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

Another wave of nostalgia breaks over me as I pick up a forgotten book that influenced my past thinking in many ways, Colin Wilson's remarkable and increasingly relevant 'The Outsider' , written in the Round Reading Room of the British Museum. Too poor to rent a room, he slept at night in a sleeping bag on Hampstead Heath in London. He spent his days reading and writing in that intellectual domain,  searching for the nature of a more permanent heightened reality above the banality of everyday life.  N ostalgia has been sweeping over me recently for past excitements, well submerging me really, as I contemplate republishing a few of my books in foreign language editions.     In December 2024 I again decided to visit the British Museum to see the outstanding  Silk Roads Exhibition.  Of course I decided to once again enter my library meta-universe as my entire life and creeping age appears to have become a museum object in itself. ...

  XVIII International Chopin Competition, Warsaw   At the time I wrote this full and detailed description of the competition, of course I was not aware of the reality that lay beneath, the truths that this documentary reveals   The other side of the coin…. Events Schedule  https://app.box.com/s/3nvk44oqo5hpwdpreaw1alu92n2ikpkf *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  The result announcement being made by Mr. Arthur Sklener, Director of the National Fryderyk Chopin Institute. The entire jury are ranged behind him. The wait for the announcement of the results took a very long time - it was finally made at 2.00 am - which indicated the difficulty the jury were having in making a final decision. Ex aequo decisions are always time-consuming. I was so tired  and my legs were giving out standing around on the cold marble floor!   There was one major surprise which in a way brings into question my entire criteria for judging...