Warsaw festival celebrates pianist and statesman Paderewski

The programme of the week-long event includes concerts of symphonic and chamber music, films, exhibitions and discussion panels.

Featured orchestras include Sinfonia Varsovia and Sinfonia Juventus and among the soloists are musicians from Poland, Switzerland, the United States and Australia.

The inaugural concert included excerpts from Paderewski’s opera ‘Manru’, which to this day remains the only Polish work ever produced at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

Paderewski is a household name in Poland. Hailed by his contemporaries as the greatest pianist since Franz Liszt, he achieved the peak of his triumphant career at the turn of the 19th century, when his fame spread to all continents except for Asia, and his financial success reached phenomenal dimensions, including an entry in the Guinness Book of Records in the category of the highest fee per note played.

He once said that everything he achieved in music was one percent the outcome of his talent and ninety-nine percent the result of hard work.

The American president Franklin D. Roosevelt called him a ‘modern immortal’.

During World War I Paderewski supported Poland’s attempts to regain independence after more than 120 years of foreign rule. In 1919, as Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister, he co-chaired (with politician Roman Dmowski) the Polish delegation for the Peace Conference in Paris and signed the Treaty of Versailles.

Paderewski died in the United States in 1941 and was buried at Arlington Military Cemetery in Washington. In 1992, at the request of President Lech Wałęsa, his remains were brought to Poland and buried at St John’s Cathedral in Warsaw. (mk/nh/rk)