During the summers in Warsaw, free piano concerts of Chopin’s music are staged at Lazienki Park and yesterday we had a chance to attend one of the concerts. The area of the park where this is done is rather nice, benches interspersed with bushes surrounding a little pond, a great big statue of Chopin looking down and to the side where beneath they setup a piano. The piano is microphoned with speakers set up about every 50 feet so that everyone can hear (though it of course doesn’t quite sound like the piano that way…).
The setting was nice, the weather fairly warm, and it was nice to be in a crowd of people who could be outside and at a concert and be fairly attentive. The pieces were all Chopin and was a nice selection, though the performance left a bit to be desired. The performer’s sense of time and rhythm and focus seemed to be too caught up in the technique (for lack of a better term), and the phrasing felt to be on a temporal level too short of how I felt the material felt should have been shaped, feeling a bit labored and melodramatic with the drastic changes of tempo.
Regardless, it was very nice to be there in the park in this setting. After the concert, we walked around the park exploring it for our first time, walking where we may and enjoying the lovely design and nature. The trees are grand, the paths nicely done, and many wonderful squirells and even a very large peacock was to be found. A small walk by the lake there, some ice cream, and another walk would end our first excursion there.
The weather has been a bit warm, and while cooler in the park, I imagine how incredible it must be when the weather is much cooler, and wonder how it will be in the winter when all the leaves are gone and when the ground is covered in snow…