Poland is a land with a rich musical heritage. It’s very much in evidence from the moment you step off the plane at Warsaw Chopin airport, named in honour of Poland’s most famous musical son.
his Olympic summer was just like 2012, when there was a European Football Championship as well. Then, hosting the Euros was a joint venture between Ukraine and Poland, which for me meant a good fortnight in the great musician’s home country.
Though Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin would rank spent most of his adult life in exile in Paris, he never forgot where he came from. When he died in 1849, his remains were buried in Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris — the final resting place of numerous composers, among them Bizet, Dukas, Lalo, Poulenc and Waldteufel, not to mention Oscar Wilde as well. But Chopin’s heart was taken back to Warsaw. It’s preserved in alcohol in an urn that is set in a pillar in the Church of the Holy Cross in the centre of the city.
There’s a statue of him in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, of all places. Chopin never visited South America, but many Poles fled there in the 1940s, driven from Europe by the ravages of World War II.
One of them was a sculptor who created the bronze as a homage to his homeland. With its gaze turned out to sea, there is a powerful sense of longing, and that was what the composer himself experienced during those years of exile in France.
He was actually half-French through his father, who had gone to Poland to work as a teacher. But it was with his mother’s country, the country of his birth, that he most closely identified. His genius had taken him away. There wasn’t the scope for him to develop at home so he went to Vienna to study. While he was there, the dynamics of central European politics firmly closed the door on any potential return.
He went to Paris to make a living, but Poland was never far from his thoughts. Musically, this found its expression in the many tunes he composed which were based on Polish folk forms — mazurkas and polonaises.
Every single piece he wrote involves the piano in some shape or form, and among those works are some of the most beautiful for the instrument.
One of the most prestigious international music festivals is named in his honour, and it will take place again in October. It will be the 18th edition of the International Chopin Competition, first held in 1927, and staged every five years in Warsaw — the piano capital of the world, they like to call it. Some of the most renowned concert pianists have been past winners: Maurizio Pollini, Martha Argerich, Garrick Ohlsson, Yundi Li.
Even if you can’t make this Warsaw extravaganza, you are never far from the music of Chopin in that city. At key locations around the Polish capital, you’ll find stone benches that feature little built-in speakers. The sound of the most famous of his compositions is available at the touch of a button.
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