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

Lt. to Rt. Michael Guttman, Martha Argerich, Annie Dutoit, Jing Zhao, Akane Sakai This desperately moving and emotionally committed concert was enough to impel the very stones to pity. As a demonstration of the healing power of music and an unflinching  confrontation of historical memory, it was unsurpassed. The performances will remain in my mind as one of the more profound musical experiences of my life.  Although short in duration and modest in scope, this inspiring first POLIN Music Festival entitled  Roots'n'Fruits ran   from 16-18 February  in Warsaw at the Museum for Polish Jews. The festival is hopefully the bud of a beautiful flower of historical regeneration and reconciliation in Poland. The opening concert of the festival was dedicated to the great philanthropist Zygmunt Rolat who has always cultivated the deepest respect and understanding between cultures. This chamber concert opened with the Variations on ...

Jean-Baptiste Greuze, the child  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart  (detail), 1763-64 (Yale University Collection of Musical Instruments) There is a strange kind of human being in whom there is an eternal struggle between body and soul, animal and god, for dominance. In all great men this mixture is striking, and in none more so than in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.    (Alfred Einstein) I feel this passage not only describes the psyche of Mozart but also the character of the subject of his final opera, the Roman Emperor  Titus Flāvius Caesar Vespasiānus Augustus  popularly  known   as Titus (39 - 81 AD). The characteristic two faces of Janus  preside over the dual nature of the psychological conflict within the emperor's life, that of war and peace, punishment and clemency. Yes, certainly he assisted the victims of the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD which destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum and a fierce fire in Rome in 80 AD. Howe...