The Easter Beethoven Festival opens in Warsaw on Sunday with a concert by the National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra from Katowice under the world-famous American conductor Leonard Slatkin in works by Beethoven, Brahms and Mahler.

The programme of the event includes 10 symphonic concerts, two concerts of chamber music, two piano recitals, a song recital, a choral concert as well as a concert version of Benjamin Britten’s opera ‘The Turn of the Screw’.

The programme of the final concert, traditionally held on Good Friday, includes the Polish premiere of Krzysztof Penderecki’s ‘Dies illa’, written for the 100th anniversary of World War One and premiered in Brussels last year. It is a 30-minute work for orchestra and three soloists.

The Beethoven Festival, now in its 19th year, is the brainchild of Elżbieta Penderecka, the wife of Krzysztof Penderecki. (mk/jb)