The Ludwig van Beethoven Easter Festival has been organizing since 1997, a year commemorating the 170th death anniversary of the creator of Fidelio and the 9th Symphony. Since 2004 it has taken place in Warsaw (for the first 7 years in Kraków). The Festival has become a permanent part of the cultural landscape of this part of Europe, making the Holy Week a fuller experience. In October 2001 the Ludwig van Beethoven Easter Festival became a member of the European Festivals Association in Gent (Belgium).
This momentous event has validated the importance of the Festival not only as the musical emblem of Poland, but also as a cultural phenomenon that gathers a humanistic audience around Beethoven's Enlightenment idea of uniting the community around a common set of values. The programme of each year edition of the Festival is different, showing interesting and diverse ways achievements of world and European music. Each edition of the Festival shows Beethoven pieces from many musical perspectives and helps to see where Beethoven derived his inspiration from, how his music influenced other composers as well as Beethoven's place in contemporary art. Since its first edition Ludwig van Beethoven Easter Festival has been famous for an exhibition of musicalia that are one of the treasures of the world's cultural heritage. During the exhibition which takes place at Jagiellonian Library each year the audience can see priceless autographs of Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann and Brahms. The whole is completed by international musicological symposium giving musical, scientific and humanistic view of Beethoven's music and its influence on the art of other composers. The fruits of symposium are academic books documenting sessions reports and published in two versions: Polish and foreign language.
All Festival events are organized around a central theme. The editions of the Festival addressed the following key issues:
- 1997 - Beethoven and his Predecessors
- 1998 - Beethoven: Structure and Expression
- 1999 - Beethoven and the Romantics
- 2000 - From Beethoven to Mahler. Within the Sphere of the Great Symphony
- 2001 - Beethoven and Music of the 20th Century, a Century of Apocalypse and Hope
- 2002 - Beethoven - Schubert - Chopin: In Search for the Expression of Own Existence
- 2003 - Beethoven and Baroque Music
- 2004 - Beethoven and the Music of the Nations of Europe
- 2005 - Beethoven between the Music of North and South
- 2006 - Heritage and Resonanse
- 2007 - Beethoven, music and literature.
Elżbieta Penderecka, the General Director of the Festival, has consistently followed the principle that a carefully selected programme of the concerts is interpreted by the best, internationally renowned artists. Among the artists who appeared at the Festival are the pianists Garrick Ohlsson, Stephen Kovacevich, Rudolf Buchbinder, Alexei Lubimov, Barry Douglas and Piotr Anderszewski; the cellists Boris Pergamenschikow, Arto Noras and David Geringas; the violinists Anne-Sophie Mutter, Gidon Kremer and Chee-Yun; the singers Gabriela Benačkova, Simon Estes and Andreas Schmidt, the violists Yuri Bashmet and Shlomo Mintz; the conductors Helmuth Rilling, Christoph von Dohnányi, Martin Haselböck, Saulius Sondeckis, Johannes Goritzki, Rolf Beck, Martin Pearlman, Antoni Wit, Jan Krenz, Jacek Kaspszyk and Gabriel Chmura; the ensembles Norddeutscher Rundfunk Orchester Wiener Akademie, Saint Petersburg Hermitage Symphony Orchestra, Deutsche Kammerakademie Neuss, Boston Baroque, Chor der Bamberger Symphoniker, Gächinger Kantorei and BachAkademie Stuttgart, I Sonatori de la Gioiosa Marca English Chamber Orchestra, Moscow Soloists, National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra of Katowice, Sinfonia Varsovia, Sinfonietta Cracovia, Grand Theatre - National Opera Orchestra and Choir, and Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir.
The artistic mark of the Festival are beautifully printed booklets (in two language versions Polish and English) published to coincide with the Festival and containing basic information on the repertoire and artists biographies and essays on all the works performed at the concerts as well as the list of autographs presented at the exhibition.
The V-card of the Festival is also the sophisticated graphic design of the publications in Polish and English, as well as posters and booklet covers designed by such eminent artists as Ryszard Horowitz, Rafał Olbiński, Stasys Eidrigevičius, Wojciech Siudmak, Grzegorz Stec, Witold Siemaszkiewicz, Andrzej Pągowski, Marianna Sztyma and Wilhelm Sasnal.
