Simon Rattle backs Polish music promo
mainAn inaugural Karol Szymanowski International Music Competition, with total prize money of over 280,000 Euros, ‘aims to promote Polish music around the world and to raise awareness of Karol Szymanowski and his compositions’.
The contest takes place in September.
Press release: Krzysztof Penderecki and Simon Rattle form the Competition’s Honorary Committee and the Director of the Competition is Joanna Wnuk-Nazarowa.
Zsymanowski is a wonderful composer.
In my student days in Rotterdam, this music was entirely unknown in W-Europe. Suddenly the Stabat Mater was performed with the Rotterdam Philharmonic, and an equipe of Polish musicians came down to reveal the beauties of this remarkable work: the conductor Witold Rowicky, the soprano Stefania Woykowitz and a baritone whose name I forgot. It was such an unusual performance that the critics were literally dumbfounded and gave it no attention at all. Szymanowski’s music was never heard again until the fall of the iron curtain made the music more available in the West, among other things due to Simon Rattle’s efforts.