One can sometimes get the impression, or at least I sometimes do, that what conscious perception has access to is only a fragment of what is actually happening. It is as if you were on board of a yacht, in the middle of the sea, during a constant storm, and everything around you wobbles, roars and rumbles, attacks, surprises and threatens, until at some point you fall into the state of indifference, which allows you to calm down a little and gather your thoughts. It is possible to ignore or perhaps trivialise most of what reaches the senses and how the body reacts to the multitude of stimuli. To not panic. But this indifference is a strategy, and the image of the world it offers is an illusion. The storm outside the window rages on. And yet, this strategy is so effective that the illusion has become the default state and is not so easy to shake off. In fact, there is no reason to shake off this illusion completely. As long as you do not stare at the glass for too long.

String Quartet No. 3 was heard by a (not very large) live audience. To say that it caused a rage would be to say too much, but we’ll see, maybe it will still resonate one day. I hadn’t looked at the score or been to a rehearsal before the concert itself, and I listened to the piece a bit as if I was hearing it for the first time. A strange experience. A rather positive one. Royal Quartet is fantastic.

And next week – “The Mask” at the Warsaw Autumn Festival. I am very curious about the change of context from Vienna to Warsaw.

I have not yet found the strength to begin Baczyński’s orchestration. But I have some time. A moment.|

Twenty years (and one day) ago, between 2 and 3 pm Polish time, I gave one of the first and probably the last solo guitar recital in my life. I don’t remember where or why exactly - in some Gliwice mini-art gallery or café-gallery, like a “chip off” the recent graduation diploma from the State Music School in Gliwice. I played for a very small audience. Just after the recital, still very impressed by my first sea voyage, from Norway to Scotland and back. Having gathered a very weak round of applause, I was relieved to go home when, on the TV screen displayed in some shop window, I saw a smoking building and the text on the info bar: “tragic plane crash in Manhattan”.

(transl. Magdalena Małek-Andrzejowska)