Poland is celebrating a century of independence this year, and to mark the occasion the Chopin and His Europe festival is honoring two musical icons who were key figures in forging the countryʼs cultural and national identity. The festivalʼs namesake, Fryderyk Chopin, gave his countrymen hope during dark times by imbuing his music with a new sense of nationalism. Nearly a century later, Ignacy Jan Paderewski left the keyboard to enter politics and was instrumental in the establishment of the modern Polish state.
Their legacy provides the foundation for a wide-ranging showcase of Polish music featuring new works, variations on mainstays and seldom-heard gems. Of the 120 pieces that will be performed at the festival this year, fully half are by Polish composers. Highlights include Chopin Institute-commissioned works by Krzysztof Penderecki and Agata Zubel; entire evenings devoted to the music of Paderewski and Mieczysław Karłowicz; concertos by Ludomir Różycki, Maurycy Moszkowski and Witold Maliszewski; and the flute and strings version of Andrzej Panufnik’s Hommage à Chopin.
The Polish programming also offers intriguing variations, like Paderewskiʼs 12 Songs to words by Catulle Mendes, sung by lyric tenor Christoph Prégardien, and a concert performance of Stanisław Moniuszkoʼs opera Halka, sung in Italian with period instruments. Fresh interpretations are on tap with a Polish translation of Schubertʼs Winterreise, and an all-star trio of violinist Gidon Kremer, cellist Giedrė Dirvanauskaitė and pianist Yulianna Avdeeva assaying Chopinʼs early Piano Trio in G minor. Organizers have even included E.T.A. Hoffmannʼs Symphony in E flat major, better known as the “Warsaw symphony” for the city where it premiered in 1806.
Avdeeva is one of many International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition laureates who will be at this yearʼs festival, a group that includes Seong-Jin Cho, the young Korean prodigy who stunned the classical world (and became a hero in his homeland) when he won the 2015 competition. Other recent prizewinners like Szymon Nehring, Dmitry Shishkin and Charles Richard-Hamelin are still building careers, but veteran players like Akiko Ebi, Kevin Kenner and Dang Thai Son long ago proved their victories were no fluke.
The granddaddy of returnees is Garrick Ohlsson, who launched his European career and established himself as a world-class talent by winning the 1970 competition. On this visit he will join the Apollon Musagète Quartet for piano quintets by Franz Schubert and Juliusz Zarębski, and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra for a Paderewski concerto.
This being a Chopin festival, there is no lack of A-list pianists: Benjamin Grosvenor, Marc-André Hamelin, Jan Lisiecki, Leif Ove Andsnes, Nelson Goerner, Elisabeth Leonskaja are all here. Audiences will also have a chance to hear rising keyboard stars like Plamena Mangova, Alex Szilasi and the remarkable Vadym Kholodenko, who swept all the top prizes at the 2013 Van Cliburn Competition. And for aficionados, there are a handful of specialty performances – fortepianists Tobias Koch and Alexei Lubimov, Howard Shelley playing period piano and Makoto Ozone lending a jazz flavor to Mozartʼs Piano Concerto no. 9 in E flat major (K271).