So what about that Chopin?
wtorek, 7 września 2010
In the atmosphere of the all-encompassing festivity that accompanies the celebration of the year of Fryderyk Chopin, among the multitude of events, when the name of the great Polish composer is repeated thousands of times, there is a question ever more often returning to the lips: yes, but what next? The history of our country, even the most recent, has mercilessly proved how easily we can squander good will, lose enthusiasm, and drown in the quagmire of forgetfulness of what has just been considered the most important… What can we do then, so that the national brand, created and kept up with such commitment – Fryderyk Chopin in the capacity of the symbol of Poland – maintains its significance after 2010? Cold logic makes us answer this question in textbook fashion: it is the product and the image that count. Though commonplace, the claim is still hard to understand for the few on whom so much depends… And yet there are tasks that cannot wait: the leading role of the Chopin Competition among similar events held worldwide; showing to the world (and why not also to Poles?) Warsaw as the city of Chopin, elevating the museum of the composer to the role of a major European museum centre… Does the number of perfect educational and tourist products not include the composer’s home at Żelazowa Wola and also the unique collection of works by Professor Jerzy Duda Gracz: a testimony to the unfailing influence of Chopin’s work on Polish contemporary art? Yet all this requires persistence and stability, also in the financial dimension. Most important in the coming years will be the well thought-through decisions and coordinated actions: at the level of edutainment actions aimed at the young in Poland, but also while organising events promoting Poland abroad. Let us be proud of Chopin, and let us not allow him to be devalued.*)
Andrzej Giza Director of Ludwig van Beethoven Association
*) In the 1980s, the PLZ 5000 (i.e. “old” Polish zlotys) banknote with the countenance of Fryderyk Chopin for a long time remained the highest denomination in circulation in contemporary Communist Poland. Its value today, following the redenomination which took place 1995, is all of PLN 0.50.
Beethoven Magazine No. 9