As part of its 160th international tour, the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, under the baton of its Music & Artistic Director Krzysztof Urbański, will give five exceptional concerts in the United Kingdom, visiting Birmingham, Bristol, London, Nottingham and Hull.

At the heart of the programme is Fryderyk Chopin’s Piano Concerto in F minor, Op. 21, performed in a distinguished interpretation by the world-renowned Romanian pianist Alexandra Dariescu. This three-movement composition—often described as ‘a work of youthful inspiration uplifted by the emotion of first love’—was written in 1830 in the brillant style and is distinguished by its Romantic expression and remarkable poetic quality. It will be presented to British audiences alongside works by eminent 20th-century Polish composers: Witold Lutosławski’s Little Suite and Grażyna Bacewicz’s Scherzo.

Composed in 1950 at the request of the Polish Radio Chamber Orchestra, the Little Suite, which masterfully draws on folk motifs from southern Poland, was arranged for symphony orchestra a year later and quickly gained popularity thanks to its vivid, humorous and atmospheric episodes. Grażyna Bacewicz’s lively Scherzo from 1934, originally written for piano, in Krzysztof Urbański’s brilliant orchestration, has the potential to captivate audiences and direct their attention to the composer’s wider body of work.

The programme of the tour is further enriched by two masterpieces of the symphonic repertoire: Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74 - dubbed the ‘Pathétique’ by his brother Modest - and Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92, which Richard Wagner famously described as ‘the apotheosis of the dance’.