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

I attended this important,  excellent  world musical event last night. The war in Ukraine meant that the original destination of the ceremony in the opera houses of Lviv or Odessa was moved to Poland, a doorstep neighbor to this appalling conflict with no clear end in sight.  The ceremony was perfectly planned, ran like a Swiss watch with highly professional  and fluent presentation of the awards by BBC Radio 3 presenter Petroc Trelawny. The Moniuszko arias and 'Grand Opera' arias were superbly sung. The Awards programme with arias and singers This excellence came as a surprise, I am sure, to the  discriminating international  audience who was perhaps more accustomed to rather everyday and perfunctory performances of Moniuszko in Polish. I have begun to wonder if it is inferior performances of Moniuszko that have relegated him to an inferior position among composers.  The composer has to be grateful to Fabio Biondi and Europa Galante and the National Fryderyk Chopin Institute (

National Philharmonic Orchestra Choir of the National Philharmonic Michal Klauza conductor Garrick Ohlsson piano Joanna Zawartko soprano Bartosz Michałowski choir director Garrick Ohlsson winning the VIII International Chopin Competition Warsaw 1970 These thoughts come in the midst of the increasing horrors of war in the Middle East, echoes of the Covid pandemic which has thankfully passed and the brutal continuation of a murderous war in Ukraine. These are the greatest calamities to strike the world since the two world wars. The destructive power of conventional weapons today is horrifying. The first two religious works on the programme seem a suitable and appropriate pendant to All Saints Day on November 1st here in Warsaw. I was unfamiliar with both works so will limit myself to their background and general observations. Karol Szymanowski Litany to the Virgin Mary  op. 59  Two fragments for soprano,   women's choir and orchestra to texts by Jerz