Plans for the tour were announced only a few weeks ago, causing nothing short of a sensation. Small wonder, considering that as many as ten years have elapsed since Zimerman’s previous concerts in Poland. On that occasion he performed  Chopin’s concertos, conducting from the keyboard an orchestra composed of young Polish musicians. This time he comes to promote the music of Grazyna Bacewicz, the prominent woman composer who was born 100 years ago and died forty years.

Addressing a press conference in Katowice, Zimerman said she is a very important figure for him: ‘Many years ago Bacewicz was just one of many composers whose music I performed. Today, she is someone very special to me, someone whom I greatly respect. I have corresponded with her sister, Wanda, for thirty years. Grazyna Bacewicz died before I started my career but having talked to many of her friends I feel I know her very well.’

The programme of the concerts comprises Bacewicz’s  Piano Sonata No. 2 and her First and Second Piano Quintets, in the performance of which Zimerman will be joined by Polish musicians.  The Polish pianist hopes the tour will make Bacewicz’s music better known internationally:'The project is a tribute to Bacewicz, a composer to whom we all owe a lot, to one of the few great women composers of the 20th century, alongside Nadia Boulanger and Sofia Gubaidulina. Bacewicz’s music is absolutely unique. I would like my tour and the recording to give a stimulus, if only a small one, to the promotion of her music.’

The tour begins on 5 February, the centenary of Bacewicz’s birth, in Łodz and takes in Warsaw, Poznan, Krakow and Katowice. After the tour, a three-day session is to be held in Katowice of a CD for Deutsche Grammophon featuring the same works by Bacewicz.