Fryderyk Chopin, Warszawa

Warsaw’s memorial to Fryderyk Chopin shows the composer seated beneath a stylised willow shaped to suggest a pianist’s hand. Designed by Wacław Szymanowski, it was destroyed during the German occupation and rebuilt after the war. The monument remains a celebrated setting for summer performances of Chopin’s music.

Here is Wacław Szymanowski’s large bronze memorial to Fryderyk Chopin, in the upper part of Royal Baths Park beside Aleje Ujazdowskie. Chopin is shown seated beneath a stylised willow, its sweeping silhouette making the composer seem absorbed in sound. The willow’s shape deliberately recalls a pianist’s hand, while an eagle’s head appears at the far end of the composition.

Szymanowski conceived the work in nineteen oh seven for Chopin’s birth centenary, but disputes over its appearance and the outbreak of war delayed its making. The monument finally arrived here in nineteen twenty-six. During the German occupation, it was blown up on the thirty-first of May nineteen forty, becoming the earliest Warsaw monument destroyed by the occupiers.

Its original casting mould survived, allowing a replacement to be made and installed here in nineteen fifty-eight. The sandstone base records the monument’s destruction and the nation’s postwar rebuilding. Since nineteen fifty-nine, this setting has also hosted Sunday performances of Chopin’s music during the summer months.