June 14 is one of the saddest days in Latvian history; to commemorate the date, a requiem by a remarkable composer is traditionally performed at the Riga Opera Festival Concert. This time it will be aPolish Requiem by outstanding contemporary Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki, originally composed between 1980 and 1984, revised and expanded in 1993, and expanded again in 2005. Penderecki dedicated several parts of the Polish Requiem both to the heroes and victims of Polish history: Lech Wałęsa, composer’s friend Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński, Franciscan Maximilian Kolbe, who had died in the Auschwitz concentration camp, and the victims of the Katyn massacre.

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