"Great musical moments await us: among the festival's performers we have great masters and promising young artists, we have a rich repertoire that includes a very important theme of historic performances, and all this right before the International Chopin Piano Competition whose 17th edition will be hosted in Warsaw in August".
-- says Stanisław Leszczyński, the festival's artistic director.
This year’s festival has a two-part theme: Before the Great Competition and From Chopin to Scriabin. It will also, just like the previous editions, reminisce back to the 19th century to highlight Chopin’s impact on his era as well as to present the importance of the earlier romanticists.
The festival programme includes the greats of classical music: Beethoven, Liszt, Tchaikovsky, Wieniawski, Rachmaninoff, Paderewski, Sibelius and Elgar performed by contemporary masters; and Polish music, from Chopin, Ogiński, Dobrzyński, Kurpiński, Szymanowska, Wolff and Lipiński to the world premieres of pieces by Andrzej Czajkowski and Paweł Szymański.
Andrzej Czajkowski’s music will be heard multiple times throughout the festival, for example, 1954's Sonata for Viola and Piano, which hasn't before had a world premiere, or String Quartet No. 2, Trio Notturno op. 6 and Ariel.
''Aleksander Scriabin’s pieces will appear twice this year: 12 Etudes op. 8 performed by French Philippe Giusiano, the winner of the 13th International Piano Competition, and 24 Preludes op. 11 by Canadian pianist Louis Lortie".
-- says Artur Szklener, the director of the Fryderyk Chopin Institute.
The programme of the festival also includes 19th-century Polish piano music performed by Tobias Koch, a pianist who specializes in Polish music.
Without doubt, the culminating points of the Festival will include such events as Philippe Giusiano’s performance of Dobrzyński’s Variations on ‘La ci darem la mano’; Matthias Goerne’s vocal recital with Piotr Anderszewski; the Freiburger Barockorchester’s appearance with Telemann’s Concerto Polonaise in B-flat major, Stanisław Leszczyński, along with three Bach concerts, one of which we will hear on a piano from Chopin’s time; and a recital by Sol Gabetta, the winner of an award for her wonderful recording of Chopin’s ’Cello Sonata in G minor, who will be playing at the Chopin and His Europe Festival for the first time.
-- comments Stanisław Leszczyński on the festival programme.
The “regular” concerts will be accompanied by nightly performances by the Polish musicians that will take part in this year’s Chopin Piano Festival. The young pianists will give the new meaning to the term musica notturna as these concerts are to be performed daily at 10 p.m. from 17 to 26 August in the Holy Cross Church in Warsaw.
Orchestras from Moscow, London, Freiburg and Warsaw are to take part in the festival, along with the winners of the International Chopin Piano Competition and other world-renowned musicians, including: Alexandre Tharaud, Sergej Krylov, Louis Lortie, Nelson Freire, Andreas Staier, Nikolai Lugansky, Jan Lisiecki, Ivo Pogorelić, Truls Mørk, Matthias Goerne, Sol Gobetta, and Bertrand Chamayou. The splendid Apollon Musagete Quartett is also to perform.