The 18th “Chopin and his Europe Festival” – featuring Polish Romanticism

The 18th edition of the Chopin and His Europe Festival is presently taking place in Warsaw. This year 30 concerts are scheduled, and among them piano recitals by numerous outstanding pianists, including laureates of the Chopin Competition. Among these, Bruce Liu, the winner of the 2021 Competition.

Alexander Gadjiev on life after The Chopin Competition

Alexander Gadjiev, laureate of the 2nd prize at the 18th International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition, is back in Warsaw for the Chopin and his Europe International Music Festival.
In this interview for the Chopin Institute he is sharing his memories from the Competition, some thougts about the repertroire he chose for his two festival concerts and about his future plans:

Alexander Gadjiev’s recital as of August 16:

An extensive festival program

World-famous orchestras and chamber players is additionally giving as many as 16 concerts. The vocal music is presented through outstanding soloists who perform in recitals and opera lovers will be given opportunity to listen to the concert performance of Un giorno di regno, ossia il finto Stanislao by Giuseppe Verdi.

In accordance with its title, the Festival showcases Fryderyk Chopin’s œuvre in the context of ‘his’ Europe, understood in four perspectives: Europe contemporary to him, pre-Chopin Europe, Europe after the great master’s death and, finally, the Europe of our time. For this reason, aside from works by Chopin himself, the repertoire played at the Festival also includes the music that inspired him, works by composers younger than him, and the reception of Chopin’s œuvre in music contemporary to us.

Contemporary and historical instruments

The programme axis of the Festival is traditionally based on the music of Frederic Chopin whose work is the essence of Polish Romanticism. His works is performed by outstanding pianists and great ensembles on contemporary and historical instruments; there are fascinating contexts as well. Etudes and Nocturnes will be interpreted by Jan Lisiecki, Preludes by Aimi Kobayashi, Bruce Liu will perform the ‘La ci darem la mano’ Variations from Don Giovanni, which were so enthusiastically reviewed during the Competition and – together with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton Vasily Petrenko. The Concerto in F minor Op. 21 will also be performed by Kate Liu.

The world of authentic sound and ‘historically informed’ musical interpretation is encouraged and promoted by The Chopin Institute, not least by its international Chopin competition for period instruments. Thus historical performances will be brought to us this year by pianists Kristian Bezuidenhout, Tobias Koch, Dmitry Ablogin, Tomasz Ritter, Aleksandra Świgut, clarinetists long associated with the Festival: Lorenzo Coppola and Eric Hoeprich as well as violinists Alena Baeva and Chouchane Siranossian. Internationally renowned orchestras will play: our leading ensemble of historical performance, Orkiestra Historyczna, Europa Galante, Collegium 1704 and the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, which has accompanied the Festival since its first edition. We will hear Henryk Wieniawski’s Concerto in F-sharp minor and Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major in its original version, with Jan Lisiecki sitting at the historic piano for the first time.

Read the full festival program here >>

Watch the recitals

The streamed piano recitals from the National Philharmonic in Warsaw is listed in Piano Street’s Events & Livestreams section. These include so far: Alexander Gadjiev, Martin Garcia Garcia, Kyohei Sorita, Aimi Kobayashi, Szymon Nehring and The Chopin Competition winner Bruce Liu.

The final livstreamed concert is with Bruce Liu on August 31 (starting 18.00 GMT)
https://festiwal.nifc.pl/en/2022/aktualnosci/250

Watch all streamed recitals from the festival here >>