EU backs revamp of composer Szymanowski’s house

ohoto - David Conway

The picturesque Villa Atma in the highland town of Zakopane, southern Poland, has been a branch of the National Museum in Krakow for many years.

However, as the museum acknowledged today in a press release, the villa has “long required thorough renovation and modernisation.”

According to the museum, the interior lay-out will be arranged in a “modern” fashion, “using multimedia to present the composer and his legacy in an attractive way, evoking the times he lived in and the history of Atma.”

Visitors will be able to watch films about the composer, and plans have also been laid to bring the garden back to how it looked during Szymanowski's day.
Access for the disabled will also be provided for.

Karol Szymanowski was born in 1887 in lands that now lie in Ukraine. Folk music was a major inspiration for the composer, and the Villa Atma ultimately became his permanent residence in 1930.

His international reputation gained a boost in the 1990s, when conductors such as Sir Simon Rattle championed the composer.

“At the end of the 20th century the world should discover what you [Poles] have always known,” Rattle enthused in 1994, “that Szymanowski is one of the greatest composers of this century.”

The revamp of the Villa Atma will cost 708 723,97 euro (3.1 million zloty), with the main portion (508 450 euro) covered by from EU funds.

The museum will close in February 2012, and it is hoped that the project will be realised by the end of the year. (nh)