PL1

The Warsaw Autumn Festival of Contemporary Music, established in 1956,was the firstmeeting point for composers from both sides of the ‘iron curtain’: it gave opportunity to the western avant-garde composerstopresent themselves to their colleagues from the rather isolated and conservative communist countries and to get acquainted with the flourishing avant-garde from especially Poland; the works of Lutosławski, Baird, Serocki, Gorecki and Penderecki became an important addition to the then omnipresent serialism. The festival is still held yearly. www.warszawska-jesien.art.pl

In the cathedral crypt is the grave of the pianist, composer and musicologist Ignacy Jan Paderewski (1860-1941).He was also a politician: Paderewski played a great role in the battle for independence of his country, was its prime minister in the year 1919 and formed an exile parliament in Paris at the beginning of the 2^nd world war. He died in the U.S.A.; his body was transferred to Poland in 1992, his heart remained in America (Doylestown, Pa) .

The Saski palace housed a school; when father Nicolas (in Poland Mikołaj) became a teacher there, his family settled in Warsaw. Of the palace, on the 2^nd floor of which the Chopins lived from 1810 until 1817, only a part of the colonnade is extant(near the tomb of the unknown soldier).

Chopin gave a concert on 19.XII.1829 in this beautiful palace, then a merchants’ club. Today there is a publishing house.

Chopin was buried at the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris, but his heart was repatriated to Warsaw by his sister. Finally the urn was placed inside a pillar of the church of the Holy Cross.

The Chopin family lived in an apartment of this palace (1683/1721) from 1827 onwards; Frydéryk had a small studio and composed his Piano Concertos. In 1830 he left Poland. The ‘SalonikChopinow’ (family parlor) has been reconstructed, based on a contemporary drawing, but the furniture and objects are not the original ones which all got lost.The Buchholtzgrand piano has belonged to Liszt.

This palace was an important aristocratic ‘salon’ in Chopin’s time, a cultural centre and meeting place. He must have been one of its visitors. Now it houses the Ministry of Culture.

In the annex at the left side of the palace the Chopin family lived from 1817 until 1827; the garden behind was a favorite spot of the composer. In the main building was the gymnasium where he went to school from 1823 until 1827.

The 18^th centurychurch of the Visitation was linked to the gymnasium; the pupils visited Sunday mass and Chopin played the organ sometimes. Of the original organ only three stops are left in the present instrument, the rest was moved in 1869 to the village of Nieznamierovice and destroyed in the first World War.

In the Radziwill palace the young Chopin appeared in 1818, playing a Piano Concerto by Gyrowetz. It was his first concert in Warsaw The building is now the presidential palace.

Misery is a holy matteris the name of this building of a charitable society. Chopin gave a concert here on 24.II.1823.

House of the composer Stanisľaw Moniuszko (1819-72). He is the best known Polish composer before Chopin. The first of his nationalistic operas, Halka from 1847, still belongs to the Polish standard repertoire.

Moniuszko lived in Warsaw only from 1827 until 1830 and from 1859 until his death. He was born in Ubyel, today in Belarus (White Russia ─ there is a plaque on the location of his birthplace; a museum is devoted to him in nearby Azerny). He studied in Berlin and from 1840 to ’59 he worked in Wilna (now Vilnius, Lithuania).

Karol Szymanowski is perhaps the greatest Polish composer after Chopin. In 1919 he moved from the Ukraine to now independent Poland. This house is his first one in Warsaw; the mansard apartmentin the attic above four floors, was not comfortable. Soon he preferred to live in Hotel Bristol (KrakowskiePrzedmieście22/44) or in his beloved Tatra mountains and he made lengthy journeys.

Chopin’s sister Isabel lived here. When, after a murder attack on the Russian governor, Cossacks in revenge plundered the building, they threw the piano out of the window. It was Chopin’s piano.

From 1826 on Chopin often gave recitals in the society salon of the Zamoyski family and later also in the salon of his friend KlementynaTańska, in the same building (side ul. Źabia).

Chopin appeared in 1825 here before Tsar Aleksander I, playing the keyboard instrument Aeolomelodikon, made by Augustus F. Brunner and one of the forerunners of the harmonium.

The beautiful, castle like palace houses the Chopin museum of Warsaw, mostly based on the materials that were collected by his family. There are interactive elements and the exhibition is also interesting for children. 

For more detailed information: www.chopin.museum.en

Next to the palace is the modern building of the Chopin Institute (same address).

The large bronze statue of Chopin by the sculptor WacławSzymanowskiwas intended in 1907 for Chopin’s hundredth birthday,but due to controversies about the design andto the war,it was only erected in 1926. In May 1940 it was blown up by the Germans (photo); because the mould survived, the statue could be cast again and replaced in 1958. Piano recitals are given at its base during summer (Sunday afternoon).

Chopin loved walking in the adjacent Belvedere park and visited grandduke Constantin in the Belvedere palace.

The Paderewski monument was made in the 1920s, hidden during the 2^nd World War and via various locations finally placed in this park.

 The Paderewski museum is in a former military school in Łazienki park. Objects and mementoes of the pianist, composer and politician and works of art from his collection are one part of the exhibition, other rooms are dedicated to the history of Polish emigration to America. Outside is a Paderewski bust.

Most important cemetery of Warsaw (1795). Graves of the parents and sisters of Chopin, of his teachers Źywny and Elsner and of the composers StanisławMoniuszko† 1872, Henrik Wieniawski† 1880, GrażinaBacewics† 1969, Tadeusz Baird † 1981 and Witold Lutosławski† 1994. 

Opera- and ballet theatre, built in 1825-33 after a design by Antonio Corazzi; rebuilt after 1945. Two auditoria, with resp. 1838 and 248 seats. Theatre museum. www.teatrwielki.pl/en

Concert hall. The predecessor, built in eclectic style in 1901(photo b) and opened by Paderewski; was destroyed. Rebuilt in 1955 in socialist-realist style. Two halls with resp. 1072 and 378 seats. Home of the National Philharmonic orchestra and chorus, est. in 1901.

Theater for small-scale and ancient operas and puppet theatre. The building is a former evangelical church from 1775; chamber opera since 1986. Yearly Mozart festival in June/July.

Witold Lutosławski was born in Warsaw in 1913 in a clinic. It has to be found out where he lived until the end of the 2^nd World War. This is his address for the years 1946-’68.

Witold Lutosławski lived in this small villa from 1968 until his death in 1994. He had the disposition of a sound proof studio.

Birthplace of the Russian compositor Nikolay Myaskowsky (1881-1950); he lived here until 1895. His father was an officer in the Russian army and quartered in this fortress, then called Novogeorgyesk.

The composer Tadeusz Baird was born here in 1928.

The music school and one of the streets are named after him; whether his birthplace is extant has to be found out.

Monument of Chopin (1964). He visited the local palace (now a ruin) in 1830 with Michał Skarbek.

Birthplace of Fryderyk Chopin, °1810. The mansion, an annex of the counts Skarbek, is a fine Chopin museum since 1949 and is situated in a beautiful park. Chopin recitals on Saturdays during the summer months.

For more detailed information: www.chopin.museum.en

Chopin’s parents married in 1806 in this interesting church; he himself was baptized here in 1810.

Chopin stayed with his friend KonstantPruszak in the summer of 1828 in this palace. Today it is an European artistic centre with a small Chopin exhibition and a concert program. In the garden there is a Chopin monument by L. Nitschowa from 1985.

The DworekModrzewiowi was the house of Chopin’s friend KonstancjaGładkowska, a singer and a love of his youth. Small exhibition.

This castle from the 16^th-17^th century houses a collection of c 2000 folk music instruments. www.sydlowie.pl