Twenty symphonic and chamber concerts, as well as the Polish premiere of a Donizetti opera are on the programme of the annual Ludwig van Beethoven Easter Festival, inaugurated tonight in the Warsaw Philharmonic Hall, with a concert to mark the centenary of Gustav Mahler’s death.

The Warsaw Philharmonic and foreign soloists under Antoni Wit will perform the composer’s Second Symphony, ‘Resurrection’.

Rudolf Buchbinder will perform all of Beethoven’s piano concertos with Sinfonietta Cracovia conducted by Robert Kabara.

Featured artists also include the Dresden Philharmonic under John Axelrod, the Lahti Symphony Orchestra conducted by Okko Kamu, the violinist Viviane Hagner, the cellist Danjulo Ishizaka and the flautist Massimo Mercelli. A concert version of Donizetti’s ‘Maria Padilla’ will be given by the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra under Łukasz Borowicz within the framework of the festival’s annual presentations of lesser known operas.

The Beethoven Easter Festival is the brainchild of Elżbieta Penderecka, the wife of the famous composer Krzysztof Penderecki. It is held for the 15th time.

In addition to Warsaw, some of the concerts are held in Białystok, Bydgoszcz, Gdańsk, Kraków, Lublin, Opole, Poznań, Radom, Rzeszów and Wrocław. (mk)