The 2nd International Chopin Competition on Period Instruments, organised by the Fryderyk Chopin Institute, will be held in Warsaw on 5–15 October 2023.

One of the lodestars the Chopin Institute has followed from its earliest days and a fundamental component of its programme is the endeavour to bring back the authentic sound of the music our composing genius created.

The meticulously drawn and persistently implemented plan of activity in this scope encompasses the annually organised Chopin and His Europe International Festival. Developed from the proprietary concept of Stanisław Leszczyński in 2005, it opened a new chapter in interpreting Chopin’s music.

From the purchase of the first instrument from the time of Chopin, an Erard from 1849, the Institute has developed its collection of period pianos and their replicas, and made them available to eminent pianists, at the same time inviting the best orchestras specialising in historically informed performance to Warsaw.

The release of successive CDs in “The Real Chopin” series, the world’s first to include the complete works of the Polish composing genius in their original sound, has also been a great success in the recent years.

Performances using means similar to those the composer had at his disposal makes contemporary audiences aware of the specific nature of Chopin’s music, and particularly of its distinctive features that are lost if performed on contemporary instruments.
Another extremely important step aimed at spreading the idea of performing Chopin’s music on instruments from his time is the organisation of the exceptional Chopin Competition on Period Instruments.

The competition was first held in September 2018 in the Warsaw Philharmonic, and became a crucial element of the Chopin Institute’s celebrations of Poland’s 100th anniversary of regaining independence. The winner of the competition, which attracted nearly 60 pianists from 19 countries, was Tomasz Ritter, a Pole.

The Competition will be held for the second time from 5 to 15 October 2023, again in the Warsaw Philharmonic.

It has been slated for three stages: the first and the second are solo recitals with repertoires composed of, beside Chopin, selected pieces by Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and polonaises by Polish composers active in the first half of the 19th century. In the third stage, the six finalists will perform their choice of Chopin’s works with an orchestra. They will be accompanied by Martyna Pastuszka’s {oh!} Orkiestra Historyczna.

The pianists will be assessed by an international jury composed of eminent musicians specialising in historically informed performance, notably Andreas Staier, Paolo Giacometti and Tobias Koch, and eminent Chopin experts.

The competing pianists will have at their disposal historical instruments from the Chopin Institute’s collection – Erards from 1838, 1849, and 1855, Pleyels from 1848 and 1854, and a Broadwood from 1843, and, besides those, also replicas of period instruments and instruments kindly loaned from European collections.