81st Duszniki Zdrój International Chopin Festival , Poland. 7 - 15 August 2026 - 200th Anniversary of Fryderyk Chopin's sojourn in Duszniki-Zdrój - In addition, links to detailed reviews of fifteen past Duszniki Festival posts (2010 - 2025)

Duszniki Zdrój formerly Bad Reinerz in Silesia

The Authors Guild

A Rampart of Civilzation

Read and remember how fortunate we are to be here in the beautiful, natural rural surroundings of Duszniki Zdrój in Poland. The temperature will be mainly in the low to mid twenties and sunny ! 

In this pastoral Elysium, we will continue the intense enjoyment of the creative side of the coin of human nature, too often forgotten in the present  world of political miasma and war 

World-renowned prize-winning musicians and pianists have been assembled to play, especially the music of Fryderyk Chopin 

 

81st Duszniki-Zdrój International Chopin Festival  

7-15 August 2026

 200th Anniversary of Fryderyk Chopin's sojourn in Duszniki Zdrój

In the summer of 1826 Chopin travelled for a 'cure' to the spa village of Duszniki Zdrój, then Bad Reinertz in Silesia. Part of the way through his studies, Józef Elsner, his teacher, had recommended that Chopin ‘take the waters’ or in modern parlance  'go into rehab' not far from where Elsner was born. Originally on the Prussian-Bohemian frontier, the village is now in the south-west of Poland on the border with the Czech Republic. 

Frycek’s studies and intense partying into the small hours playing dance music during his third and final year at the Liceum had begun to affect his health. He was a bit of a 'party animal' was Frycek! In his youth he was not the melancholic consumptive of current popular myth at all. The virtuosic youthful exuberance of the concertos, rondos and variations reflect this freedom from care, reveling in his keyboard skills.

Headaches and swollen glands necessitated the application of leeches to his neck. The family doctors (there were a number of them) agreed his condition might possibly be serious. The idea gained in popularity with the Skarbeks of Żelazowa Wola (Countess Ludwika herself was suffering from tuberculosis) and three family groups set off at intervals on the arduous 450 km journey by carriage from Warsaw to Bad Reinerz over rough roads serviced by indifferent accommodation. The route they took through pine forests and agricultural land now passes through industrialized towns. Frycek arrived at Duszniki Zdrój on 3 August 1826. 

He gave two  charity concerts during his stay. Chopin was reputed to have developed an affection for a poor ‘girl of the spring’ named Libusza. One tragic day, Lisbusza’s father was crushed to death by an iron roller (perhaps in the nearby Mendelssohn iron mill) and she and her brothers were made orphans. 

In his generous way ‘Chopinek’ wanted to assist the family and his mother suggested giving a benefit recital. Despite the lack of a decent instrument he agreed and in August 1826 gave two of his first public concerts in a small hall in the town.

The longest-running international piano festival in the world with great traditions

The Dworek Chopina and the Chopin Monument in Duszniki Zdrój 
(then known as Bad Reinerz in Silesia) c. 1897

Programme Book 

Pianist Biographies 

and 

Performance Programs in Detail

(English and Polish)

https://app.box.com/s/1k1xlev1d645bve3hiim5et0g3ssuay0

One change of programme

https://festival.pl/en/programme-change-81st-festival/

Official Website: https://festival.pl/

Recital Reviews

Photographer: Damian Bochnak

Profile of the Reviewer Michael Moran : https://en.gravatar.c atom/mjcmoran#pic-0 

Reviews will be posted in reverse order of live performance (latest recital first) to save  listeners the labour of scrolling down after each recital to read the latest review

The Authors Guild

All the reviews and notes on this site are human authored

Many people have mentioned that my reviews are, in the current mnemonic, TLTR (Too Long To Read). With some reluctance I shall try to reduce the length to accommodate reading on a mobile phone which seems to be the ubiquitous technology for much of life's activities in 2026. With my conviction of the prime importance of social, historical and creational context in assessing compositions and composers prior to the performer's interpretation, I will find this length issue rather difficult to adopt but needs must I suppose.

Chopin Welcomes Us

Saturday  8.08.2026 4:00 PM

Yehuda PROKOPOWICZ

Participant in the 19th International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw; 

Winner of the Polish Radio Special Prize for the best performance of mazurkas; winner of the Polityka Passport Award 2025 in the Readers’ Passport category

8:00 PM

Alexander GAVRYLYUK

Gold Medal winner at the Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition in Tel Aviv (2005); Artist-in-Residence at Wigmore Hall in London in the 2023/24 season

Friday 7.08.2026 8:00 PM

Inaugural concert

The NFM Wrocław Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Paweł Kapuła

Felix Mendelssohn – Bartholdy (1809–1847)

The Hebrides (Fingal’s Cave), concert overture in B minor, Op. 26 (1829–1830)

Piotr ALEXEWICZ

Winner of the 5th Prize at the 19th International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw

Tianyao LYU

Winner of the 4th Prize at the 19th International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw (2025)

The Hebrides (Fingal’s Cave), concert overture in B minor, Op. 26 (1829–1830)

The untamed landscape of  Nature and violent history of Scotland inspired many artists in the Romantic nineteenth century. Mendelssohn's first visit to Scotland was in 1829. This was the period of his 'Scottish' Symphony inspired at Holyrood Chapel in Edinburgh and also for The Hebrides when he visited on the remote island of Staffa off the coast of Mull in the Hebrides.

He first conceived the idea for his final symphony during this visit to Britain in 1829. Mendelssohn set off on a walking tour of Scotland with his friend  Karl Klingemann. On 30 July, Mendelssohn visited the ruins of Holyrood Chapel at Holyrood in Edinburgh, where as he said in a letter, he received the inspiration for the symphony:

'In the deep twilight we went today to the palace where Queen Mary lived and loved...The chapel below is now roofless. Grass and ivy thrive there and at the broken altar where Mary was crowned Queen of Scotland. Everything is ruined, decayed, and the clear heavens pour in. I think I have found there the beginning of my 'Scottish' Symphony.'

A few days later Mendelssohn and his companion visited the western coast of Scotland and the island of Staffa which inspired the composition of The Hebrides Overture (Fingal's Cave). 

'A greener rush of waves surely never rushed into a stranger cavern – its many pillars making it look like the inside of an immense organ, black and resounding, absolutely without purpose, and quite alone, the wide grey sea within and without.’ Karl Klingemann’s description of Fingal’s Cave in a letter home on 10 August 1829 evokes a suitably otherworldy sense of romance. 

The work was surely inspired by the wild and rugged landscapes of the north of the British Isles.  The piece reflects the character of the Scottish landscape with its the many tempo markings. The pictorial spirit of the symphony just as one must visit the Malvern Hills to fully understand Elgar. 

The Scottish character of oceanic wave movement was magnificently presented by this orchestra under their gifted conductor Paweł Kapuła with tremendous energy and drive, floods of flowing music, inexorable forward movement of Nature in wild seascapes, crashing waves against rocks and the rugged coast that is so musically clear in say the Hebrides.  Wagner, described the work as a ‘masterpiece’ of a ‘landscape-painter of the first order’.

National Trust, Isle of Staffa, Inner Hebrides, Scotland; Thomas Pennant, Tour in Scotland and Voyage to the Hebrides in 1772, 2 vols (2nd ed., London 1776), f.p.301. ‘Fingal’s Cave in Staffa’: engraving by Thomas Major, based on a drawing by James Miller

Piotr Alexewicz

Fryderyk Chopin (1810–1849)

Piano Concerto in F Minor, Op. 21 (1829–1830)

Some important cultural context and my own views concerning the F minor Piano Concerto Op.21 before listening to the live recording reading the review

The Concerto in F minor Op. 21 is the fruit of youthful compositional spontaneity. Despite the differing opus numbers it was composed first, before the E-minor concerto Op.11. Written on the wave of Chopin's Vienna success, it gives the impression of a matter of extraordinary consistency, shaped with dramatic logic and consistency, without unnecessary dilemmas.

His E minor concerto Op.11 was successfully performed and highly acclaimed at a 'farewell' concert on 11th October 1830. This event took place only three weeks before Chopin left Warsaw on 2nd November  1830. One young singer in the performance was Konstancja Gładkowska, his distant ideal. Chopin wrote as descriptively as always: ‘Dressed becomingly in white, with roses in her hair, she sang the cavatina from [Rossini’s] La donna del lago as she had never sung anything, except for the aria in (Paer’s) Agnese. You know that “Oh, quante lagrime per te versai”. She uttered "tutto desto” to the bottom B in such a way that Zieliński (an acquaintance) held that single B to be worth a thousand ducats’.

The trunk for the journey is bought, scores corrected, handkerchiefs hemmed… Nothing left but to bid farewell, and most sadly’. Konstancja and Frycek exchanged rings. She had packed an album in which she had written the words ‘while others may better appraise and reward you, they certainly can’t love you better than we’. Only two years later, Chopin added: ‘they can’ which speaks volumes.The subsequent November 1830 saw uprising burst upon the city. ‘

An introductory book on the concertos and their context I cannot recommend more highly: 

Chopin - The Piano Concertos by the jury member John Rink 

(Cambridge Music Handbooks 1997)

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

The fascinating document below is  extracted from 

Friederike Müller: Letters from Paris 1839–1845

It is an account of Chopin's teaching and surroundings in the light of the correspondence of his favorite student Friederike Müller

(Presently only published in Polish by the Fryderyk Chopin Institute, Warsaw, 2022)

Please excuse the solecisms in translation as it involves French, German, Polish and English !

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Friederike Müller was one of Chopin’s favourite and most talented pupils. In 231 letters written to her aunts in Vienna, gives detailed accounts of her life in Paris. She writes (sometimes in highly critical terms) about artists, concerts, pianos and musical novelties, sketching out, in a way that is filled with youthful wit and temperament, a remarkably vivid picture of Parisian musical and social life in the early 1840s.

Above all, however, she gives vivid and detailed descriptions of nearly every one of the 70 or so lessons she had with Chopin and quotes verbatim many of the conversations she had with him. Therein lies the extraordinary character of this material: this is not an account given a long time after, like the testimonies of other pupils, often based on recollections seen in a better light; it is one that conveys her immediate, fresh and unembellished experiences.

Her remarks concerning Chopin's lessons on the solo version of the F minor concerto have particular significance for any executant of this demanding work.

Fryderyk Chopin observed of his Concerto in F minor Op.21:

'There are people with whom studying this is impossible for me'

Dear Aunt Sophie, please pray that Chopin might remain healthy, kind and contented with me. I want to work with all my soul, head and heart, then everything will turn out well’ (from a letter to Sophie Müller of 30–31 August 1840)

'The concerto in F minor is wonderful [...]. The Adagio is sublime! And thanks to its kindness, I will be able to play it in full sound even without an orchestra. Lately, I said that choosing between his two Concertos is painful for me. One is worth the other - he said - and both are worthless. And I assure Aunt that he not only says so, but he really thinks so.'

Letter from Friederike Müller, dated Paris, Sunday, November 1, 1840.

We have the comfort that we can disagree with Chopin about the assessment of his piano concertos. Refusing them value, we would deprive ourselves of the most beautiful pages of music from the first half of the 19th century.

However, the dilemma of his students - also our privilege - can be resolved in favor of the Concerto in F minor op. 21, using a quote from Schumann: 'the second concerto, which we all together barely reach, we can only kiss its edge.'

He wrote these words in 1836, already after the publication of the work, accompanied by a dedication 'to Countess Delfina Potocka née de Komar'. It is symptomatic that six years after the completion of the Concerto there is no trace of the youthful fascination in it, of which Chopin confessed in letters to Tytus Woyciechowski. Later biographies are attached to this thread like a burr... The 'Ideal' (that is, the unfortunate Konstancja Gładkowska), which Fryderyk dreamed of for half a year, 'for which Adagio was erected' (Chopin always titled the Larghetto 'Adagio'), passed with the wind from Warsaw and never returned. But the Concerto in F minor - the quintessence of romantic virtuosity and emotional lightness, the embodiment of beauty - remained.

Its premiere took place on March 17, 1830, at the National Theatre. An anonymous reviewer (probably Wojciech Grzymała) in Kurier Polski summed up the mastery of the work: 'In addition to originality, beautiful singing, great and bold passages applied to the nature of the instrument, decorated in vivid colors of feeling and fire, finally, the combination of all this into one whole, constitute the main feature of his composition.' The extraordinary work, practically without precedent, entered not only Polish but also European piano literature.

The Concerto in F minor op. 21 is the fruit of youthful compositional spontaneity. Written on the wave of Vienna success, it gives the impression of a matter of extraordinary consistency, shaped with dramatic logic and consistency, without unnecessary dilemmas. 

Chopin juxtaposed the classical, three-part form with contrasting and complementing elements: a sonata-like Allegro (Maestoso), captured in the form of a Larghetto song, and a dance-like rondo. If the theme of the first part was marked with seriousness, it is far from tragedy, although the main key would suggest such an affect. The third part (Allegro vivace), although not afraid of sentimentality, predominantly emanates joyful playfulness, fixed in the cheerful F major key.

The essence of the Concerto in F minor, however, is its central part - almost unearthly, poeticized - the culmination of emotions and feelings. Chopin offers the listener a certain programme - first leading him astray, 'lulling' him with idyllic, nocturnal moods, tempting him with cantilena fiorituras and rocking rhythms. Therefore, with incredible energy, a recitative melody explodes against the background of tremolando - in this culmination there is everything, including ecstasy. And then, as if nothing had happened, the music returns to the dreamy, initial aura. The Larghetto was enthusiastically received already during the first performance and to this day belongs to the most brilliant pages of European romanticism. Liszt saw in it 'ideal perfection'.

On Saturday and Sunday (October 31 - November 1, 1840), Friederike Müller wrote a letter to 'dear, good Aunt Lotte'. At Tuesday's lesson, she played the Concerto in F entirely by heart.

Chopin was pleasantly surprised by this. He commented: 'How is it, do you already play it by heart? [...] so let's start, but everything, even tutti. I played it. I'm sorry, but that's not what it's about - he said - you play it like a solo, and I want to hear the orchestra as best as possible; this is a completely different style - I will try to play it for you. Saying this, he played tutti for me, accentuating just like an orchestra'.

A week later, on November 7, 1840, 'dear, good Aunt Sopherl' reported on the course of the next, Thursday's lesson: "Oh, let's take my Adagio right away - he announced, so I started playing it. I accompanied the recitative according to the score with my left hand and fortunately Chopin liked it, but he changed a few places. Then I played those places one by one, imitating him. I have never taught this way and I don't want to show it to anyone. Only you will be able to play this Adagio in my way. [...] - You see - said Chopin - there are people with whom studying this is impossible for me. If you don't understand me completely, that's it. There are still those who simply play me the notes, and those who manage to grasp some sense. I listen to them, but I would like to finally show you all the subtleties of the style, so that you convey my thought as I conceived it, and that pleases me".

Friederike must have been extremely happy to hear such compliments from her beloved teacher. And we have evidence that the Concerto in F minor op. 21 functioned in Chopin's pedagogical practice and, importantly, was played in its entirety in the solo version.

The printed edition from 1836 was arranged so that the entire musical content of the work was placed on two staves (in the classical notation layout) - both all orchestral tutti (reduced) and the solo part, highlighted with a different font. The verbal markings tutti and solo introduced additional structural-formal divisions. In the most important places, the parts of wind instruments were also indicated. Friederike must have used such an edition. 

Chopin, in one of the copies of the Concerto in F minor, belonging to Jane Stirling, proposed his own version of the accompaniment in the middle section of the second part (mm. 45-72) for use in solo performances. It is interesting to what extent it differed from what Friederike suggested on Thursday, November 5, 1840, in Paris...

Piotr Alexewicz's Maestoso opening was expressive with a fine sense of  melodic meaning, forward momentum and Chopinesque structure. I felt however he  could have given his personalty more communicative abandonment a la Hummel in the expressive, exuberant  episodes written by this intense excitable young composer, a spirit reveling in his keyboard genius. 

There was an increasing close cooperation between conductor and soloist. I felt however much of the dynamic spirit of Mendelssohn had been transferred to Chopin's orchestration with mixed results. In this work, I always adored the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century under the sadly departed Franz Brüggen. He always indicated the flowering of the romantic temperament rather than its full blooded, already formed, dynamic.The chamber versions for piano quintet are also deeply seductive. 

His  Larghetto was moderate in sentiment, however tempting it was to indulge youthful emotion- almost impossible to resist with one of the greatest love songs ever written. I felt in Chopin's thoughtful harmonic structure the rising shadows of rejection as grim reality began to lightly strike the surface of the composer's lyrical dreamworld. The almost perfumed atmosphere of Eden's garden of love could have been rather more 'poetic' but this is possibly my age and experience as my own dreams of illusioned youth fade. 

The Allegro vivace  was energetically and attractively phrased. I am always put in mind of expressive arabesques played across fields of dancing sunflowers. The hunting call on the French horn, the cor de chasse, could have been more rousing and idomiatic but who has the forbidden hunting experience these days? I always find this such an inspiring interpolation by Chopin given his life experience outdoors in those early days before the innumerable distractions of social media. 

Alexewicz with his brilliant finger technique brought some winning style brillant and electricity and what I like to call 'emotional spice' to conclusion of the movement. 

Hopefully after such a fine, coherent performance a true 'voice' characteristically marking the personality of this pianist will emerge.

His encore was a most charming rendition of the rarely performed Respighi Valse caressante.

Piotr Alexewicz and the conductor Paweł Kapuła

 INTERMISSION

Tianyao Lyu

Fryderyk Chopin (1810–1849)

Piano Concerto in E Minor, Op. 11 (1830)

In many ways the E minor concerto revolves around the exalted Romanze. Larghetto central movement. He elucidated its inspiration to his friend Tytus Woyciechowski: ‘Involuntarily, something has entered my head through my eyes and I like to caress it’. 

The limpid, untroubled and joyful nature of the early polonaises, mazurkas, rondos, sets of variations on Polish themes and piano concertos were written in the virtuosic style brillant fashionable in Warsaw. Now decidedly, from what we hear from Lyu tonight and during the Chopin competition, a style returning to fashion especially with Asian pianists, a style  characterized by lightness, delicacy, charm, sonority, purity, precision and a rippling execution resembling pearls – le son perlé. These works could only have been composed in a state of happiness and youthful ‘sweet sorrows’ living in Chopin's native land. Experience will enable her to express the Romanze with a deeper, more soulful poetry of illusions.

He was clearly still emotionally preoccupied with the idealized young singer Konstancja Gładowska. ‘Little is wanting in Gładkowska’s singing’, he wrote to his friend following her performance in the Italian Ferdinando Paer’s opera Agnese, ‘She is better on stage that in a hall. I shall say nothing of her excellent tragic acting, as nothing need be said, whilst as for her singing, were it not for the F sharp and G, sometimes too high, we should need nothing better’. In the same letter written to Tytus in May 1830, Chopin describes the nature of the pivotal movement of this work. ‘The Adagio for the new concerto is in E major. It is not intended to be powerful, it is more romance-like, calm, melancholic, it should give the impression of a pleasant glance at a place where a thousand fond memories come to mind.’  I felt 

One cannot help wondering about the source of these 'fond memories' and imagining the romantic nature and occurrences that may have given rise to them. Yet this limpid music of extraordinary inspiration has a far greater resonance than an adolescent infatuation.

The Warsaw premiere audience numbered around 700.  ‘Yesterday’s concert was a success’, wrote Chopin on 12 October 1830 to Tytus ‘A full house!’  Two young female singers also performed at the concert conducted by that controversial figure in Warsaw musical life, Carlo Soliva. Contemporary programming was unimaginably different to 2021. After the Allegro had been played to ‘a thunderous ovation’, Chopin sacrificed the stage to a singer [‘dressed like an angel, in blue’], Anna Wołkow. Typical of the pressing personality of Soliva, she sang an aria he had composed.

The other young singer was Konstancja Gładkowska. Chopin wrote as descriptively as always: ‘Dressed becomingly in white, with roses in her hair, she sang the cavatina from [Rossini’s] La donna del lago as she had never sung anything, except for the aria in (Paer’s) Agnese. You know that “Oh, quante lagrime per te versai”. She uttered "tutto desto” to the bottom B in such a way that Zieliński (an acquaintance) held that single B to be worth a thousand ducats’.

This 'farewell' concert was only three weeks before Chopin left Warsaw and the subsequent November 1830 uprising burst upon the city. ‘The trunk for the journey is bought, scores corrected, handkerchiefs hemmed… Nothing left but to bid farewell, and most sadly’. Konstancja and Frycek exchanged rings. She had packed an album in which she had written the words ‘while others may better appraise and reward you, they certainly can’t love you better than we’. Only two years later, Chopin added: ‘they can’ which speaks volumes.

An introductory book on the concertos and their context I cannot recommend more highly: 

Chopin - The Piano Concertos by the Chopin Competition jury member 

John Rink 

(Cambridge Music Handbooks 1997)

Born in China in 2008, Tianyao Lyu began her musical education at the Middle School affiliated with the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, where she studied in the class of Hua Chang. She now continues her studies at the Ignacy Jan Paderewski Academy of Music in Poznań under  Professor Katarzyna Popowa-Zydroń.

Despite her young age, she is a laureate of numerous prestigious piano competitions. In 2024, she won the Grand Prix at the 31st International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition for Children and Youth in Szafarnia and the Ettlingen International Piano Competition. 

The following year brought a remarkable triumph, namely the Fourth Prize as well as the Warsaw Philharmonic Award for the best performance of a Concerto at the 19th International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw. (NOSPR note)

I attended all her competition performances and some of my notes apply to tonight's performance and are presented as my unapologetic reflections written at that time. In this rare case, they are not the 'emotions recollected in tranquility' defining 'Poetry' by William Wordsworth in his Preface to the Lyrical Ballads of 1800. All were my immediate feelings at the time and last night.

Here is that rare creature, a pianist who possesses the quality of closely listening to herself. She is highly sensitive to the textural beauty of the sound she produces. The great pedagogue Heinrich Neuhaus famously asserted that "music is a tonal art". His legacy lives on through his renowned book The Art of Piano Playing (published in English in 1973), which remains a foundational pedagogical treatise on interpretation and tone production. Neuhaus (and Chopin also) prioritized tone production as the first and foremost task of any pianist. Lyu realizes this rare yet vital point....

Allegro maestoso

Romance. Larghetto

Rondo vivace

This glistening Rondo, played by Lyu, dazzled us with virtuosity and Parisian bon goût. Her phrasing had a miraculous natural musicality like fluent speech, a variety of the miracle of humanity. Such expressively aristocratic élan, elegance and style. She brought just the right amount of period affectation to the work in glorious style brillante tone and rhythm.

This prodigious young pianist has a great future opening ahead in a glorious musical landscape.

Tianyao Lyu

                             

The concert concluded with a rousing version of the profoundly Polish birthday song Sto lat (another hundred years of life!) performed by the orchestra and both soloists squeezed delightfully onto one piano stool. The music of Chopin will surely outlive us all, gilding any conceived future of human life!

Sunday 9.08.2026 4:00 PM

Jakub KUSZLIK

Winner of the 4th Prize and the Special Prize for the best performance of mazurkas at the 18th International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw (2021)

8:00 PM

Shiori KUWAHARA

Laureate of the Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition in Brussels (2025); winner of the 4th Prize at the 19th International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw

Monday 10.08.2026 4:00 PM

Saehyun KIM

Winner of the 1st Prize at the Marguerite Long–Jacques Thibaud International Competition in Paris (2025)

8:00 PM

Alexander KOBRIN

Winner of the 3rd Prize at the 14th International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw (2000)

Tuesday 11.08.2026 4:00 PM

Hyo LEE

Winner of the 3rd Prize at the 12th International Competition Arthur Rubinstein in Memoriam, Bydgoszcz (2021)

Hyuk LEE

Finalist of the 18th International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw (2021)

9:00 PM

NOKTURN

Host: Marcin MAJCHROWSKI

Wednesday 12.08.2026 4:00 PM

Tomoharu USHIDA

Second Prize Laureate of the Hamamatsu International Piano Competition

Recipient of the Audience Prize at the Leeds International Piano Competition

Participant in the 19th International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw (2025)

8:00 PM

Eric LU

Winner of the 19th International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw (2025)

Thursday 13.08.2026 4:00 PM

David KHRIKULI

Winner of the 1st Prize at the International Piano Competition in Cantù (Italy, 2024); also winner and Audience Prize recipient at the International Piano Competition in Vigo (Spain, 2024)

8:00 PM

Kevin CHEN

Winner of the 1st Prize at the Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition in Tel Aviv; the Geneva International Music Competition (2022); and the International Franz Liszt Piano Competition in Budapest (2021).

Winner of the 2nd Prize at the 19th International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw (2025)

Friday 14.08.2026 4:00 PM

Nikola MEEUWESEN

Winner of the 1st Prize at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels (2025)

8:00 PM

Zitong WANG

Winner of the 3rd Prize at the 19th International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw (2025)

Saturday 15.08.2025       4:00 PM

Hyunjin ROH

Winner of the 1st Prize at the 13th International Ignacy Jan Paderewski Piano Competition in Bydgoszcz (2025)

8:00 PM

Final concert

Yulianna AVDEEVA

Winner of the 16th International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw (2010)

25th Jubilee National Piano Masterclass in Duszniki-Zdrój

7, 9, 10, 11 August 2026 – Prof. Alexander GAVRYLYUK

12–15 August 2026 – Prof. Alexander KOBRIN

The book of the festival in both English and Polish has detailed artists' biographies and detailed programs plus interesting essays on Chopin and quotations from his letters

The Chopin Manor where the recitals take place

Past Duszniki-Zdrój International Chopin Festival Reviews 2010 - 2025

The 80th Duszniki-Zdrój International Chopin Festival  1 - 9 August 2025

http://www.michael-moran.com/2025/07/duszniki-zdroj-international-chopin.html

The 79th Duszniki-Zdrój International Chopin Festival  2-10 August 2024

http://www.michael-moran.com/2024/08/79th-duszniki-international-chopin.html

The 78th Duszniki-Zdrój International Chopin Festival 4-12 August 2023 

http://www.michael-moran.com/2023/07/78th-international-chopin-festival-in.html

The 77th Duszniki-Zdrój International Chopin Festival 5-13 August 2022

http://www.michael-moran.com/2022/07/77th-duszniki-zdroj-international-piano.html

The 76th Duszniki-Zdrój International Chopin Festival 6-14 August 2021

http://www.michael-moran.com/2021/07/76th-international-chopin-festival-in.html

The 75th Duszniki-Zdroj International Chopin Piano Festival 2020

http://www.michael-moran.com/2020/07/75th-duszniki-zdroj-international.html

The 74th Duszniki-Zdroj International Chopin Piano Festival 2019

http://www.michael-moran.com/2019/07/74th-duszniki-zdroj-international.html

The 73rd Duszniki-Zdroj International Chopin Piano Festival 2018

http://www.michael-moran.com/2018/07/73rd-international-chopin-piano.html

The 72nd Duszniki Zdroj International Chopin Piano Festival 2017

http://www.michael-moran.com/2017/07/72nd-international-chopin-piano.html

The 71st Duszniki-Zdroj International Chopin Piano Festival 2016

http://www.michael-moran.com/2016/07/71stinternational-chopin-piano-festival.html

The 70th Duszniki-Zdroj International Chopin Piano Festival 2015

http://www.michael-moran.com/2015/07/70th-international-chopin-piano.html

The 69th Duszniki-Zdroj International Chopin Piano Festival 2014  

http://www.michael-moran.com/2014/07/69th-duszniki-zdroj-chopin-festival.html

The 68th Duszniki Zdroj International Chopin Piano Festival 2013
http://www.michael-moran.com/2013/07/68th-international-chopin-piano.html

The 67th Duszniki-Zdroj International Chopin Piano Festival 2012

http://www.michael-moran.com/2012/07/67th-duszniki-zdroj-international.html 

The 66th. Duszniki-Zdroj International Chopin Piano Festival 2011
http://www.michael-moran.com/2011/08/66th-duszniki-zdroj-international.html

The 65th. Duszniki-Zdroj International Chopin Piano Festival 2010
http://www.michael-moran.com/2010/08/65th-duszniki-zdroj-international.html

A modicum of the 'ancient' history of Duszniki Zdrój

Part of the way through his studies Joseph Elsner recommended that Chopin ‘take the waters’ or 'go into rehab' not far from where Elsner was born in the small Silesian spa of Bad Reinerz (now Duszniki Zdrój). Originally on the Prussian-Bohemian frontier, the village is now in the south-west of Poland on the border with the Czech Republic. 

Frycek’s studies and intense partying into the small hours during his third and final year at the Liceum had begun to affect his health. He was a bit of a 'party animal' was Frycek! In his youth he was not the melancholic consumptive of popular myth at all. The virtuosic youthful exuberance of the concertos, rondos and variations reflect this freedom from care.

Headaches and swollen glands necessitated the application of leeches to his neck. The family doctors (there were a number) agreed his condition might possibly be serious. The idea gained in popularity with the Skarbeks of Żelazowa Wola (Countess Ludwika herself was suffering from tuberculosis) and three family groups set off at intervals on the arduous 450 km journey by carriage from Warsaw to Bad Reinerz over rough roads serviced by indifferent accommodation. The route they took through pine forests and agricultural country now passes through industrialized towns.

Frycek arrived at Duszniki Zdrój on 3 August 1826 spending a day en route at Antonin in the honey-coloured timber hunting lodge of Prince Antoni Radziwiłł, respected scion of one of the wealthiest Polish magnate families. He was a fine cellist, composer and singer. This delightful octagonal lodge is built in a beautiful region of forests and lakes.

The Radziwill Hunting Lodge at Antonin

On a later visit he wrote ‘There were two young Eves in this paradise, the exceptionally courteous and good princesses, both musical and sensitive beings.’ Of Wanda Radziwiłł   ‘She was young, 17 years old, and truly pretty, and it was so nice to put her little fingers on the right notes.’ While a guest Chopin wrote a Polonaise for piano and cello - ‘brilliant passages, for the salon, for the ladies’.

Chopin sketched by Eliza Radziwill at Antonin en route to Duszniki Zdroj 1826.

Duszniki as a treatment centre has not greatly changed. Tuberculosis has however thankfully disappeared. The Spa Park and the town nestle in the peaceful mountain river valley of the tumbling Bystrzyca Dusznicka. Fresh pine woods flourish on the slopes and the moist micro-climate is wonderfully refreshing. Carefully stepping invalids negotiate the shaded walks that radiate across the park between flowering shrubs, fountains and lawns.

                                                 

               

                                                                                     The Spa Park at Duszniki Zdrój

Many famous artists visited Duszniki in the nineteenth century including the composer Felix Mendelssohn. In times past the regimented cures began at the ungodly hour of 6 a.m. when people gathered at the well heads. The waters at the Lau-Brunn (now the Pienawa Chopina or Chopin’s Spa) were dispensed by girls with jugs fastened to the ends of poles who also distributed gingerbread to take away the horrible taste (not surprisingly it was considered injurious to lean towards the spring and breathe in the carbon dioxide and methane exhalations).

In a possibly apochryphal story, Chopin was reputed to have developed an affection for a poor ‘girl of the spring’ named Libusza. One tragic day Lisbusza’s father was crushed to death by an iron roller (perhaps in the nearby Mendelssohn iron mill) and she and her brothers were made orphans. Most likely it was a charity concert for the orphaned children after the loss of their father to illness. In his generous way ‘Chopinek’ or 'Frycek' to his family (an affectionate Polish diminutive of his name) wanted to assist the family and his mother suggested giving a benefit recital. Despite the lack of a decent instrument he agreed and in August 1826 gave two of his first public concerts in a small hall in the town. 

Since 1946 this event has been celebrated every August in a week-long International Chopin Piano Festival, the oldest piano music festival in Poland and indeed the world. I have made a point of attending it as often as I can. An original building near where he played has been converted into the charming Dworek Chopina, an intimate concert room. Many of the finest pianists in the world, established artists and even child prodigies including past winners of the always controversial Fryderyk Chopin International Piano Competition have appeared in these Elysian surroundings.

The Duszniki festival attempts to maintain the intimate nature of the salon and the piano music is not restricted to Chopin. During the day there is time to walk in the peace of the surrounding pine-clad mountains, ‘take the waters’ if you dare or visit splendid castles in the nearby Czech lands. Eccentric characters regularly appear there: the ‘Texan’ Pole who wears cowboy boots, Florida belts and Stetson hats of leopard-skin or enameled in blue, maroon or green. ‘I jus’ love it here but I jus’ hate that goddam music!’ (recitals are broadcast through loudspeakers over the Spa Park); the ethereal girl with the swan neck who seems to have stepped directly from a fête galant by Antoine Watteau; an elderly musician with long grey hair and wearing a voluminous silk cravat materializes and then disappears. 

Sviatoslav Richter (far left) on the steps of the Dworek Chopina 

at the 

1965 Duszniki Zdroj Festival

In the past I have experienced many remarkable musical moments at Duszniki. Grigory Sokolov, arguably the greatest living pianist, gave a magisterial performance of that radical composition the Chopin Polonaise-Fantasie. He profoundly recreated the tragic instability of Chopin’s disintegrating world during his final years. The Ukrainian pianist Alexander Gavrylyuk returned to the piano after an horrific car accident that threatened to leave him permanently incapacitated. He has gone on to great things internationally. His theatrical temperament, musical passion and truly astounding virtuosity never fail to astonish.

The soulful young Russian Igor Levit is deeply involved with the music of Schumann. He movingly reminded the audience of the genesis of the Geistervariationen (Ghost Variations) written when the composer was on the brink of suicide in a mental institution. After completing the final variation Schumann fell forever silent. The great Liszt super-virtuoso Janina Fialkowska, a true inheritor of the nineteenth century late Romantic school of pianism, courageously returned to the platform here after her career was brought to a dramatic and terrifying halt by the discovery of a tumour in her left arm. Daniil Trifonov utterly possessed by the spirit of Mephistopheles in the greatest performance of the Liszt Mephisto Waltz No:1 I have ever heard. The moments continue...

One remarkable late evening event of the festival is called Nokturn and takes place by candlelight. The audience in evening dress are seated at candlelit tables with wine. A learned Polish professor and Chopin specialist such as the wonderful Polish musicologist Professor Irena Poniatowska might draw our attention to this or that ‘deep’ musical aspect of the Chopin Preludes or perhaps the influence of Mozart on the composer. Sometimes it is a famous actor, music critic, or journalist. The pianists ‘illustrate’ and perform on Steinways atmospherically lit by flickering candelabra.

In spite of the immense popularity of Chopin, this festival manages to recapture the essentially private and esoteric experience of his music, an experience one might consider had been lost forever.

I will be keeping my detailed blog of the pianists as I normally do for this unique festival. I always keenly anticipate coming to the small Polish spa town. One can walk in the morning in the invigorating pine-forested mountains of the former Silesian spa Bad Reinerz or attend a Master Class followed by a late afternoon and evening recital. Of course each day one approaches in trepidation the Chopin Spring to take the smelly waters with a draught from the traditional spouted ceramic drinking cup.

The festival offers one rare moments of bliss and oblivion to escape the constant news of the unhinged, economically fraught and increasingly brutal violence and political trauma in this world of ours. Now the pandemic...

Detail from the wall decoration of the remarkable 17th century paper mill that survives in Duszniki Zdroj. This building is unique in Europe. It is a fascinating place to visit.

Introduction to the History of the Festival 

by 

The much missed Polish musicologist, academic, music critic, music journalist and essayist who died on 25 March 2019 

Stanisław Dybowski

When, in 1946, Ignacy Potocki, a co-founder of the Lower Silesian Health Resorts, proposed that a music festival named after Frédéric Chopin be held in Duszniki-Zdrój, nobody thought that that annual event would continue for the next seventy-one years. It has, indeed, continued without interruptions until today, rendering famous the name of the Polish genius and his music, as well as the health resort, at the same time enlarging the output of the global musical culture. 

It all started very modestly, amid still strong memories of World War II that had ended only a year before. The two-day Chopin celebration was inaugurated with a solemn ceremony (25 August), during which a plaque commemorating Frédéric Chopin’s stay at the resort was un- veiled, followed by a recital by one of the greatest Polish female piano players, a magnificent Chopin expert, Zofia Rabcewiczowa (1870– 1947). In the interval during her concert Paulina Czernicka familiarised the present with the content of unknown letters sent by Chopin to Delfina Potocka, which twenty years later turned out to be … apocrypha. On the next day (26 August), at the concert hall of the Spa House, the audience listened to a performance by Henryk Sztompka (1901–1964), also one of the foremost Chopin experts. At the time Duszniki-Zdrój witnessed an encounter between two heirs of the great traditions of Ignacy Jan Paderewski (Sztompka) and Antoni Rubinstein (Rabcewiczowa). They performed exclusively compositions by the patron of the 1st festival. Interpretations of both pianists, including those, among other works, Sonata in H minor and selected études (Rabcewiczowa), as well as mazurkas, preludes and nocturnes (Sztompka), are now part of Chopin performance history. Those present at the concerts claim that they have never heard those works performed better… 

Initially, the festival programme included only Chopin’s music performed by Polish artists. With time, however, the repertoire began to be extended with works by other Polish composers of Chopin’s period. Gradually, in subsequent years, pieces by foreign artists were added and the performers began to include laureates, and then participants, of the International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw. Thus, the event was becoming a forum of the world piano performance. For many artists, even those renowned, performing Chopin’s music on the Duszniki-Zdrój stage is an important point in their musical career. 

The event has witnessed concerts by the greatest piano masters. The already dead ones include legendary Raul Koczalski, Witold Małcużyński, Stefan Askenazy, Władysław Kędra, Paweł Lewiecki, Stanisław Szpinalski, Zbigniew Drzewiecki, Jan Ekier, Halina Czerny-Stefańska, Regina Smendzianka, Zbigniew Szymonowicz, Barbara Hesse-Bukowska, Jerzy Lefeld, Klara Langer-Danecka, Tadeusz Żmudziński, Miłosz Magin and others, while the foreign ones  e.g. Louis Kentner, František Rauch, Malcolm Frager and Stanislav Neuhaus. Many have made their debut in Duszniki-Zdrój, where they embarked on their international careers, including Adam Harasiewicz, Piotr Paleczny, Janusz Olejniczak, Krystian Zimerman, Ewa Pobłocka or Wojciech Świtała. It is with great sentiment that we remember, until today, the magnificent recitals by Paul Badura-Skoda, Michael Ponti, Joaquin Achucarro, Philippe Entremont, Dang Thai Son, Fou Ts’ong, Eugen Indjic, Cyprien Katsaris, Christian Zacharias and Kevin Kenner, among others. It was also here that the Festival’s artistic director, Piotr Paleczny, had his great successes. 

Today the International Chopin Piano Festival in Duszniki-Zdrój is the world’s oldest Chopin festival and oldest piano festival. The originally modest event dedicated to Chopin has, after years of beautiful development, become a unique occasion. It is very often the centre of the world piano art, a place where aesthetical canons in music are built, performance trends are created and artistic careers are launched. 

Since 1993, i.e. the 48th Festival, the artistic supervision over the event is exercised by Professor Piotr Paleczny, who himself comes from a beautiful Chopin tradition. 

As is well known, Chopin’s favourite student was Karol Mikuli (1819–1897), whose outstanding pupils included Aleksander Michałowski (1851–1938). Aleksander Michałowski was, in turn, a professor of Stefania Allina (1895–1988), who taught Piotr Paleczny… 

The Chopin tradition does not end with Paleczny though. It is now continued by his students, who win prizes at international competitions and music reviews, and is further developed by the festival that it shapes. In Duszniki-Zdrój we have the opportunity to meet the most brilliant young pianists from around the world and, at the same time, experience the art of famous performers, whose names give prominence to every festival. It is often here that music lovers are able to listen to a laureate of an international piano competition that was concluded only a few days earlier!

The characteristic feature of Duszniki-Zdrój concerts is their high level and varied programme. Although Chopin’s music remains the core of the repertoire, it is supplemented with works by other composers, creating in various styles and various periods of history. Some pieces may be heard several times, which provides an excellent opportunity to compare their interpretations, ways in which the same text has been read, demonstrations of hitherto undiscovered layers in music… Even though piano music is still the main feature in Duszniki-Zdrój, Chopin’s chamber pieces are not neglected by Piotr Paleczny. Therefore, we are able to listen to his songs, cello works, a piano trio and transcriptions by various authors of the composer’s brilliant works.

A beautiful tradition, initiated by Paleczny, are open lectures and talks on Chopin’s piano art, delivered by outstanding Chopin experts and piano performance researchers, as well as master interpretation classes for selected, talented young musicians, conducted by world-re- nowned professors and famous pianists.

At the beginning of August every year Duszniki-Zdrój becomes the Chopin centre, attracting music lovers from around the world, young musicians, music critics, art critics and all those who care about Chopin. The multilingual noise in Spa Park clearly indicates where Chopin is being celebrated and where his beloved instrument is being played…

Felix Mendelssohn at Duszniki Zdrój 1823

I often walk to to what is now the rehabilitation centre of Stalowy Zdrój on the outskirts of Duszniki and familiarize myself with the Felix Mendelssohn connections with the spa.

The iron ore deposits of what was known as Bad Reinerz (now Duszniki Zdroj) and its surroundings have been exploited since the beginning of the 15th century. Protestant miners emigrated here during the religious turmoil of the Thirty Years War when mining was established at the end of the 17th century. A molten iron and a hammer mill was established in 1822 by Nathan Mendelssohn (an instrument maker). With his brother Joseph Mendelssohn's financial help he revived the mining industry. I have often wondered if it was at this mill that the the tragedy occurred for which Chopin gave his charity concert.

Joseph was a successful banker as well as being another uncle of the composer Felix Mendelssohn. The Mendelssohns were a wealthy and well-established Jewish family. However the iron company had no lasting success because of severe flood damage in 1827 and 1829. Nathan Mendelssohn abandoned the operation at the end of 1829. 

Felix Mendelssohn came to stay with his uncles in Duszniki in 1823 three years prior to Chopin's stay. A concert was held in Duszniki in which the main protagonist was the fourteen-year-old Mendelssohn. The young pianist did without the accompaniment of the semi-amateur ensemble that normally performed and decided to improvise solo on themes from Mozart and Weber to great acclaim.

I will leave you with some photographs of buildings still standing that resulted from my initial explorations.

The house stayed in by Felix Mendelssohn at Duszniki Zdroj in 1823

The commemorative plaque on the house