Chopin and His Europe Festival (Chopin i jego Europa Festival ) Warsaw, Poland 20 August - 6 September 2025

 

'Begin with Bach'

We begin and end this year's 'Chopin and his Europe' Festival with Bach. The brilliant composer, who occupies a very important place in the Chopin universe, will also be present in an important, sometimes in an unobtrusive way, on each day of the festival events.

The programme of this year's Festival is created with the intention of presenting Chopin's works in a multifaceted context of music from Bach to Lutosławski. The 29 concerts will be filled with Polish and European music in the interpretations of traditionally two stylistic trends: contemporary and historically informed.

An important aspect will therefore be historically informed performance, represented in 2025 by soloists and ensembles with well-deserved reputations; performances will include: 

Dmitry Ablogin, laureate of the 1st International Chopin Competition on Historical Instruments with the Freiburger Barockorchester (with both Chopin concertos), Giovanni Antonini's Il Giardino Armonico (Felix Janiewicz's Violin Concerto No. 5 interpreted by Alena Baeva), a leading Polish ensemble of this performance style: Martyna Pastuszka's {oh!} Orchestra (with Felix Janiewicz's Violin Concerto No. 4, interpreted by Chouchane Siranossian, and Beethoven's Piano Concerto in B-flat major, performed by Tomasz Ritter, winner of the First Chopin Competition on Historical Instruments). 

We will also hear, after a long break, Concerto Köln with a particularly interesting juxtaposition: Janiewicz's Third Concerto in violin (with Evgeny Sviridov) and piano version, commissioned by the Institute and presented for the first time (with Tomasz Ritter). 

Martin Nöbauer, a young pianist with an interesting personality, finalist of the 2nd Chopin Competition on Historical Instruments, will play his debut recital at the Festival. 

A special place in the programme – which is a kind of reference to the 20th Festival – is occupied by two Bach recitals by Władysław Kłosiewicz, who will perform both volumes of Bach's Das Wohltemperierte Klavier on the harpsichord. This unique work, so important in Chopin's teaching practice, found its continuation in Shostakovich's Preludes and Fugues, arranged analogously to the Bach cycle in two volumes. Yulianna Avdeeva will present them at the festival in two recitals, creating an interesting context of creator-participant (it is worth remembering that Shostakovich took part in the First International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition in 1927) and performer-winner.

'Chopin and his Europe' is pianism of the highest order; the year of the Chopin Competition will see its triumphs: alongside Yulianna Avdeeva (three times, including a very special chamber programme with Krzysztof Chorzelski dedicated to Andrzej Tchaikovsky), Bruce Liu will play with the Apollon Musagète Quartet (including Schubert and Mozart), Dang Thai Son and the young Sophia Liu will play both Chopin concertos with Marek Moś's Aukso Orchestra; with this ensemble, Kyohei Sorita and Aimi Kobayashi will perform Mozart's Concerto for Two Pianos (the same concert will feature the first performance of Lutosławski's Partita in the version for cello, interpreted by Andrzej Bauer); in recitals, we will hear Kate Liu, Eric Lu, Ivo Pogorelic (in a programme including Bach and Chopin) and Ingrid Fliter (Chopin recital).

There will also be many virtuosos not associated with the Competition, notably Ukrainian pianist Vadym Kholodenko, who will perform Karol Szymanowski's Fourth Symphonie concertante and Ravel's Concerto for the Left Hand with Sinfonia Varsovia under Bassem Akiki; Benjamin Grosvenor will give a recital (including Schumann's Fantasia in C Major) and Piotr Anderszewski will give a Brahms recital.

The space of sophisticated chamber music will be rounded off by the Hagen Quartet with Mao Fujita, making its festival debut (in a programme featuring Brahms and Shostakovich), and the resident quartet Belcea (another interestingly formatted programme featuring works by Mendelssohn, Mozart and Dvořák's Piano Quintet in A Major – with Alexander Melnikov).

The festival will open, as has been the tradition for several years now, with a violin recital by Fabio Biondi at the Basilica of the Holy Cross, an honourable, symbolic gesture by this great artist whose contribution to the promotion of Polish music in the world cannot be overestimated. The series of festival concerts will close with a recital – also in the Holy Cross Basilica and also Bach – by the eminent Belgian cello virtuoso, Roel Dieltiens.

An important element of the Festival will be the presentation of the Polish participants in the forthcoming Chopin Competition: as in the case of the previous edition of the Competition, five recitals with the participation of 10 pianists are planned in the Basilica of the Holy Cross; these concerts are organised in cooperation with the Mazovian Institute of Culture. 

Traditionally, selected concerts will be available for streaming online on the YouTube channel of the Fryderyk Chopin Institute, as well as in broadcasts and rebroadcasts on Polish Radio 2. Closer to the date of the Festival, we will provide information on the broadcasting schedule.

The full detailed programme of the festival is available here

https://festiwal.nifc.pl/en/2025/kalendarium/