A concert that will transport listeners to the world of Polish chamber music of the early 19th century. The program “Affinities: Chopin / Moniuszko / Elsner / Lessel / Kurpinski” is an extraordinary musical encounter in which songs by Fryderyk Chopin in new arrangements are intertwined with string quartets by leading Polish composers of the era.

Soloist Olga Pasiecznik and the Equilibrium String Quartet will present a program that pays homage to the old principle of concert variety – between selected parts of quartets by Jozef Elsner and Stanislaw Moniuszko and fantasies by Franciszek Lessel and Karol Kurpiński will be woven Chopin’s songs, in which, as in an intimate diary, various images of their composer are reflected. The song arrangements for string quartet were created by Tomasz Pokrzywinski, and the evening at the Royal Castle in Warsaw will be their premiere performance.

November 14, 2025 | 6:00 pm | Royal Castle in Warsaw.

For the concert program, see the description: Affinities: Chopin / Moniuszko / Elsner / Lessel / Kurpinski.

The concert programme features a combination of string quartets by early-nineteenth-century Polish composers and songs by Fryderyk Chopin in new arrangements by Tomasz Pokrzywiński. In the selection of works, historical material is treated with creative freedom. Selected parts of string quartets are interspersed with Chopin’s songs adorned in new clothes, when the place next to the singer – instead of the pianist – is taken by the quartet musicians. The result is a musical form similar to a vocal-instrumental cantata or an extended potpourri, combining a variety of elements. A similar principle of variety determined the shape of concert programs until at least the mid-19th century. Weaving operatic arias and soloist showpieces between movements of complex instrumental works was the order of the day at the time.

From what elements was the weave of the concert in question woven? The program will feature selected movements of string quartets composed in Lviv, Op. 8 (ca. 1799) by Jozef Elsner and the String Quartet in D minor (1839) written by the 20-year-old Stanislaw Moniuszko during his studies in Berlin and dedicated to Elsner. In addition, fantasies for string quartet composed in Warsaw by Franciszek Lessel (ca. 1813) and Karol Kurpinski (1823) will be heard, and the program will be complemented by selected songs by Chopin from 1829-1845.

Elsner’s string quartets – the first Polish works of their kind – remain under the influence of composers belonging to the Viennese circle. Things are similar for Lessel, who spent three years in Vienna perfecting his compositional craft under the tutelage of Joseph Haydn. Lessel’ s Fantasy in C Major assimilates for string quartet a form characteristic of music for keyboard instruments, shaped in the works of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and Mozart. Lessel’ s Fantasia makes room for a slow introduction and faster, anxiety-laced runs, as well as a fugue that crowns the piece. Karol Kurpinski’s Fantasia is built from similar elements, but the dramatic feature inherent in the composer, for whom opera was his natural habitat, is more pronounced. Moniuszko’s youthful quartet charms with the tunefulness of the Andantino, the danceability of the Scherzo and the picturesqueness of the finale bearing the programmatic title “Dance party in the countryside and its consequences.” A stylization of folk music appears in it, foreshadowing the composer’s later interest in music with national overtones.

The Chopin songs woven into the program were created spontaneously, out of the need of the moment. The Swiss musicologist Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger wrote beautifully about them, listing successive images of the composer behind these small works: “a Warsaw student with his hair in the wind; a shy man in love; a sympathizer of the circle in which the uprising is glowing; an exiled patriot, secretly engaged to Maria Wodzinska; a loner who suffers in silence, but would like to fly away as soon as possible “on the wings of song”; and finally, a visionary of a nation heading towards the promised land “*. It should be added, however, that on the pages of his letters Chopin most often wrote about himself with a certain amount of irony. When reading images of him from his songs, one should take this into account.

The Melancholy of Spring, casting a shadow over nature awakening to life, loneliness and resignation in There‘ s Nothing Needed, and finally the despairing story of a Cossack and a girl separated for life and death told in The Twofold End – in these songs Chopin finds expression for various shades of sadness. Songs of a joyful nature, sometimes playful, at other times tender, are different: The Pretty Boy and The Wish are humorously exaggerated portraits, while The Lithuanian Song, Where He Likes and The Messenger take up the themes of love and lovemaking with a light pen. Taken together, they form a collection of colorful images, genre scenes as engaging as they are fleeting – just right to enliven and color a social gathering or concert program.

Pavel Siechowicz

* J.-J. Eigeldinger, Frederic Chopin, Warsaw 2011, p. 109.

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