Chopin music in Duszniki spa

Polish Radio External Service – Poland

News of the opening of the International Chopin Piano Festival in the Polish spa town of Duszniki, tucked in the southwestern corner of the country.   The Festival opens with a performance by the piano duo of Brigitte Engerer of France and Boris Berezovsky of Russia….

The program of the ten-day event includes recitals and concerts by such prominent pianists as Nicolai Demidenko, Alexander Gavrilyuk, Krzysztof Jabłoński and Arcadi Volodos, as well as the violinist Konstanty Kulka, the cellist Tomasz Strahl and the singer Jadwiga Rappe.

The Festival in Duszniki is the oldest music festival in Poland. Launched in 1946 and it has been held every year since. It commemorates Chopin’s stay in the spa in 1826. The composer was 16 years old when he came to Duszniki for treatment and gave two benefit concerts.

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‘Aw, c’mon, have a heart!’

Fort Scott Tribune – Fort Scott,KS,USA

Kansas columnist not impressed by scientific clamor to exhume Chopin’s heart…

That’s how the scientists who would — in the manner of Indiana Jones — rip Chopin’s heart out of the Warsaw pillar, perform their DNA tests, and then, of course, write a scholarly paper on the experiment that they can deliver at a medical convention, in Chicago — appear unflatteringly.

You want a body on which to experiment? Dig up Joseph Stalin, Nicolai Lenin, Francisco Franco, Julius Caesar, Cleopatra. Be careful whom you dig up. Some of the dead mean a lot to us, the still-living.

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