© Protected - Selected Classical Music in Poland and the Europe of Chopin - Reviewer's Notebook

The 65th. International Chopin Festival at Duszniki Zdroj (a charming tiny spa in Silesia on the mountainous Czech-Polish border not far from Wroclaw) began on Friday August 6th. My enthusiasm for it and description will be familiar to all the readers of my literary travel/residence book on Poland A Country in the Moon: Travels in Search of the Heart of Poland  (Granta, London 2009) now translated into Polish as Kraj z Księżyca: Podróże do serca Polski (Czarne 2010) http://www.michael-moran.net/poland.htm Not all the music is by Chopin - Liszt, Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart, Rachmaninov, Scriabin.....the entire piano repertoire is on offer. This year is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Chopin who visited Duszniki Zdroj in 1826 (then Bad Reinerz  in Silesia) for a cure suggested by his teacher the Silesian composer Joseph Elsner. Chopin gave a charity concert there and this is celebrated in modern times by an annual piano festival. Mendelssohn also came ...

 The Series I Peugeot 307 CC (2004) used on this excursion - a design classic Click on photographs to enlarge. The results are far superior. Leica D-Lux 4 The next part of my research after South Africa for my next book, that on 'the family genius' the Australian concert pianist 'Uncle Eddie' (Edward Cahill [1895-1975] ), took me to Eze - a 'perched village' on the Cote d'Azur. N.B.  Refer to 'Work in Progress'  for September 2010 for the very latest material on this ongoing research. Of my classic cars I decided to drive my metallic dark green (Manitoba) Series I Peugeot 307 CC (2004) the 6000 kms round trip from Warsaw.    Why did I choose a humble Peugeot - a car with seemingly so little cachet ? Reliability, readily available parts throughout all European countries, comfort, inexpensive to insure and it's a convertible. I have always found the first series car far more attractive in the metal tha...