© AI Training forbidden - Selected Classical Music in the Poland of Chopin - Reviewer's Notebook

Tomorrow is the fourth anniversary of the eruption of the inhuman conflagration in Ukraine at the heart of Europe. A reminder, as if we needed it after World War II, of how little does humanity learn from history apart from the fact it repeats itself and that humanity does not learn from the past. I watched once again on the BBC the deeply moving funeral of the poisoned Alexei Navalny and the courage of those who decided to join the endless queue and attend his burial. The cycles of historical inhumanity endlessly repeat themselves. The music of Chopin and the historical context in which it was composed is hauntingly topical on his birthday, the composer of the profound melancholy of lost freedom. The situation is worse now with the mindless conflagration in the Middle East and Sudan. Our leaders in every country have lost moral direction and sense of truth. How I yearn for a man of Paderewski's charisma and his projection of the image of a moral beacon in the world. Rather than ad...

As I walked out one freezing morning last week and prepared to board the Metro at Młociny Station in Warsaw, the end of the M1 line, I thought I recognized a Chopin waltz. What was this ? Impossible surely. Having attended and reviewed hour upon hour of this charming music in the recently completed International Chopin Piano Competition, I felt my imagination playing tricks in such echoes of delight.  I turned the corner  and to my surprise here he was, in -10C and wearing gloves, playing Chopin for us on a keyboard. S urely t he truest, even heroic, musical devotion to the Polish national composer I have ever encountered. Full of admiration at his accuracy, stamina and dedication, I mumbled pathetic appreciation as a fellow musician.  'I just love his music!' our anonymous performer replied in heavily accented English.  I felt my own devotion on a period  Pleyel   instrument in my warm flat with comforting hot coffee, croissants an...

King Charles III arrives at  Kraków  Airport in Poland to attend Auschwitz commemorations 2025   (AP) Address by King Charles III on his first historic visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau January 27 2025 To be in Poland on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, as we commemorate eighty-one years since the liberation of Auschwitz, is both a sombre and indeed a sacred moment.  It is a moment when we recall the six million Jews, old and young, who were systematically murdered, together with Sinti, Roma, disabled people, members of the L.G.B.T. community, political prisoners, and so many others upon whom the Nazis inflicted their violence and hatred.  In a world that remains full of turmoil and strife, and has witnessed the dangerous re-emergence of antisemitism, there can be no more important message – especially as the United Kingdom holds the Presidency of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. As the number of Holocaust survivors regrettably diminishes with...