An Evening with Jane Stirling at the Krakow Academy of Music

An Evening with Jane Stirling was an opportunity to listen to a variety of Chopin’s  compositions,  including the two Nocturnes which he dedicated to Jane Stirling, performed by the inimitable Anna Dębowska.  Normally fragile and fearful, Anna becomes a musical sovereign when she tames the grand piano through Chopin’s music. She can calm the audience with her subtle rendition of the composer’s nocturnes, but at the same time she can roll through the keyboard like a hurricane with demanding passages as she interprets his ballades. And so did she perform at „An Evening with Jane Stirling” on 26th October 2018.

Anna’s performance during „An Evening with Jane Stirling”  fused the past and the present, as they provided the audience with a unique opportunity to commune with sounds that so clearly carry a message. Combined with readings from Chopin’s letters given by Marcin Jaroszek,  they offered a musical voyage in time back to 1848, when Caledonian soil hosted the dying Chopin, impoverished by his declining lot, enriched by numerous tokens of hospitality and genuine friendship.

Contextualized by Marek Kucharski’s narration, „An Evening with Jane Stirling” span a story of love, devotion, disillusionment and unconditional respect for this somewhat whimsical Romantic genius. It told the story of Jane Wilhelmina Stirling, who gave so much and received so little. It told a story that had rested dormant for nearly two centuries – a story that will now unfold…

The concert was followed by a photographic exhibition the director of which was Anna. Photographs by Jakub Orłowski showed places related to Chopin’s stay in Scotland in 1848. Some of them are the stately homes which the Great Romantic visitted thanks to the hospitability of Jane Strling, her family, and her friends.  The exhibition illustrated unique venues, often unavailable to the public, such as the legendary Calder House, New Kippenross House (Jane Stirling’s birth place) or Chopin’ bedroom in Dr Lyszczynski’s flat at 10 Warriston Crescent in Edynburgu.