One of the concerts cancelled because of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 was a performance by the Wajnberg Trio. The ensemble consists of three excellent instrumentalists: Piotr Sałajczyk, Szymon Krzeszowiec and Arkadiusz Dobrowolski. At that time, the artists were to perform Ludwig van Beethoven’s Geister Trio, which owed its usual title to Carl Czerny, who associated it with the scene from the first act of Shakespeare's Hamlet – the murdered king returns and appears on the terrace of Elsinore as a ghost. The Wajnberg Trio are now also returning, and with early works by great composers in the repertoire, next to Beethoven’s work, will doubtless reveal their full artistic powers at the National Forum of Music.

The history of the Piano Trio op. 1 by Andrzej Panufnik is also a story of return. It was composed when Panufnik was only nineteen, in 1934. The work, maintained in the Romantic aesthetics and based on Classical formal patterns, was lost, left in his apartment in Warsaw during the war. Panufnik managed to reconstruct the work from memory. The decision to recreate it is not surprising – he later admitted in his Autobiography that it was his first serious compositional achievement. Interestingly, its premiere in 1936 had been attended by the young Mieczysław Wajnberg.

The decision that the Piano Trio will be Erich Korngold's first opus number was taken by the composer's father, the respected music critic Julius Korngold. At the time of writing this work, Korngold Jr was only twelve years old and was studying with Alexander Zemlinsky, who was one of the pioneers of modernity in Austria. Listening to the work we will have no doubt that the young Erich was a prodigy. The trio reveals ambitions of an almost symphonic scale. Each of the three movements places great demands on the performers, while allowing them to show off expressively. At the same time, the young Korngold plays with the Viennese traditions, which is why we will hear the familiar rhythms of the waltz, but there will also be provocative transformations.