The event recalls and co-creates the city’s great musical traditions. The 41st “Music in Old Cracow” Festival is here!

Twenty, thirty years ago, when Kraków’s music scene took a step back in late June, the festival used to be the only highlight of the summer holidays. Today, even though the city’s concert calendar is filled to the brim, it has lost nothing of its prestige. That’s because the “Music in Old Cracow” Festival is in a class of its own!

Chopin

Let’s start with the acclaimed Grigory Sokolov, dreamed about by fans in New York (he doesn’t like jetlag, so he rarely travels across the Atlantic) and a regular at the Kraków festival. We begin with outstanding piano music from Chopin and Schumann (15 August, Kraków Philharmonic). Sokolov’s concert harmonises with the finale of Music in Old Cracow, during which both of Chopin’s piano concertos are performed by the young artists Szymon Nehring and Krzysztof Książek under the baton of the maestro Tadeusz Strugała (31 August, Kraków Philharmonic).

Bach and others

There will be many surprises for fans of early music! After all, it’s always been one of the festival’s fortes, even when hardly anyone in Poland dreamed of historical performances. The recital by Jordi Savall is bound to attract huge crowds. The Catalonian artist, co-founder and conductor of Hespèrion XXI, La Capella Reial de Catalunya and Le Concert des Nations, performs as an instrumentalist presenting works for viola da gamba by John Dowland, Tobias Hume and Marin Marais (22 August, Bernardine Church).

The concert by Onyx Brass maintains the Renaissance and Baroque mood (17 August, courtyard of Collegium Maius). According to the BBC Music Magazine, the quintet is “the classiest brass ensemble in Britain”. They demonstrate that the gleaming two trumpets, French horn, trombone and tuba are the perfect sound for works by Claudio Monteverdi, Henry Purcell, Thomas Tallis, Andrea Gabrieli and Anthony Holborne.

Early music continues with the return to the festival by the stunning soprano Elżbieta Towarnicka; accompanied by Marek Stefański on organ, she performs Bach’s Geistliche Lieder (21 August, St Martin’s Church).

And that’s not all! Mediaeval compositions fill the concert by Ensemble Gilles Binchois (23 August, Wieliczka Salt Mine), works by Andreas Hakenberger, the 17th-century singer with the royal band in Kraków, are presented by Schola Cantorum Gedanensis (19 August, Pauline Church), and excerpts from the David's Psalter with words by Jan Kochanowski and music by Mikołaj Gomółka resound by the vocal quartet Triplum (26 August, St Mark’s Church).

Mozart, Mozart and Mozart

We will hear music by Mozart, or more precisely Music of Three Mozarts. That’s the title of the concert by the Lviv Virtuosos orchestra under the baton of Serhiy Burko (24 August, Jesuit Church): the musicians remind us that Wolfgang Amadeus’ father Leopold and son Franz Xaver Wolfgang were also musicians in their own right (Franz spent a large part of his life in Lviv). Music by the “proper” Mozart is performed by the flautist Łukasz Długosz: he will be accompanied during the Concerto in G major by the chamber ensemble Slovak Sinfonietta under the baton of Paweł Przytocki (21 August, Tempel Synagogue). And while we’re visiting the era of Classicism, let’s not forget the performance by the acclaimed Ivan Monighetti; he is joined by the Sinfonietta Cracovia orchestra for Haydn’s cello concertos in C major and D major (27 August, Church of Sts Peter and Paul).

Genius loci

The charm of the concerts also comes from the beautiful festival venues. Works by Johann Sebastian and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach resound among masterpieces of Polish art in Sukiennice, performed by Elżbieta Stefańska on harpsichord and Bartosz Koziak on cello (16 August). Early Polish music comes to the Gothic Church of St Catherine: soloists and the ensembles Collegium Zieleński and King’s Rorantists are led by Stanisław Gałoński, co-founder and artistic director of the festival (18 August). Among the golden Baroque altars of the Church of Corpus Christi, the Czech Ensemble Baroque pays homage to Czech composers of the 17th and 18th centuries (21 August), while works by Mozart, Bartók and Beethoven performed by the Kodály String Quartet come to the Franciscan Church (25 August). Music really is at its finest in old Kraków. (Barbara Skowrońska)