlarge - far superior rendition The spectre of Fyrderyk Chopin always haunts the feast of music and pianism on offer at Duszniki Zdroj                                                                    *  *  *  *  *  * I shall be covering this year's festival in my customary fashion.  The Artistic Director Piotr Paleczny has assembled an  outstanding group of pianists   for our refined pleasure and spiritual enhancement in this increasingly heartless  world where children are murdered wholesale in various pits and slaughterhouses in wars beyond my understanding. The veneer of our achieved  'civilization' is wafer thin. A platitude perhaps but true nevertheless... This was written before the horrors now unfolding hourly in Gaza, Ukraine, Syria and Iraq.  The barbarians are well within the castle walls but we still feel safe in our distant 'civilized' rooms listening to disturbances beyond. For how much longer? Western F