Reporting from Warsaw â The stirring strains of Frederic Chopin’s music are reverberating across the world as music lovers celebrate the composer’s 200th birthday this year — from the chĂąteau of his French lover to Egypt’s pyramids and even into space.
But nowhere do celebrations carry the powerful sense of national feeling as they do in Poland, the land of his birth, where his heroic, tragic piano compositions are credited with capturing the country’s soul.
Poland is going all out to display its best “product,” as officials bluntly put it, staging bicentennial concerts and other events in and around Warsaw, the city where the composer — known here as Fryderyk Chopin — spent the first half of his life.
“Fryderyk Chopin is a Polish icon,” said Andrzej Sulek, director of the Fryderyk Chopin Institute in Warsaw. “In Polish culture there is no other figure who is as well-known in the world and who represents Polish culture so well.”
Perhaps nothing better conveys Chopin’s importance — literally — than his heart. It is preserved like a relic in an urn of alcohol in a Warsaw church.
Just before his death at age 39 of what was probably tuberculosis, Chopin, fearful of being buried alive, asked that his heart be separated from his body and returned to his beloved homeland. His body is buried at the PĂšre Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, where Chopin spent the second half of his life.
Chopin was born in 1810 at a country estate in Zelazowa Wola, near Warsaw, to a Polish mother and French Ă©migrĂ© father. Historical sources suggest two possible dates of birth — either February 22, as noted in church records, or March 1, which was mentioned in letters between him and his mother and is considered the more probable date.
Since no one is sure, Poland is marking both. A series of concerts in Warsaw and Zelazowa Wola are taking place over those eight days featuring such world-class musicians as Daniel Barenboim, Evgeny Kissin, Garrick Ohlsson, Martha Argerich and Krystian Zimerman.
Then, a refurbished museum opens in Warsaw on Monday displaying Chopin’s personal letters and musical manuscripts along with a narration of his life.
Celebrations span the globe, from Austria to concerts at Cairo’s pyramids and across Asia.
The astronauts who blasted into orbit on the Endeavor space shuttle February 8 carried with them a CD of Chopin’s music and a copy of a manuscript of his Prelude Opus 28, No. 7 — gifts from the Polish government.
/patrick

The International Mozarteum Foundation in Salzburg has announced it has discovered two previously unknown compositions written by
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Swedish pianist Fredrik UllĂ©n was educated at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, but cites Finnish pianist Liisa Pohjola as being his primary influence. UllĂ©n is a highly skilled virtuoso who specializes in Sorabji, the Stockhausen KlavierstĂŒcke, the Ligeti etudes, and other works requiring a high degree of transcendental skill. He also works extensively with living composers such as György KurtĂĄg, Mauricio Kagel, George Flynn and BarnabĂĄs Dukay. He has recorded for Pro Piano and Caprice labels, but since 1996 has primarily recorded for Swedish label BIS. UllĂ©nâs large and constantly growing repertoire includes many of the most complex and demanding works in the piano literature, such as Ligetiâs complete piano Ă©tudes, Regerâs Spezial-studien and music by Sorabji. He has a particular interest in creative programming with couplings of new and traditional literature. His solo CDs for BIS Records have without exception been enthusiastically praised by internationally renowned critics and have received an impressive number of prestigious awards and accolades, including the Diapason dâor, CHOC de Le Monde de la Musique, Stern des Monats (FonoForum), RecommandĂ© (RĂ©pertoire), and Recomendado (CD Compact). UllĂ©n has performed at a large number of international music festivals, to outstanding critical acclaim (âan unbelievable pianistic presenceâ, Schleswig-Holsteinische Landeszeitung, 2001; âspectacularâ, New YorkTimes, 2001; âastonishing precision, stamina, and imaginationâ, Boston Globe, 2002).
