Four Fascinating Love Interests of Frederic Chopin

 by Emily E. Hogstad  February 8th, 2026

Frédéric Chopin had one of the most famous love lives of the great composers due to his unconventional partnership with the great writer George Sand.

Maria Wodzińska: Frédéric Chopin, 1836 (Wasaw: National Museum)

From his teenage infatuation with soprano Konstancja Gładkowska to the turbulent affair with Sand, he had quite the run of bad luck in his romantic relationships.

Today, we’re looking at some of the remarkable women (and one man) who inspired romantic feelings in one of the Romantic Era’s most romantic composers.

Konstancja Gładkowska (1829-1830)

Konstancja Gładkowska

Konstancja Gładkowska was born to an apartment manager and his wife in Warsaw in 1810, a few months after Chopin.

She began studying voice at the Warsaw Conservatory in 1824. In her late teens, her father died, leading the Polish government to step in and pay for her musical education.

Historians believe that she met Chopin in the spring of 1829, when he developed an intense crush on her.

One Sunday morning, she glanced at him at church. He was so stunned by that glance that he found himself stumbling out the door. He ran into his family doctor outside, and he explained his clumsiness away by saying a dog ran between his legs. He immediately regretted the lie, bemoaning to a friend, “It is terrible to think what a lunatic I sometimes seem to be.”

In October 1829, he wrote a letter to his best friend (and possible crush) Tytus Woyciechowski:

“It is perhaps my misfortune that I have already found my ideal, whom I have served faithfully for six months, though without saying a word to her about my feelings; whom I dream of, who inspired the Adagio of my Concerto, and also this morning the little waltz that I am sending you. No one but you will know what it means.”

In the summer of 1830, Chopin visited Tytus Woyciechowski’s family estate in the countryside, but he cut that visit short to return to Warsaw to see Gładkowska’s operatic debut, which he was impressed by.

The following autumn, after putting his departure off, Chopin decided to leave Warsaw to pursue an international career. He gave a goodbye concert, and Gładkowska sang a Rossini aria at it.

The Rossini aria that Gładkowska sang at Chopin’s farewell concert   

She also wrote a poem in his autograph book about how his Polish friends would miss him, and the two even exchanged rings. (However, there is no evidence that they were ever formally engaged.)

For a while, they corresponded, but they eventually lost touch.

In 1831, he wrote, “Her image is before my eyes! – it seems to me that I do not love her, and yet she does not leave my head.”

Gładkowska’s mother wasn’t thrilled about the idea of her daughter making a living on the stage, and eventually she gave up her singing career. In 1832, she married a well-off widower named Aleksander Józef Grabowski.

Chopin’s sister Izabella commented acidly about Gładkowska’s marriage: “I am as surprised as you that she could have been so insensitive. The palace was clearly more alluring to her.”

Before she died, she burned her correspondence with Chopin. She only found out about his intense crush on her when she was an elderly woman, and a caretaker read a Chopin biography to her.

Tytus Woyciechowski (ca. 1827–1830)

Tytus Woyciechowski

Tytus Woyciechowski was born two years before Chopin in present-day Lviv, Ukraine. At fourteen, he moved to Warsaw.

The following year, when Chopin was thirteen, Woyciechowski moved into the Chopin household as a boarding student.

He and Chopin became inseparable, studying with the same piano teacher and playing four hand piano together.

After Woyciechowski graduated, he left for his family’s estate in the Polish countryside.

But Chopin missed him and hero-worshipped him. In 1827, when he was seventeen, Chopin composed his Variations on “Là ci darem la mano”, a fantasy for piano and orchestra based on a theme from Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni. He asked Woyciechowski if he could dedicate it to him, and he said yes. (Chopin would later rearrange it for solo piano.)

Yunchan Lim – CHOPIN – Variations on “Là ci darem la mano,” op. 2    

The variations ended up becoming the work that jump-started his career, inspiring Robert Schumann to write, “Hats off, gentlemen! A genius!”

Chopin went to visit Woyciechowski in the summer of 1830. That March, while planning the trip, Chopin wrote him:

“As always, even now, I carry your letters with me. How blissful it will be for me, having gone beyond the city walls in May, thinking about my approaching journey, to pull out a letter of yours and assure myself sincerely that you love me, or at least to gaze at the hand and the writing of him, whom only I am able to love!”

A couple of weeks later, he wrote an even more homoerotic passage:

“I will go and wash. Don’t kiss me now, because I haven’t yet washed. You? Even if I were to rub myself with Byzantine oils, you still wouldn’t kiss me, unless I compelled you to do so with magnetism. There is some sort of force in nature. Today you will dream that you’re kissing me. I have to pay you back for the nasty dream you brought me last night.”

They spent an idyllic time together, riding horses and partaking in archery together. Chopin later wrote:

“I tell you sincerely that it is pleasant to recall all of this. Your fields left in me some sort of longing; that birch under the windows just will not leave my memory. That crossbow! How romantic it all was! I remember that crossbow, with which you really wore me out – for all my sins.”

When Chopin decided to leave Warsaw to try his luck at an international career, he invited Woyciechowski to travel with him, and he accepted.

The two made it as far as Vienna before the November Uprising, which consisted of Poles fighting back against their Russian oppressors, began in Warsaw. Woyciechowski left Chopin to fight. The uprising eventually failed.

Chopin wrote to him:

“My dearest life! I have never missed you as I do now; I have no one to pour things out to, I have not you. One look from you after each concert would be more to me than all the praises of the journalists.”

They never saw each other again. Chopin lived his life in exile, while Woyciechowski went on to marry in 1838. He and his wife named their second child Fryderyk after Chopin.

Toward the end of his life, when he was dying of tuberculosis, Chopin wrote to Woyciechowski again, expressing a desire to see him. Unfortunately, a reunion never took place.

This may not have been a traditional love relationship, and we’ve lost Woyciechowski’s side of the correspondence, making it impossible to know what they truly felt for one another. But if Chopin had written what he wrote to Woyciechowski to a woman, even if they never formally dated, we’d likely classify her as a love interest, so we’re including him today.

Maria Wodzińska (1835–1837)

Maria Wodzińska, year 1840

Maria Wodzińska was born to a prominent Polish family in Warsaw in January 1819.

She entered Chopin’s circle when her two younger brothers began boarding with Chopin’s family while attending school (like Woyciechowski had).

The two families became good friends, and Chopin met her when she was a young girl. Even though he was nine years older, Chopin would run around and play alongside her.

However, he lost touch with them after the November Uprising of 1830. The family fled to Berlin, Dresden, and then Geneva, waiting for political tensions to cool.

While in Geneva, Wodzińska studied piano with John Field (the same composer who pioneered the piano nocturne, a genre that Chopin would later perfect), and also began studying art. She also composed.

In 1835, when she was sixteen, and Chopin was 25, he met her while traveling in Dresden. When he had to leave, he gifted her with the waltz that eventually was published posthumously as his Op. 69, No 1 in A-flat major.

Chopin Valse op 69 No 1 in A flat major. Valentina Lisitsav    

The Wodzińska family kept in touch via letter and reconnected the following summer in the spa town of Marienbad, spending two months together at the same hotel.

During that summer, Wodzińska made a famous pencil and watercolour sketch of Chopin.

On September 9, 1836, he secretly proposed to her, and she accepted. However, due to her father’s disapproval, they kept their engagement secret.

They resumed their relationship by letter, but it was difficult for them to connect emotionally while dating long-distance. In the end, the relationship fizzled out within a year.

Wodzińska married a count in 1841 (interestingly, the son of Chopin’s godfather). However, the marriage was unhappy, and they divorced.

She remarried in 1848 to Władysław Orpiszewski, a leaseholder of her first husband’s estates. They had one child together, but he died at the age of three.

As for Chopin, he took the rejection hard, tying up letters from the family in a bow and labeling the stack “My sorrows.”

In 1837, he wrote his famous Funeral March, which eventually became the third movement of his second piano sonata. Some people connect the march to the failed love affair.      George Sand (1838–1847)

Portrait of Frédéric Chopin and George Sand by Eugène Delacroix

While Chopin was having his heart broken, George Sand was busy breaking hearts.

Born Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin de Francueil in the summer of 1804, she married at the age of eighteen and had two children. However, she left her marriage in 1831.

She then had affairs with a number of talented men and began an overwhelmingly successful writing career. She thumbed her nose at traditional gender roles and became famous for her masculine wardrobe.

In the autumn of 1836, she reportedly asked Franz Liszt for an introduction to Chopin. Chopin is said to have asked Liszt afterwards, “Is she really a woman?”

It wasn’t the most promising of starts, but she couldn’t stop thinking about him.

In May 1838, she discreetly made inquiries about whether Chopin’s engagement to Wodzińska was well and truly over. When she found out it was, she approached him again.

Historians aren’t entirely sure how, but they became friends and then lovers. That winter, they took an untraditional honeymoon-like vacation to Majorca.

It wasn’t a particularly pleasant stay (the weather was bad and the townspeople were suspicious of them), but it was a creatively productive time, resulting in many of the 24 Preludes.    

Chopin began spending the summers at Sand’s country house in Nohant, France. During the other months of the year, they each rented their own apartments in Paris, but still stayed near to one another.

Eventually, the two began drifting apart. Chopin’s health was deteriorating; Sand eventually became more of a caretaker mother figure than a lover.

She wrote a semi-autobiographical novel called Lucrezia Floriani about a strong woman caring for a self-absorbed neurotic invalid prince. It didn’t help their relationship. Then Chopin began siding with Sand’s daughter, Solange, in mother-daughter arguments, and Solange even developed a crush on him.

The situation simply grew too messy and complicated to continue. On July 28, 1847, Sand wrote to him:

“Goodbye, my friend. May you soon be cured of all your ills, as I hope that now you may be… If you are, I will offer thanks to God for this fantastic ending of a friendship which has, for nine years, absorbed both of us. Send me your news from time to time. It is useless to think that things can ever again be the same between us.”

They met for one last time in March 1848. Solange ended up becoming estranged from her mother, and it was Chopin who delivered the news that Solange had had a baby.

Chopin’s health deteriorated quickly, and there wasn’t time for him to pursue another relationship. He died a year later of tuberculosis at the age of 39. George Sand didn’t attend the funeral.

Conclusion

All four of these romantic relationships ended in a sad and quiet kind of way.

Maybe they were all doomed to, given Chopin’s introverted and prickly personality, as well as the constant chronic health struggles that made it difficult for him to sustain long-term relationships.

In the end, the most consequential love affair he’d ever have was with music.

11 October: Frédéric Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1 Was Premiered

by Georg Predota

Frédéric Chopin, 1873

On 22 September 1830, Frédéric Chopin invited all of musical Warsaw to his home for a dress rehearsal of his E-minor Concerto. The rehearsal was enormously successful and a press review announced, “I hasten to bring a piece of good news to all friends of music and of native talent: Frédéric Chopin has completed his second grand piano Concerto. It is a work of genius, original, gracefully conceived with an abundance of imaginative ideas and perfect orchestration. The performance was masterfully executed… and we must add that Mr. Chopin will rob the Warsaw public of great pleasure if he departs without having publically produced this second Concerto.” Glowing accolades none withstanding, let us clear up some possible confusion. The referenced E-minor Concerto was the first of Chopin’s two piano concertos to be published, and it was subsequently given the opus number 11. It was composed immediately after the premiere of the F-minor concerto, which took place on 17 March 1830. This composition was published as his Piano Concerto No. 2 and given the opus number 21. As such, the E-minor concerto was composed and performed second but published first. The public premiere performance took place on 11 October 1830 at the Teatr Narodowy (National Theatre) in Warsaw, Poland, with the composer as the soloist.

Chopin playing piano © reddit

Chopin writes about his performance, “I was not the slightest bit nervous and I played as I play when I am alone. It went well. The hall was full. Goerner’s Symphony came first. Then My highness played the first allegro of the E minor Concerto, which I reeled off on a Streicher piano. The bravos were deafening… It seems to me that I have never been so much at ease when playing with an orchestra. The audience enjoyed my piano playing.” Rising political tensions prevented extended press reviews, and the local newspaper merely describes it as “one of the most sublime of all musical works,” but hardly the ecstatic tribute paid to the F-minor concerto earlier that year. Chopin performed the “Rondo” of the E-minor in Breslau 14 days later, and wrote to his family that the Germans had declared, “How light his touch as a pianist was.” However, Chopin complained, “that there was not a word written about the composition itself.” One local critic, however, “praised the novelty of the form, saying that he had never yet heard anything quite like it. “Perhaps” Chopin opined, “he understood better than any of them.” And a Munich performance in 1831 prompted the reviewer to write, “A lovely delicacy along with a beautiful and individualistic interpretation of the themes was characteristic of his cultivated style. On the whole, the work was brilliant and well written but without any particular originality or depth except for the main theme and middle second of the Rondo, which display a unique charm in their peculiar combination of melancholy and light-hearted passages.”

François-Joseph Fétis

Once the E-minor concerto had made its way to Paris, François-Joseph Fétis, one of the most influential music critics of the 19th century writes, “M. Chopin performed a concerto that caused as much astonishment as pleasure because of the novelty of its melodic ideas as well as its figuration, modulations, and form in general. His melodies are soulful, his keyboard writing imaginative, and originality prevails throughout. But mixed in with the qualities I have just identified are such weaknesses as over-rich modulations and a disordered succession of phrases, so that sometimes one had the impression of listening to an improvisation rather than composed music.” These early reviews decidedly colored the reception of the E-minor Concerto in the early twentieth century.

Frédéric Kalkbrenner, 1829

James Huneker dismissed it claiming “not Chopin at his very best,” and specifically writing on the E-minor he observed that “the first movement is too long, too much in one set of keys, and the working out section too much in the nature of a technical study.” And Donald Francis Tovey writes in the 1930’s that “the first movement of the E minor is built on a suicidal plan,” suggesting that it lacked “an essential element of harmonic contract and was therefore deficient from a structural point of view.” Critics initially might also have been guided by the dedication of the E-minor concerto to Frédéric Kalkbrenner, who was after all in the running to become Chopin’s teacher in Paris. However, today we understand that Chopin used virtuosity of differentiated intensity, inviting fluid interpretation and expression from his most technical writing. As has been observed, the E-minor concerto derives its “energy and momentum not from the contract of tonal centers, but from the contrast of lyric and virtuosic sections in the piano writing.”

A Powerful Documentary Chopin: I am Not Afraid of Darkness

by Janet Horvath

A very special documentary entitled Chopin: I am Not Afraid of Darkness illustrates the power of music to transform people of all cultures. The film received an award at the 59th Golden Prague International Festival and is being screened worldwide at film festivals around the world. 

I had a chance to have an in-depth conversation with the producer and director of Chopin: I am Not Afraid of Darkness, Maciej Pawelczyk of Inbornmedia, a TV production company. They produce more than 100 hours of TV content and independent documentaries per year and sell to companies in the UK, Europe, Asia, and the U.S.

We’ll begin by setting the tone with Chopin‘s Prelude in A Minor, Op. 28, No. 2.

Chopin: I am Not Afraid of Darkness © IMDb

What a moving and provocative film! Tell us how you chose the three settings and the three musicians to feature.

Thank you, Janet. As a creative film producer, I feel flattered. We sought locations not only symbolic but also steeped in the sorrows and shadows of history’s darkest chapters, which would resonate powerfully with Chopin’s music within our film. We aimed to juxtapose the evil aura of these places with the sublime beauty of Chopin’s compositions and to explore the transformative potential of music. Since it is a Polish-Korean co-production, the film naturally led us to locations in Poland and South Korea.

In Poland, setting the bar very high, we chose the Nazi German Death Camp Auschwitz. This site arguably represents the bleakest moment in human history and the epicenter of mass atrocities during World War II. Heavy with unspeakable horrors, it evokes intense emotions. We chose Leszek Możdżer, a celebrated Polish jazz pianist whose unique persona and metaphysical engagement with music promised to counterbalance the oppressive and sinister atmosphere of Auschwitz, anticipating an extraordinary, hopeful musical experience.

Seungilgyo Bridge

We considered what story to unfold in South Korea and chose the Seungilgyo Bridge as our stage, at the border alongside the authoritarian regime of North Korea. The construction of the remarkable site began under North Korean control but was completed by the South. Our Korean co-producers from Play Button Media brought Jae-Yeon Won on board, a distinguished South Korean classical pianist, who performed on the bridge that symbolizes a nation’s torn past and its resilient spirit.

Finally, our third protagonist represents multiple cultural narratives. Fares Marek Basmadji, born in Aleppo, Syria, to a Syrian father and a Polish mother, later becoming a resident of Great Britain, personifies this synthesis. Given the ongoing conflict in Aleppo, we arranged for his appearance to be in Lebanon, a refuge for countless Syrian refugees. Beirut is close to the port where a devastating explosion recently occurred. The location is a poignant reminder of the enduring human spirit amidst chaos and despair.

As you can see, each musician and each setting were meticulously chosen to reflect our film’s core theme: the enduring power of music to heal and uplift, even amid history’s most painful scars.

One of the prominent pieces, Etude Op. 10 No. 3 in E Major called the “Tristesse,” is slow and cantabile with a stunning melody—at times optimistic, tender, and nostalgic. I think the poetic nature of the piece allows the audience to be contemplative.

The result exceeded my expectations. This project was not merely about organizing concerts; it explored how spaces imbued with powerful histories interact and reverberate through music. The juxtaposition of Chopin’s passionate music with the intense energy of the chosen locations created an almost tangible atmosphere, deeply resonating with the audience.

It must have presented tremendous logistical concerns.

Navigating the concerts in Korea and Lebanon posed challenges, but the most daunting was playing a concert in Auschwitz, Poland. I was quite terrified. How would it play out? There, the air is heavy with the memories of over a million souls lost, making it the most earth-shattering cemetery in the world. Engaging with an audience so deeply intertwined with these past atrocities required delicacy and reverence. One of the attendees, Elżbieta Ficowska, was saved due to the initiative and bravery of Irena Sendler, who hid the six-month-old child in a wooden box, placed her on a wagon full of bricks, and transported her from the Jewish ghetto to safety. This, of course, brought enormous depth to our film.

In Beirut, the presence of Syrian audience members, including those who had fled the devastation of their homeland, lent an additional layer of complexity. For Fares, the pianist, performing there was not only an artistic endeavor but also a personal journey into the heart of his country’s suffering. The proximity of the concert stage to the site of the recent port explosion added a raw, immediate context. I can’t forget a deeply touching moment when a woman, who was perched high above the concert looking down from a window, became visibly moved by the performance. The tears of onlookers and the silent grief of the city were palpable.

In Korea, the Seungilgyo Bridge represents a poignant symbol for the listeners. A listener reflected upon his grandfather who perished in the Korean War, the bridge symbolizing the huge toll of the conflict. For another attendee, a defector from North Korea, its spans signify the bittersweet embodiment of his journey from oppression to freedom. The bridge is a powerful metaphor for their experiences—not only a physical crossing but an emotional and historical one. It’s a poignant and daily reminder of a divided homeland, highlighting the stark contrast between the suffocating control of the regime and the liberating embrace of their new lives.

I witnessed a kaleidoscope of emotions during these concerts. The director, Joanna Kaczmarek, and I were able to capture this emotional tapestry on the screen. The synthesis of Chopin’s music with the intensity of the locations created an unforgettable journey—I still have tears in my eyes when I watch the final scene!

There’s a lovely image of the grand piano on an otherwise empty stage with empty seats behind it. We hear the Korean protagonist play the Chopin Concerto No. 1 in E minor Op. 11 with a group of string players. How did you decide how much of the individual performers’ histories to depict and their personal connection to the sites within the larger conflict of the actual locations?

Maciej Pawelczyk

Creating a harmonious balance posed a considerable challenge. We chose Polish jazz pianist Leszek Możdżer not because of any historical ties to the extermination camp but because of his captivating personality and metaphysical approach to music. His segment had to transcend conventional storytelling. The omnipresent shadow of Auschwitz, the factory of death, called for a weighty meditation on the battle between good and evil. Music here, we felt, needed to act as a cosmic and crushing force so deep that it would dominate the story.

Our Korean protagonist is from Paju, just 30 kilometers from the North Korean border. He passes by the barbed wire daily, and it stirs deep reactions in him. It’s a stark reminder of one of the world’s most oppressive regimes, where freedom of expression is perilously curtailed.

The most intimately woven narrative, however, emerged in the poignant tale of Fares, who was driven by two deeply significant motives. First, a desire to reconnect with his fellow Syrians displaced by the war, and second, by performing one final concert to bring closure to his musical journey.

As a documentary producer, when I see we’ve genuinely made an impact on the protagonists, I am gratified. This was the case here. Fares decided to wear a traditional Syrian costume. Once a source of shame, the garment symbolized his journey and transformation, his deeper understanding and empathy towards others, free from the shackles of prejudice and stereotypes. At the same time, we set Fares’ personal story against the backdrop of the Syrian war. The conflict has displaced millions of Syrians, who fled to Lebanon, a country beleaguered by a severe economic crisis. The interplay between Fares’ individual experience and the larger context revealed the goal of our film: to weave the personal narratives with the historical and social conflicts of the locations and to create a rich, multifaceted story.

You describe how one’s work “is never done” when playing music. As a musician, I know that musical interpretations are not only a reflection of the growth the musician has experienced up to the time of performance and the inspiration the musician feels in the moment but also in the resonance achieved in and from the audience. The actor describes this eloquently. How did you decide to depict the final scenes and the resonance with the three audiences?

As a creative producer, I fully identify with Fares when he says that an artist’s work is never finished. The multitude of interpretations of a piece, a film, or a painting is evidence of maturity. A film can be improved infinitely, but deadlines must be met. Ultimately, a musician needs to perform a piece; a filmmaker needs to release a film.

We tried to illustrate the effect of Chopin’s music in several ways— the reactions of the audience: tears, contemplation, reflection, and silence; their individual observations, what they felt while listening to the piano in places marked by pain. Depicting the musicians’ reactions was critical, too, especially Fares, who seemed to channel each note emotionally. The final device we used was to interweave the entire performance with symbolic images— shots of the Auschwitz, Birkenau concentration and extermination camp, views of refugees from a camp in Beirut and the destroyed port, and landscapes of South Korea near the border with North Korea. Our goal was to create a mix of extreme emotions compressed into the final climactic scene of the film.

From the beginning, you juxtapose serene and idyllic nature scenes with urban scenes, vistas, and art with barbed wire and destruction. Can you describe how you chose the visual cues?

Maciej Pawelczyk during the shooting of the documentary

You have discerned our narrative mechanism! The most potent artistic expression lies in contrasts, hence our decision to juxtapose such polarizing images. Isn’t this the same in music? For instance, the enchanting landscapes of a town where a barefoot Polish composer wanders through the forest are set against the harrowing extremity of Auschwitz; the captivating mountainous vistas around Seungil Bridge, are contrasted with the barbed wire beyond which lies the cruel ‘state of darkness,’ North Korea; or the splendid city of Beirut, juxtaposed with the aftermath of a port explosion and the plight of Syrian refugees.

You feature both auditory and visual metaphors, such as barbed wire and railroad tracks. Later in the film, there are several shots where these images become ubiquitous, and we cannot pinpoint where they are located.

Indeed, barbed wire is a recurring motif—barbed wire symbolizes enslavement, of course.

It appears in the refugee camp in Lebanon, in Auschwitz, and on the border of the two Koreas.

In North Korea, barbed wire symbolizes not just the physical confinement of almost 26 million people but a broader spectrum of state control, oppression, and isolation, both from the outside world and within its borders. The importance of this symbol is even more significant since some 5 million soldiers and civilians died in the Korean War, which led to the division of the country.

In the context of Syrian refugees residing in Lebanon, barbed wire marks the boundaries of refugee camps or enclosures where Syrian refugees live and represents the displacement these individuals have experienced after being forced to leave their homeland due to war and conflict caused by Bashar al-Assad. Over 12 million Syrians remain forcibly displaced from their homes, including an estimated 1.5 million who fled to Lebanon, a country of only 7 million.

The railway tracks in Auschwitz stand as a stark emblem of destruction, deeply linked to the camp’s dark history. These tracks saw the arrival of 1.3 million individuals to Auschwitz. Notably, in just 5 years, 1.1 million were Jewish, with 960,000 succumbing within the camp’s confines and 200,000 others perished, mainly non-Jewish Poles, individuals with mental disabilities, Roma, homosexuals, and Soviet POWs.

These haunting symbols are a stark reminder of the dire outcomes that can emerge when authoritarian regimes rise to power. Our film stands as a manifesto against all forms of physical and mental subjugation of people.

There are several times in the movie when the piano music of Chopin returns. I felt myself calm. The Scherzo in C-sharp, composed in 1838 minor Op. 39, is featured prominently. The piece, composed in an abandoned monastery in Spain, is a terse, heroic, and grand work. It vacillates between the mysterious with lovely high fleeting passages, then moves to aggressive octave passages.

All three musicians had something to give to bring calm or healing to the lives of their audience members. But you also use disturbing sounds and silence very effectively.

I took a creative part in deciding the direction of the film’s musical arrangements; indeed, Frédéric Chopin’s music does not dominate the film as you can’t tell a story on one level of emotion. Dynamics are the basis of narrative, and if we played Chopin’s music continuously, its power would be less weighty.

And that is the same in music. What would an interpretation be like all in monotone without contrasting dynamics?

We keep viewers in suspense, waiting for the climax at the film’s end, when the Chopin compositions dominate and bring utter relief. Disturbing sounds within the film only intensify this effect, causing a dissonance between the state of exaltation and the darkness associated with places of evil.

I found it particularly effective that the three performances are aligned. Would you comment on what your intention was for the viewers?

Our film is not only a concert but a cinematic endeavor carefully crafted to captivate, enchant, and grip the viewers. In weaving the performances of our three pianists together, we hoped to harness a profound synergy. Channeling Chopin’s music and the all-encompassing benevolence of the sounds into a decisive moment is akin to what would happen if we focused sunlight through a magnifying glass. This confluence of energies could not have been achieved by showcasing each performance separately.

I think in a world where understanding and harmony between cultures should be paramount, particularly in these times fraught with uncertainties and conflicts, the film is a testament to the unifying power of music. The three threads – Arabic, Jewish, and Korean – intertwined artistically that converge in a climactic final scene shows we are one, bound together by the universal language of music and its ability to bridge the divides of our human experience. I hope our film highlights that.

The emotions raised are powerful. Do you think the three musicians achieved their goals? What did these experiences do for them?

This is a good question because we spoke with the film’s protagonists after we concluded the film. One thing is sure: for everyone, it was an unprecedented, once-in-a-lifetime experience.

For Fares Marek Basmadji, the concert met expectations and allowed him, in a sense, to get in touch with a part of himself. He told us that he couldn’t stop thinking about the people he met there and that the experience gave him a broader perspective on life.

Jae-Yeon Won mentioned that before the film his knowledge of the Korean War was only through books and movies. He fell in love with Chopin’s unique harmonies and bel canto style, but on the bridge, he experienced an inexplicable shuddering. It reinforced Jae-Yeon’s belief that Chopin’s music can be a powerful tool to reach and soothe those suffering from trauma.

Leszek Możdżer, was always confident about the outcome of our musical experiment. We accomplished our mission, a sentiment underscored by his quote, “I am not afraid of darkness,” which inspired the film’s title.

Were there any unexpected outcomes?

As a producer based in Poland, I couldn’t have imagined that the Syrian crisis and the brutal Russian attack on Ukraine would echo so poignantly in my backyard. The parallels between the Syrian and Ukrainian situations have become strikingly clear, especially as I witness the influx of Ukrainian refugees seeking refuge in Poland.

I think the enduring strife in the Middle East makes this film even more timely. The two narratives, the Arabic and the Jewish are woven together and culminate in an emblematic union.

The Seungilgyo Bridge divide continues to resonate powerfully. The escalating tensions at the Korean border, the advancements in lethal technologies, and the strengthening bonds among authoritarian regimes are distressing reminders of today’s reality.

You have a passion to highlight political divisions and tumult. Tell us about your other projects.

Authoritarian governments often start by subtly eroding freedoms gradually, imperceptibly, by creating false narratives and even fake foes through propaganda. This underscores the importance of vigilant media coverage, which I try to promote as a producer.

In our international documentary television series “Auschwitz in 33 Objects,” we present the history of the concentration and extermination camp unconventionally through objects discovered in the camp that belonged to the victims. We are just completing the “Dictator’s Hideouts” series, which explores the bunkers of European dictators and the unique paranoia of each dictator. Isn’t it essential to draw lessons from the past?

Chopin: I am Not Afraid of Darkness, is available on IMDb. A final quote from the documentary is, I think, apt.
“Music is a kind of language that is very close to God.”

Frédéric Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 1 e-minor (Olga Scheps live)

12,635,599 views Nov 3, 2016

Olga Scheps performing live at Tonhalle Düsseldorf with the Chamber Orchestra of Polish Radio, conductor Agnieszka Duczmal. Jan. 22, 2014 00:00 1. Maestoso 22:02 2. Romance 33:38 3. Rondo