{"id":5768,"date":"2024-09-15T06:46:26","date_gmt":"2024-09-15T04:46:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/whystory.pl\/en\/?p=5768"},"modified":"2024-09-15T06:46:26","modified_gmt":"2024-09-15T04:46:26","slug":"the-chopin-phenomenon-music-divides-into-good-and-bad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whystory.pl\/en\/the-chopin-phenomenon-music-divides-into-good-and-bad\/","title":{"rendered":"The Chopin phenomenon. Music divides into good and bad"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

An interview with dr Artur Szklener – musicologist, academic teacher, director of the Fryderyk Chopin Institute in Warsaw, who listens to every musical genre. Dr Artur Szklener has just been awarded the title of Leader by vocation.<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Are you a\u00a0born leader or a\u00a0formed one?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

I do not particularly feel like a leader. I specialise in the music by Fryderyk Chopin, our greatest composer, and for this reason I work at the Fryderyk Chopin Institute. We have a wonderful ensemble and I feel honoured leading it \u2013 in that sense it is sort of leadership, but understood more as working together for the Chopin heritage. Both, my colleagues and I are convinced that Chopin\u2019s music is not only congenial works, but also an amazing opportunity to show us, Poles, and people worldwide that Polish culture, Polish classical music, is a work of extraordinary value that we should not forget. This is the main purpose of our Institute: to cultivate the heritage and knowledge of Fryderyk Chopin and his work, but also to educate and encourage young people to actively participate in it. Professor Jerzy \u017burawlew, the initiator of the International Chopin Piano Competition, claimed that the main aim of the competition was to encourage young people to take an interest in music in the same way they\u2019re into sports. Such an approach we find the finest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When did you discover music?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Already in the cradle. My father is an amateur musician and a music lover. As far as I remember, from an early age classical music sounded in the family home. I don\u2019t know the world without it. At the age of five or six, I started learning to play the piano, then went to primary and secondary music school. My sister plays the violin and graduated from the Academy of Music in Krakow, so my parents\u2019 house was filled with the sounds of instruments. After high school graduation, I studied musicology at the Jagiellonian University, where I also defended my doctorate. The dissertation, \u2018Idiomatic Chopin\u2019s melodics\u2019, dealt with a certain system, a musical language, which, I\u2019m convinced, Chopin created and used consistently. It\u2019s a fully universal language, because Chopin referred to the tradition of his great predecessors. In his works, we can hear echoes of the music of Bach, with his melody pliability and dynamism of harmony, of Mozart, a classicist committed to the ideals of beauty and proportion, and of Beethoven, a romantic classic who brought many emotions to music, from which Chopin did not escape, but rather explored them in his works, and finally of the virtuosos of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It was a time when music was moving from aristocratic theatres in palaces to public concert halls. Audiences and tastes were changing. There was a great explosion of fondness for the piano \u2013 an instrument accessible to the bourgeoisie on the one hand, and developing so rapidly that in time it could replace the orchestra on the other. Such a cultural environment was an excellent background for the development of Chopin\u2019s talent. He was educated in Warsaw and became acquainted with Polish, German, Italian and French music. It is reported that in addition to his constant presence in the capital\u2019s rich music life, he would sit for hours at Brzezina\u2019s Music Store (today we would say: in a music bookshop) and study (music) scores. So when leaving Poland, he was a well-educated, knowledgeable pianist and compositional genius capable of creating his own language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Artur Szklener photo by Wojciech Grz\u0119dzinski <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s your favourite piece of music?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

There isn\u2019t one. Musical output is so abundant\u2026 As time goes by, tastes change. I often listen to Baroque or Classical Period music, but I don\u2019t run away from contemporary pieces. When I was younger, I co-organised festivals, both of early and recent music by Krakow composers. Music is divided into good and bad, and I\u2019m convinced you can find very good music even in genres on the verge of music, such as rap or hip hop. I often listen to jazz, sometimes rock or popular music. I\u2019m therefore a \u2018music omnivore\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How did your professional path evolve?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

My professional artery divides into two vessels: one related to the university (from 1997 to 2011 I taught at the Institute of Musicology at the Jagiellonian University) and the other to the Institute. I have been working at the Institute since its formation in 2001. In 2009, I became deputy director for science and publishing, and in 2012, I won the competition for a director.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How many employees does the Institute have?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Approximately, 130 staff members and several times more associates. We are a specific cultural institution, because we\u2019re defined by the scope regarding a particular artist, rather than the type of activity specific to theatres or philharmonics. We combine the functions of a museum \u2013 we have two branches: in Warsaw and \u017belazowa Wola; we\u2019re an organiser of music life \u2013 we organise the Chopin Competition, the \u2018Chopin and his Europe\u2019 festival, and numerous concert series; we\u2019re a phonographic publishing house \u2013 we\u2019ve published almost 200 titles with music not only by Chopin; we are a book publisher and also an entity supporting scientific research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is there a\u00a0concert hall within the facilities of the Institute?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Yes, a small one, for 70 people, in the Fryderyk Chopin Museum in Warsaw. We also organise concerts in \u017belazowa Wola, the Chopin\u2019s birthplace. One of our missions is to support young artists, and every week the museum hosts concerts by completely unknown young pianists. They\u2019re recorded and then assessed by an expert committee to be recommended support appropriate to the abilities and needs of the musician in question. We provide the best ones with a kind of patronage: we enable them to attend concerts organised by our partners at home and abroad. We also invite them to masterclasses, and sometimes we even manage to acquire instruments to make them available to those musicians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where do\u00a0you get funds from?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Our organiser is the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. We also attempt to raise funds from private sponsors and patrons. We generate income from ticket sales, both to the museum\u2019s branches and to the several hundreds of events we organise each year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You are also involved in educational activities\u2026.<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

One of the important objectives of the Institute is to carry out educational activities in the broadest possible sense. My personal contribution in this respect has been primarily concerned with popularisation of knowledge and access to Chopin\u2019s music through new media. When I took over as head of the Institute, electronic media were developing rapidly, and we became pioneers in building an audience beyond the concert hall and beyond the country\u2019s borders. For many years, we\u2019ve been building an international community of music lovers, not only of Chopin, and we count the number of our subscribers on social media in the hundreds of thousands. This is possible thanks to Chopin\u2019s popularity worldwide and conscious, systematic decades-long efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Artur Szklener photo by Wojciech Grzedzinski<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n

Please, name the achievements you\u2019re most proud of.<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

First and foremost, of the reach we have managed to build around the Chopin Competition. Independent agencies have calculated that information about the event reached as far back as 2015. 5 billion people around the world, and the competition was followed by almost 30% of Poles. During the pandemic period, we had around 40 million competition broadcast views. These are numbers comparable to mass events and unattainable in the world of so-called high culture. We can be proud, as this proves the worldwide phenomenon of the Polish artist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What do\u00a0you plan for yourself as a\u00a0Director and for the Institute?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019d like to focus on the Fryderyk Chopin Museum to make it even more visitor-friendly. Our major objective is also the construction of the International Music Centre in \u017belazowa Wola, where we plan to create a concert hall, plus educational, workshop and conference spaces. This will enable incorporation of the musical experience into regular visits to Chopin\u2019s Birthplace and carry out regular educational activities aimed at young musicians. We\u2019re also preparing to celebrate the centenary of the Chopin Competition in 2027.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do\u00a0you relax?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

My greatest pleasure is exploring Mediterranean culture. My wife and I\u00a0take advantage of every moment we can get away from reality and visit more and more corners of southern Europe. I\u00a0occasionally happen to sit at the piano, but much more often I\u00a0just listen to good music. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dorota Kolano
Beata Seku\u0142a<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An interview with dr Artur Szklener – musicologist, academic teacher, director of the Fryderyk Chopin Institute in Warsaw, who listens to every musical genre. Dr Artur Szklener has just been awarded the title of Leader by vocation. Are you a\u00a0born leader or a\u00a0formed one? I do not particularly feel like a leader. I specialise in the music by Fryderyk […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5771,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[640,643],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whystory.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5768"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whystory.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whystory.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whystory.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whystory.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5768"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/whystory.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5768\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5773,"href":"https:\/\/whystory.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5768\/revisions\/5773"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whystory.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whystory.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whystory.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whystory.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}