This concert is the first musical tribute of Reconciliation festival to Maria Skłodowska-Curie, the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, and the only person to win two Nobel Prizes in two scientific fields. She was co-winner in Physics in 1903 with her husband Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel, and solo winner in Chemistry in 1911. We envision her as tirelessly dedicated, to the point of sacrificing her own health—the severe bun, her features drawn tight from the fatigue of relentless work, yet one she would never relinquish. And yet, there is so much more to her story, waiting to be discovered.
For this concert, the musicians have crafted a program that will take you to the very roots of this extraordinary woman, to her beloved Poland, and resurrect the atmosphere of her childhood and adolescence with musical colors. Born in Warsaw in 1867, Maria Skłodowska, affectionately known as Manya, was raised in a loving and intellectual family of five children. However, life was difficult as the Kingdom of Poland was under Russian rule. Maria’s early years were also deeply shadowed by the tragic loss of her mother in 1878 and her older sister Zofia in 1881. Despite this dramatic environment, she remained a diligent child, excelling in her studies, with a deep love for music, literature, and nature.
1st part: Polish melodies for violin and piano
– Grażyna Bacewicz (1909-1969): Melody
– Emil Mlynarski (1870-1935): Mazur in G major
– Ignacy Jan Paderewski (1860-1941): Melody (arr. Bacewicz)
– Grażyna Bacewicz (1909-1969): Oberek
– Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937): Lullaby
Pause (15 min)
2nd part: works by Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849)
-Mazurka in a minor op.64 no.4
-Nocturne op.9 no2
-Ballade No.3 in A-flat major, Op. 47 (Lidia Książkiewicz)
Polish violinist, the winner of the 13th Henryk Wieniawski International Violin Competition in Poznań in 2006, Agata Szymczewska has also received Passport of the Polityka weekly (an annual cultural award), four Fryderyk Awards (the most important music award in Poland), and the London Music Masters Award. Agata is the first violin of the renowned Polish string quartet – Karol Szymanowski Quartet. In the course of her intense artistic career, she has shared the stage with Krystian Zimerman, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Martha Argerich, Maxim Vengerov amongst others and has collaborated with such conductors as Seiji Ozawa, Sir Neville Marriner and Andrey Boreyko. She has recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, Sony and Decca. Currently her instrument of choice is a Nicolò Gagliano violin from 1755, on loan courtesy of Anne-Sophie Mutter.
Polish pianist, Wojciech Szymczewski was born in 1991 in Koszalin. He is a graduate of the Stanisław Moniuszko Academy of Music in Gdańsk in the solo piano class led by professor Waldemar Wojtal and chamber music class led by professor Anna Prabucka-Firlej and doctor Bogna Czerwińska-Szymula. Wojciech is a laureate of many regional, national and international competitions, including XVIII International Piano Competition J. S. Bach in Gorzów Wielkopolski in 2006, 6th National Music Competition J. Zarębski in Warsaw in 2006, Nationwide Auditions of Students of Piano Grades at II Degree Schools in Jelenia Góra in 2008. Since 2008, he co-creates a piano duet with Bartosz Kołaczkowski, his classmate from the chamber music class at the Stanisław Moniuszko Academy of Music in Gdańsk.
In 2015, Wojciech Szymczewski started working at the Stanisław Moniuszko Academy of Music in Gdańsk as an accompanist at the Department of Conducting, Composition and Theory of Music. Currently, he is a piano teacher and pianist – accompanist at the Music School in Gdańsk-Wrzeszcz.
Lidia Książkiewicz is a Polish pianist and organist based in France. Born in Poznań, she began studying piano at age five and organ at twenty. After graduating with first prizes and honors in both piano from the national academies of music in Bydgoszcz and Poznań, she won numerous international competition awards, including the 1st prize at the International Music Competition of the 20th Century in Warsaw (1994), the 1st prize at the International Organ Rimini in Italy (2004), the César Franck prize at the International Organ Competition of Haarlem, Netherlands (2000), and the Reger/Messiaen International Competition in Graz, Austria (2003). She also won the prestigious Grand Prix de l’Académie des Beaux-Arts in Angers, France (2004). After moving to France, she graduated from the Conservatory of Saint-Maur, receiving first prizes for organ and a gold medal for harpsichord. In 2004, she was a finalist at the International Organ Competition of Chartres. As a soloist, she has performed with numerous symphonic orchestras, including the Orchestre Symphonique de Radio France, the Symphonic Orchestra of the Philharmonic in Krakow, Orchestre de Douai, and the Slovak Sinfonietta. Lidia Książkiewicz is currently the principal organist at the Cathedral of Laon, France.
Excerpts from “Madame Curie”, by Eve Curie
In Poland, diminutives and nicknames are the only wear. The Sklodovskis had never called Sophie, their eldest
daughter, anything but “Zosia.” “Bronya” had taken the place of Bronislava, Helen became “Hela,” and Joseph
“Jozio.” But none of them had received as many nicknames as Marya, the youngest and best-loved in the house.
“Manya” was her ordinary diminutive, “Manyusya” a name of affection, and “Anciupecio” a comic nickname
dating from her earliest infancy.
The “kulig” was by no means only a ball. It was a dizzying, magic journey in the full excitement of carnival. Two
sleighs went off in the evening over the snow with Manya Sklodovska and her three cousins, masked and dressed
as Cracow peasant girls, huddled under the covers. .
I have been to a kulig. You can’t imagine how delightful it is, especially when the clothes are beautiful and the
boys are well dressed. My costume was very pretty.… After this first kulig there was another, at which I had a
marvelous time. There were a great many young men from Cracow, very handsome boys who danced so well! It is
altogether exceptional to find such good dancers. At eight o’clock in the morning we danced the last dance—a
white mazurka …
when evening came and the lamps were lighted ,they threw their worries aside. Casimir Dluski loved
amusements. Friends would ring at the door—young couples from the Polish colony, who knew that “one could always go to the Dluskis’.
… Seized by a hunger for music, the young man with the fiery mane would interrupt all talk to strike some chords.
Then, by a stroke of magic, the poor upright piano at the Dluskis’ instantly turned into a sublime instrument.
That pianist was half starved and charming. He was in love, nervous, happy, unhappy. He was to be a virtuoso of
genius and, one day, prime minister of a Poland reconstructed and set free. His name was Ignace Paderewski.
We have now been at Kempa for several weeks and I ought to give you an account of our existence here—but as I
haven’t the courage, I shall only say that it is marvelous. Kempa is at the junction of the Narev and Biebrza rivers—
which is to say that there is plenty of water for swimming and boating, which delights me. I am learning to row—I
am getting on quite well—and the bathing is ideal. We do everything that comes into our heads, we sleep
sometimes at night and sometimes by day, we dance, and we run to such follies that sometimes we deserve to be
locked up in an asylum for the insane.…
I went for a walk alone toward the Vistula yesterday morning … The river winds lazily along its wide bed, bluish
green near at hand but made bluer far off by the reflection of the sky. I feel an irresistible desire to go and loiter on
one of these luminous and magnificent beaches. I admit that this aspect of my river is not that of a self
respecting navigable body of water. One day it is going to be necessary to restrain its fancies a little, to the
detriment of its beauty … There is a Cracow song in which they sing of the Vistula: “This Polish water has within
itself such a charm that those who are taken by it will love it even unto the grave.” This seems to be true, so far
as I am concerned. The river has a profound attraction for me, the origins of which I do not know. Good-by,
darling. Kiss your sister Irène for me. I embrace you both, with all my heart which belongs to you, Your mother.