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

Diary entries: March 23  2018 Last night I attended an interview/lecture Olga Tokarczuk gave at the British Library in London. Thought provoking in the extreme. I suggest you buy this book ( 'Flights' or  'Bieguni'  in Polish)  published quite some time ago now (2007) but recently long-listed for the International Booker Prize. It will sell out after she wins! My prediction.... Interview with the English writer Adam Mars-Jones and a translator at the British Library on 22 March 2018 May 1st 2018 Am at present reading the Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk's 'Flights' . 'Bieguni' in Polish. A brilliant and unique vision and formal experiment in composition. Formal experiment so rarely happens in English books - publishers with their eye on sales dare not but will publish translations that experiment of course! The book is based upon the idea of self contained sequences that concern travelling, human anatomy...

Grigory Sokolov  © Mary Sklepkova, DG In Warsaw last night, Grigory Sokolov hypnotized the entire audience of a fully packed hall into complete silence with his conception and recreation of the joyful innocence of Mozart and the profound seriousness of Brahms. Pure music of the greatest integrity and truth reigned supreme here, quite beyond the medium of the performer and the instrument, both becoming merely a conduit to the spirit of man laid out before us, man an atom in the spinning firmament.  Innumerable hidden details were revealed by his consummate technique and by his profound philosophical and musical penetration. I was reminded of a comment made by Arthur Rubinstein when he observed that in live performance in a concert hall in the presence of a great artist, one is affected by their 'electromagnetic vibrations' that fill the space, electrical connections that cannot be captured on a recording, the way the artist...