The Cracovs edition of 23rd Ludwig van Beethoven Easter Festival it’s starting today!
The exhibition of musical manuscripts, which accompanies the Ludwig van Beethoven Easter Festival each year from the outset, will open on 1 April at the Jagiellonian Library. The central theme of the 23rd Festival – Beethoven and the Songs of Romanticism – is the leitmotif around which the curator Michał Lewicki built an exhibition of autographs by Beethoven, major 19th-century song composers, and Polish composers such as Karol Szymanowski and Krzysztof Penderecki. The manuscripts and notated music on show come from the collection of the former Prussian State Library at the Jagiellonian Library and from the Music Collection of the Jagiellonian Library. The exhibition’s artwork was created by Mariusz Paluch. The opening of the exhibition will be highlighted by a piano recital of Krzysztof Książek, who won 3rd Prize and Special Prize for the best performance of Mazurkas last year at the 1st International Chopin Competition on Period Instruments. The exhibition will run until 19 April.
On the evening of the same day, the outstanding Shanghai Quartet will perform at the Gallery of 19th-Century Polish Art in the Sukiennice. It will be the first in a series of the ensemble’s three concerts featuring Beethoven’s string quartets, planned from 1 to 3 April. The three performances by the Shanghai Quartet are part of a two-year project which presents the complete quartets of the master from Bonn to commemorate his 250th birthday anniversary in 2020.
On 12 April the Karol Szymanowski Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Charles Olivieri-Munroe with soloist Anna Gabler (soprano) will present a program of works by Bedřich Smetana, Richard Strauss and Antonín Dvořák. This concert will be repeated during the Easter Festival in Warsaw.
Like in previous years, the Kraków events are an integral prelude to the Ludwig van Beethoven Easter Festival, which starts on 7 April in Warsaw.
More info: HERE