Warsaw Dreaming – Inaugural Concert

The inaugural concert of this jubilee festival coincides with a significant moment for the city – the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War (8 May). For this reason, the evening’s programme is devoted largely to works by composers who lived in Warsaw during the occupation. Remarkably, they produced music whose spirited – even energetic – character seems difficult to reconcile with the grim circumstances of its creation.

The vigorous Overture for Orchestra by Grażyna Bacewicz (1943) is paired here with Witold Lutosławski’s virtuosic Variations on a Theme by Paganini (1941), performed at the time as a piano duo with Andrzej Panufnik in Warsaw cafés. A key reference point for both works is the famous, dramatic Warsaw Concerto by Richard Addinsell (1941), once a hit with filmgoers and music lovers around the world and a gesture of solidarity with the Polish capital. In the 1941 British film Dangerous Moonlight (released in the US as Suicide Squadron), it is performed by the pianist and airman Stefan Radecki during the bombing of the city in the early days of the war. A similar – but this time true – story lies behind the charming, Gershwin-esque Concertino by Władysław Szpilman, composed in Warsaw in 1939.

These wartime works are framed by a later piece – Andrzej Panufnik’s Procession for Peace. Though the composer initially flirted with communism after the war, he eventually settled in Britain in 1954 following his dramatic and widely publicised escape from the Polish People's Republic. He lamented the way Soviet communism had distorted the idea of peace, and in his music he sought to express that ideal in a way free from ideological overtones. For this reason, he dedicated Procession for Peace “to all who love peace – of every race, religion, political belief or philosophy.” The piece was commissioned for the Greater London Council’s “Peace Year 1983” and was originally intended for performance in the open air. It unfolds as a steadily growing march, with a noble chorale-like melody and a striking conclusion that recalls the finale of Ravel’s Bolero.

The evening will end on an exuberant note with the short, filmic and irresistibly catchy Etude for Orchestra by Henryk Czyż (1948). Its energy can be seen as a continuation of the spirit of the wartime pieces – and symbolically, as a kind of “new beginning”, capturing the optimism and resolve that accompanied Warsaw’s postwar reconstruction.

The soloists for the evening include three outstanding pianists closely linked to Warsaw: Marcin Masecki, Aleksander Dębicz and the Korean virtuoso Hyuk Lee – a finalist in the 2021 Chopin Competition and, more recently, a resident of the city. The concert will be conducted by Marta Kluczyńska, currently associated with the Teatr Wielki – Polish National Opera.

Partners

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  co-organizer
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  project is co-financed by the City of Warsaw
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  project is co-financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage
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  project is co-financed by Mazowieckie Voivodeship