Thomas Bloch is distinguished as a performer on the glass harmonica, the ondes martenot and the cristal baschet. He teaches the second of these at the Strasbourg Conservatoire and has composed and inspired music for his own instruments.

François Weigel studied conducting and composition at the Musikhochschule of Cologne, the Paris Conservatoire, and advanced pianistic studies with Alexis Weissenberg. As a concert pianist, he has played with many leading orchestras like the Hamburg Philharmonic (with Ingo Metzmacher), the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra (Antoni Wit) the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande (Pinchas Steinberg), the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio-France (Marek Janowsky), the Orchestre National de France (Jacques Mercier), the Orchestre National de Lille (Jean-Claude Casadesus).

He gives many concerts throughout Europe and has performed in the Berliner Philharmonie, Vienna, Bruxelles, Oslo, Naples, Riga, Paris, the international festival of Evian, La Roque d’Antheron, Verone, Stresa, Dallas, Buenos Aires.

His recitals of the complete Chopin Studies, the Liszt Rhapsodies, or his own opera transcriptions, in Paris Salle Gaveau and Radio-France are widely acclaimed for the originality of his interpretation.

Founded in 1935 in Warsaw, the orchestra was created and led by Grzegorz Fitelberg until the outbreak of World War II. In March 1945 Witold Rowicki revived the orchestra in Katowice. In 1947, Grzegorz Fitelberg, upon his return from abroad, took over the post of the artistic director. After his death in 1953, the orchestra was headed in succession by Jan Krenz, Bohdan Wodiczko, Kazimierz Kord, Tadeusz Strugała, Jerzy Maksymiuk, Stanisław Wisłocki, Jacek Kaspszyk, Antoni Wit, Gabriel Chmura and, once again, Jacek Kaspszyk. In September 2000, Joanna Wnuk-Nazarowa was appointed the general and programme director. In January 2009 Michał Klauza became the associate conductor. Stanisław Skrowaczewski holds the title of the first guest conductor of the PNRSO, Jan Krenz is a honorary director and the function of artistic advisor is fulfilled by Jerzy Semkow.

The orchestra has recorded more than 198 compact discs for many Polish and foreign labels (Decca, EMI, Phillips, Naxos, etc.) and made numerous archival recordings for the needs of Polish Radio. Many renowned conductors and soloists have performed with the PNRSO in Poland and abroad. Among them were: Martha Argerich, Leonard Bernstein, Placido Domingo, Pierre Fournier, Nicolai Gedda, Julius Katchen, Wilhelm Kempff, Kiryłł Kondraszyn, Marguerite Long, Witold Lutosławski, Kurt Masur, Krzysztof Penderecki, Maurizio Pollini, Ruggiero Ricci, Mścisław Rostropowicz, Artur Rubinstein, Isaac Stern, Henryk Szeryng, Yan Pascal Tortelier and Krystian Zimerman. Idil Biret has recorded with PNRSO all the piano concertos of Brahms and Rachmaninov as well as two works for piano and orchestra of Schumann (Op. 92 and Op. 134).

Antoni Wit is one of the most highly regarded Polish conductors and a champion of Polish music. A top prizewinner at the Herbert von Karajan International Conducting Competition in 1971 and an assistant to Karajan at the Easter Festival in Salzburg, he subsequently worked with all of the leading orchestras in Poland (including the National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra) before taking up the position of general and artistic director of the Warsaw Philharmonic in 2001 for twelve years until the end of the 2012–13 season. He was music director of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Navarra in Spain between 2013 and 2018, and he is currently conductor laureate of the Kraków Philharmonic in Poland. In 2015 he was awarded the French Légion d’honneur.

Antoni Wit has enjoyed an international career with major orchestras throughout Europe, America and the Far East. Past highlights have included the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, the Filarmonica della Scala, the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Rome, the Royal Philharmonic, the Philharmonia and the BBC Symphony Orchestras as well as the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, the China Philharmonic Orchestra and The Cleveland Orchestra among others.

He has made over 200 records, including an acclaimed release for Naxos of the piano concertos of Prokofiev, awarded the Diapason d’Or and Grand Prix du Disque de la Nouvelle Académie du Disque. In January 2002 his recording of the Turangalîla Symphony by Olivier Messiaen (8.554478–79) was awarded the Cannes Classical Award at MIDEM Classic 2002. In 2004 he received the Classical Internet Award. He has completed for Naxos a series of Szymanowski’s symphonic and large-scale vocal-instrumental works, each rated among ‘discs of the month’ by Gramophone magazine and BBC Music Magazine. He also received the Record Academy Award 2005 of Japanese music magazine Record Geijutsu for Penderecki’s A Polish Requiem (8.557386-87), and four Fryderyk Awards of the Polish Phonographic Academy. In 2012 he received a GRAMMY Award for Penderecki’s Fonogrammi, Horn Concerto and Partita (8.572482), and six other nominations for Penderecki’s St Luke Passion in 2004 (8.557149), A Polish Requiem in 2005, The Seven Gates of Jerusalem in 2007 (8.557766), Utrenja in 2009 (8.572031) and Karol Szymanowski’s Stabat Mater in 2008 (8.570724) and Symphonies Nos. 1 and 4 in 2009 (8.570722). In 2010 Antoni Wit won the annual award of the Karol Szymanowski Foundation for his promotion of the music of Szymanowski in his Naxos recordings.

He has recorded for Naxos all the symphonic works of Szymanowski, Lutosławski, Penderecki, Karłowicz, and other Polish composers. Wit studied conducting with Henryk Czyz at the Academy of Music in Kraków, continuing his musical studies with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. He also graduated in law from the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. Antoni Wit was formerly a professor at music academies in Poland and Korea, and is now an honorary professor at Keimyung University in Daegu.

Olivier Messiaen has exercised a remarkable influence over composers both in his native France and elsewhere, although his own work is unique in its individuality. Educated at the Paris Conservatoire, where his teachers included the great French organist Marcel Dupré, he became principal organist of La Trinité in Paris after graduation in 1930, a position he retained for many years. Messiaen’s musical language is derived from a number of varied sources, including Greek metrical rhythms, Hindu tradition, the serialism of Schoenberg, Debussy and birdsong, with his whole work and life deeply influenced by the spirit of Catholicism.

Orchestral Music
Of orchestral works by Messiaen particular mention may be made of the Turangalîla-symphonie, with its Hindu inspiration, and the mystical L’Ascension, later arranged also for organ.

Piano Music
Two extended compositions for piano by Messiaen suggest two of the sources of his inspiration. Vingt Regards sur l’enfant Jésus, a title defying elegant translation, takes 20 different views of the Child Jesus—from the Father, the star and the Virgin to that of the Church of Love. The work was first performed in Paris in 1945 by the composer’s wife, the pianist Yvonne Loriod. The Catalogue d’oiseaux of 1959 is derived from birdsong and includes ‘Le Chocard des alpes’, ‘Le Loriot’ and ‘Le Courlis cendré’.

Organ Music
Messiaen made a significant addition to organ repertoire. His compositions for the instrument include La Nativité du Seigneur (‘The Birth of the Lord’), L’Ascension and Les Corps glorieux (‘Bodies in Glory’), the last described as seven brief visions of the life of the resurrected.

Chamber Music
Among the best known of Messiaen’s varied works for smaller groups of instruments is the Quatuor pour la fin du temps (‘Quartet for the End of Time’), written in 1941 during a period of wartime imprisonment in Silesia. This apocalyptic work was composed for the instruments available (clarinet, piano, violin and cello) and was first performed in the prison camp.