The National Forum of Music was created by the merger of Wratislavia Cantans and the Wrocław Philharmonic, and since then I have managed the whole thing. Now I have become artistic director. So I have known the festival for a long time and from different perspectives – the latest one is a bit of a challenge. I feel responsible for the shape of Wratislavia, for its present and future. At the same time, I would like to highlight that even earlier, when Paul McCreesh and then Giovanni Antonini were artistic directors, I participated to some extent in programming the festival events. Giovanni in particular felt the need to talk to me about the repertoire, about the festival themes, about the artists he wanted to invite. Besides, I valued these exchanges of ideas very much as an expression of trust. This year’s festival is in a sense a transitional stage because the theme is co-authored by Giovanni. During these discussions, we agreed that the motto for 2025 would be Paradise Lost [?]. This is a kind of link that shows that changes are fluid and evolutionary.

JK: We will return to Paradise Lost [?], this year’s theme, but first I would like to ask about the general concept of the festival in the third decade of the 21st century. When Andrzej Markowski created Wratislavia Cantans, the reality looked completely different: there were no CDs, music was hard to come by, and the borders were quite firmly closed. It is no exaggeration to say that Wratislavia became the Polish window to the world. Over the course of six decades, our country has changed dramatically. So how do you imagine the impact of the festival today? 

AK: At that time, there was no tradition of organising musical events outside concert halls. When formulating the festival’s concept, Markowski embedded it in the urban fabric from the very beginning and began organising concerts in churches. This was a rarity at the time. The authorities of the time did not favour religious music in the official repertoire of artistic institutions. The fact that concerts were held in historical interiors was in contrast to reality. It’s true – we hadn’t had any recordings [of sacred music], there had been no albums as we know them today, such a repertoire had not been included in the programme offer at all. Wratislavia Cantans was a new, inspiring and moving phenomenon on a national scale. Now everything has changed: basically, you can invite any artist, no one is surprised that concerts take place in a wide variety of spaces. So times have really changed. But I think that the strength of the festival is still its formula. Vocal-instrumental music, the human voice, pieces based on text are still the features that distinguish Wratislavia Cantans from other cultural events and festivals in Poland and Europe. This formula is very important, because on the one hand it is quite specific, and on the other it gives huge possibilities to build the festival programme in a different way every year.

JK: What has also changed over the years is that today you have one of the best concert halls in this part of Europe. Doesn’t that weaken your motivation to go outside all the time? How do you fight the temptation to simply organise all events in the NFM spaces? 

AK: Yes, we were waiting for this hall, and we can hear the difference. Back in the 1990s or the first decade of the 21st century, the main venue for the largest, most important festival events was the Cathedral of Mary Magdalene. It is well known how imperfect the acoustic conditions are there. Unfortunately, some musical works performed in this interior lose a lot, especially Classical and later music. The long reverberation meant that many important nuances were lost. Of course, there was an atmosphere, the sentiment remained, but concerts that do not have to take place in sacred places are held in the NFM concert halls, where acoustic conditions are ideal. Certainly, we do not completely give up on historical interiors.

JK: The theme of this year’s festival is Paradise Lost [?]. Apart from references to Milton, is this a reaction to current events in the world? Growing tensions, conflicts, the war that has been going on for another year across our eastern border... 
AK: Speaking of the motto, I allowed myself to comment on John Milton’s poem. I mean the question mark in parentheses. Is it really paradise? And is it lost? There is a particular scene in Milton’s work: Satan and his companions are cast down to hell. At one point, Satan wakes up in a sea of fire, finding that he is still himself. The fact that he has lost paradise does not make him someone else. He still feels great power. Then he also says the significant words: the mind is something so powerful that it can change hell into paradise and heaven into hell. I think that this may also be the key to understanding this year’s message: this fragment of the poem shows that unfortunately, humans themselves very often bring hell to earth. But it also happens that humans reveal their greatness and can build a paradise here.
Music responds to emotions and reflections on current events less strongly than theatre. Nevertheless, I think that it too – although from a slightly different perspective – must somehow refer to what is happening around us. Some works comment directly on this reality. For this year’s festival, we commissioned a piece from Zygmunt Krauze. His Requiem is not a funeral mass strictly related to liturgy. On the contrary, the music is based on poetic texts referring to reality. The work was dedicated to the most innocent victims of wars – children. We are halfway through the third decade of the twenty-first century, and still so many vulnerable beings are deprived not only of childhood, but often also of life in the conflicts that shake our world.

JK: Commissions from composers are a long and important tradition of Wratislavia Cantans. We will return to contemporary music because there will be more of these threads. But the festival begins with a strong, classical accent – works by two of the three Viennese Classicists: Mozart and Beethoven. The Coronation Mass, or Mozart in his full creative powers, and Beethoven’s Symphony in E flat major “Eroica”. What was the reason for such a choice? 
AK: You could say that these are musical paradises. Absolute perfection is revealed in every bar of both works. But history also shows that the hopes that Beethoven had for Napoleon – a leader who was to become a providential man for Europe at that time – ended with the transformation of an anticipated hero into a tyrant. So on the one hand, musical perfection, on the other – imperfect reality.

JK: After the compositions by Mozart and Beethoven, we will also hear the music of another genius – Bach. Die Kunst der Fuge is the last great work of the Leipzig cantor. An unfinished piece, for an unspecified instrumental line-up. How do you imagine the sound of Die Kunst der Fuge? 

AK: This is a concert that I will conduct. I have orchestrated this piece using three quartets: string, gamba and wind. There are also two harpsichords. This piece was not intended to be performed – Bach wrote it as a certain idea, a certain compositional intention, which, by the way, gives a lot of space for the performer to realise their vision of this work. For me, this is, next to the Mass in B minor, the highest achievement in music. These are musical paradises. And I don’t think they are lost.

JK: The festival will also feature Théotime Langlois de Swarte – a brilliant French violinist, a rising star in early music performance, accompanied by lutenist Thomas Dunford. The artists will perform in the Pan Tadeusz Museum. Please tell us something about this venue. And of course about the music they will bring to Wrocław. 

AK: This is a small room in one of the tenement houses in Wrocław’s Market Square. We have already organised concerts there; for example, Gustav Leonhardt’s harpsichord recital took place there. It was one of those events that I will always remember. The intimacy of the place meant that we could watch the artist from very close up, and the sound of the harpsichord resounded in all possible colours. We want to continue this tradition by organising [more] concerts there. This room can accommodate several dozen people, and you sit close to the artists. I think that a combination such as a violin and a lute will fit perfectly into this space. The story told in the pieces by English composers will touch on unfulfilled love. This is a topic that is very close to the main idea of the festival.

JK: Let’s stick with love, because the Song of Songs will also appear in various settings by early composers from Silesia, Germany, England, and even Iceland. Are Agnieszka Budzińska-Bennet and her ensemble Peregrina debuting at Wratislavia Cantans?

AK: Yes. And I am very happy about that. Once again we have a vision of paradise that people can bring upon themselves. There is no poem about love that is more beautiful than Canticum Canticorum. I have recently been persuading Giovanni Antonini to invite Polish artists too. This year we will host, for example, the aforementioned Agnieszka Budzińska-Bennet, but also Andrzej Szadejko with the Goldberg Ensemble and Pucklitz’s music.

JK: In principle, from the very beginning of the festival, early music has featured side by side with the latest compositions. In this context, I am interested in what Agata Zubel and the artists accompanying her will be doing in the NFM building – will the building itself play a certain role here? 
AK: This event will consist of two parts: it will start in the NFM Red Hall and will continue in a ORLEN Main Hall confirms what we have already said, that Wratislavia stands for very diverse music, which is an important element and strength of the festival. I would like to keep this [trend], because it turns out that artists have been occupied by similar subjects in the past and are still taking them up today. 

JK: Incorporating architecture into musical events has already happened here. This was the case during the inauguration of the NFM, when music somehow flowed down from the top, from individual balconies to the stage. Or during the Musica Polonica Nova festival, when the entire NFM building was treated as a stage. This is of course a fascinating topic, but let’s get back to the festival programme. We must also mention the giants, as Charles Dutoit, among others, will be visiting Wrocław, and the soloist during the concert he will conductor will be Martha Argerich, who played at the NFM some time ago. Did she make us want more, so you decided to invite her again? 

AK: Putting together a programme is one thing, but it is not always possible to invite specific artists, because, for example, agreeing on dates turns out to be impossible. There are various things involved. The story with Martha is symptomatic. We had an offer for this artist to perform with the Monte Carlo orchestra during the festival. We first held talks with the agent, then with the musicians. Of course, we would be happy to invite them, but the programme had to be somehow connected to the theme of the festival – and that was a problem, because the orchestra was going on tour with a specific repertoire. However, I set a condition that it had to be music with the participation of a soloist or choir. Finally, we talked to the conductor; he started asking about Wrocław and the choir that the orchestra would perform with. When he heard that it was the NFM Choir, he replied that he knew and appreciated this choir – they had once worked together at the NOSPR – so he changed the programme. And then the idea was born to perform Beethoven’s Fantasia in C minor, Op. 80, in which both the choir and Martha Argerich would perform.

JK: As for the giants, Sir John Eliot Gardiner will also appear in Wrocław – an artist whose name has become strongly associated with the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. This time, he will not conduct the works of the Leipzig cantor but, perhaps to the surprise of some listeners, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. What was the reason for this choice? 
AK: Whenever Gardiner has been to Poland, he has only been to Wrocław. It is wonderful that he will perform here again, and that we will once again enjoy his mastery. Besides, in a sense, this is also a kind of return from private hell. As for the programme, the second work in particular – the Walpurgis Night, touches on the history of paradise. Of course, this is not a Christian vision, but it is all the more interesting that there is room for such stories here.

JK: In a way, Christoph Eschenbach’s arrival in Wrocław was also a return from hell. He was born in Breslau, lost his closest family there during the war, and now, as the head of the NFM Wrocław Philharmonic, he closes the festival with Wagner’s music. Whose idea was it? 

AK: It was his concept. Of course, it was discussed because we also had other options. Parsifal is a very meaningful conclusion to this year’s Wratislavia Cantans. I am happy that maestro Eschenbach is back and working with our orchestra. We agreed that he will also find time to conduct the Wrocław Philharmonic during the festival. This year there will be a lot of large symphonic works, intended for big line-ups, which the audience likes. The counterpoint to the large concerts will be small pieces – very delicate, sophisticated, for small ensembles. I look at this programme now and I am beginning to like it a lot.

JK: We have mentioned that times have changed dramatically. It seems to me that today, when music is available at any time, what distinguishes festivals and compositions performed live is the possibility of meeting and experiencing art with others. Especially as community is a phenomenon that we are sorely missing today. Is this a task for festivals? 

AK: I would put it more broadly. I see this during festivals, but also simply during the season: there is a hunger for a sense of community within us. We would like to feel like members of a community, but we often jump at each other’s throats, in which, by the way, social engineering experts help us: they use every pretext to divide people according to the Roman maxim, because then they are easier to rule. But we need a common bond, and I think that music has an extremely important role to play here. I would like the NFM to be a place where you can meet and talk before and after a concert, and not only about it. That is why I plan to bring about a conversation between philosophers during Wratislavia Cantans – it will be a discussion around the main motto of the festival. 

JK: Do you envisage more new elements?
AK: Yes – we will soon announce a competition for a programme for artists, let’s say, of the younger generation. They will be rewarded with performances during the festival, but first they must prepare a proposal for a programme related to the main theme of this year’s Wratislavia. According to the initial arrangements, there will be two ensembles that will play three or four concerts. On the one hand, I am an advocate of a one-person artistic management – the festival has never had an artistic council; at the same time, however, I would like to provide some space for ideas that artists of the younger generation will present to us.

JK: Young vocalists and instrumentalists have been involved in festival activities for a long time. I mean, for example, the oratorio course...
AK: There will be no shortage of that, and this year the course will be led by Lionel Sow – artistic director of the NFM Choir. But during the festival there will also be a second orchestras conference, to which we invite representatives of orchestras  from all over the world. I am happy that this is where we will be discussing the future of musical ensembles. See you in Wrocław and Lower Silesia!

Jakub Kukla – broadcaster of Polish Radio 2 and contributor to Polish Radio 24, he writes for “Ruch Muzyczny” and “Plus Minus”