On Easter Sunday, 1 April 2018, TVP Kultura invites you to a unique meeting with the works of Fryderyk Chopin. Two documentaries dedicated to the great Polish composer, Ocaleni przez Chopina and Fortepian Chopina, will be shown that day along with the concert Warszawski fortepian Chopina.
Ocaleni przez Chopina (Chopin Saved My Life), a British documentary directed by James Kent, will be broadcast at 9.05 a.m. It tells a story of Fryderyk Chopin's Ballade No. 1 in G minor and it's influence on the lives of two young people. The 15-year-old Japanese pianist Momoka comes from Sendai – a city that in 2011 suffered from a terrible earthquake and tsunami. Playing Ballad, Momoka gives expression to her usually hidden feelings like pain, despair and disagreement with cruel reality. 22-year-old Paul, a Scottish music school student who was diagnosed with brain cancer and multiple sclerosis, owes Ballad his recovery after a difficult operation. In the movie, the works of Chopin are also commented on by world-renown pianists such as Lang Lang, Vladimir Aszkenazy, Imogen Cooper and Stephen Cough.
At 1.40 p.m. TVP Kultura will show a documentary by Piotr Stasik, Fortepian Chopina (Chopin's piano). It will explain how a copy of Buchholtz's piano, on which teenage Chopin composed his first great works, was built. It is primarily a movie about true passion and love of his work by the creator of a copy of the instrument, Paul McNulty – one of the best builders of historical grand pianos in the world.
How this instrument sounds, the audience will find out at 2.00 p.m. by watching the gala concert Warszawski fortepian Chopina (Chopin's Warsaw piano). The event took place on 17 March 2018 at the Grand Theater – National Opera, on the 188th anniversary of Chopin's famous concert at the National Theater on Krasiński Square. On 17 March 1830 young Chopin performed for the first time his Piano Concerto in F minor on the Buchholtz piano. This year, Krzysztof Książek played on the restored instrument with the accompaniment of Collegium 1704 under the baton of Václav Luks. The artists performed Fugue et coda in B flat major (on the theme "Poland is Not Yet Lost") and the Battle of Możajsk by Karol Kurpiński, along with the Piano Concerto in F minor by Fryderyk Chopin.