Varmia Musica

The opening concert “Concerto d’amore” (Sunday, 2 August, Great Refectory of the Bishop’s Castle in Lidzbark Warmiński) introduces listeners to the world of Baroque affects. The programme features works by Georg Philipp Telemann (Triple Concerto TWV 53:E1 for flute, oboe d’amore and viola d’amore), Antonio Vivaldi (“La Notte” RV 501 and “L’amoroso” RV 271), François Couperin and Christoph Graupner. Carefully selected musical means illustrate how Baroque composers used specific interval patterns, harmonies, tempos and instruments (including those characteristic of the d’amore family) to directly affect the listener’s emotions.
The following evening (Monday, 3 August) is devoted to a Romantic interpretation of love presented in the programme Love, Spring and Dream. The highlight is Franz Liszt’s Tre sonetti di Petrarca – some of the most expressive and dramatic songs of the 19th century. Drawing on the poetry of Francesco Petrarca, Liszt created musical monologues full of tension, passion and dramatic contrasts, capturing the complexity of the Romantic experience of love. These are accompanied by Robert Schumann’s Romances Op. 94 and songs by Hermann Goetz, a composer from Königsberg, showcasing the intimate, poetic nature of vocal expression typical of the period.
 
Tuesday, 4 August features the concert ‘All the Mornings of the World’, dedicated to French viola da gamba music by Marin Marais and Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe – including works such as Les Pleurs, Tombeau pour Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe and Sonnerie de Sainte Geneviève du Mont de Paris.
The following day, 5 August, the audience gathered in the Great Refectory of the Bishop’s Castle will have the opportunity to hear an extraordinary performance by the vocal sextet proMODERN – the first Polish ensemble to undertake the performance of one of the most challenging forms of archaic polyphony: Albanian isopolyphony. From this extraordinary source emerged a programme that highlights the commonality of European singing traditions: from the raw, primal sound of ‘in crudo’ to contemporary compositional arrangements.
On Saturday, 8 August, the Castle Chapel will host the programme ‘In dialogo’, exploring musical dialogue as a rhetorical device. The repertoire includes ‘in dialogo’ sonatas, diminutions and works by Salomone Rossi, Dario Castello, Girolamo Frescobaldi, Giovanni Paolo Cima, Tarquinio Meruli and other masters of the Renaissance and early Baroque. These instrumental ‘conversations’ (violin, cornett, organ) present music as a refined, almost literal exchange of ideas.
The festival finale (Sunday, 9 August) is John Blow’s opera ‘Venus & Adonis’ – a classic English interpretation of the mythological tale of the love between a goddess and a mortal, performed by soloists and the Varmia Musica orchestra.
In addition to ticketed concerts, the festival offers free events, including a concert by participants of the Varmia Musica Academia (7 August) and a Romantic salon concert at the Orangery of Culture (6 August).
We warmly invite you to join us in Lidzbark Warmiński from 2–9 August 2026.
 
Marek Niewiedział
Artistic Director of the Varmia Musica Festival