The Chopin concerts in Royal Łazienki

The season

Sundays, from mid-May to late September

Royal Łazienki is Warsaw’s royal park, about a mile and a half from the city center. At its western edge, Chopin sits in bronze under a willow, above a round pool. Every summer Sunday, a pianist plays his music at the foot of the statue, at noon and again at 4 p.m. Entry is free, as the park is.

The recitals began in 1959. The city’s cultural institution Stołeczna Estrada organizes them with the Fryderyk Chopin Society and the Royal Łazienki Museum, which runs the park. Warsaw’s tourism office says they have gone on without a break since then. The museum’s rule is every Sunday from mid-May to the end of September.

The first Sunday moves, and so does the last. In 2024 the season opened on May 19. In 2025 it ran from May 11 to September 7. In 2026 it opened only on July 5, because the pool and the plinth were being restored, and it ran until September 27; while the works went on, from May 17 to June 28, recordings of Chopin filled the park near the Palace on the Isle every Sunday at noon. The 68th season, in 2027, had not been announced when we checked. Watch the museum’s site for its dates and its list of pianists, and plan a Sunday in July or August, when the season is surest.

The gate

Come in from Aleje Ujazdowskie

Use the western gate, on Aleje Ujazdowskie; the museum itself advises it. The Łazienki Królewskie bus stop, served by lines 116, 166, 180 and 195, is about 330 feet away, and the statue stands just inside, in a corner of the park near the Belvedere Palace.

The museum sends drivers to the northern and southern gates, on Myśliwiecka and Gagarina Streets; on a Sunday, come by bus or taxi to the western gate. The gardens open every day from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. One of the park’s four public toilets is next to the monument, open until 8 p.m.

If you are staying at the Hotel Bristol, Haven Nº 025, it is about two and a half miles by road, a short taxi ride on a Sunday morning.

The lawn

Sit where sitting is allowed

Most lawns in Łazienki are off-limits; the garden rules forbid stepping onto them outside the designated areas. The lawn around the Chopin Monument is one of those areas. The museum’s own map marks it as a place to rest on the grass. Bring a jacket or a light blanket to sit on.

The garden around the statue is a rose garden, laid out in straight beds of white and pink roses by the landscape architect Longin Majdecki, with benches along the paths. A half circle of trees closes it, red oaks among them, and a rare dawn redwood stands to one side. The lawn fills from the water’s edge back: come before noon for a place near the pool.

The rules are strict and worth knowing: no picnics, no alcohol, no dogs except assistance dogs, and no sitting on the monument or its parapets.

The statue

A willow, a hand, an invisible piano

The museum calls it the best-known Polish sculpture in the world. The idea of a monument was born in 1889, forty years after Chopin’s death, and the Russian authorities who then ruled Warsaw held it back for years. Wacław Szymanowski’s design shows Chopin seated under a weeping willow whose branches are thrown back as if by a strong wind. Above his head they open like the palm of a hand. His right hand is raised, the museum notes, as if over the keys of an invisible piano. The whole thing has the shape of a harp.

It was unveiled on November 14, 1926. In 1939, under the occupation, Chopin’s music was banned; in 1940 the statue was blown up. After the war, the bronze head was found in the ruins of a rail car factory in Wrocław, and the statue was cast again from a plaster model. It returned to its place in 1958. The first recital followed the next summer.

The round pool at its foot is red sandstone, part of the architect Oskar Sosnowski’s design for the garden. Ten months of works, finished in 2026, were meant to let its water reflect the sky, the trees and the monument again.

After the war, Chopin’s bronze head turned up in the ruins of a rail car factory in Wrocław.

The recitals

Noon and four, two pianists

Each Sunday has two recitals and two pianists, one at noon and one at 4 p.m. In 2026 the museum listed 26 of them, from Poland, France, Georgia, Italy and Spain, laureates of the International Chopin Piano Competition among them. A typical Sunday paired Leonora Armellini of Italy at noon with Mariola Cieniawa at four; others brought François Dumont and Philippe Giusiano from France, and Martín García García from Spain.

On the opening Sunday of 2026, the soprano Aleksandra Kurzak sang Chopin’s songs.

The pianists play in rain as in sun, under a white shell beside the statue, across the water from most of the audience. The museum still tells of Halina Czerny-Stefańska, who was stung on the hand by a wasp in the middle of her recital and played on to the end.

The isle

Between the two, the palace on the water

The hours between the recitals belong to the park. Walk through the park to the Palace on the Isle, where the museum hangs King Stanisław August’s paintings. From May to September it opens on Sundays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., with last entry at 3:30, so go straight after the noon recital and come back for four. The Old Orangery and its Royal Theatre keep the same Sunday hours.

If one Sunday leaves you wanting a second, the composer’s birthplace at Żelazowa Wola, outside Warsaw, held open-air recitals of its own in 2026, from May 2 to September 27, on Saturdays and Sundays at noon and 3 p.m., included in the park ticket of PLN 20, Warsaw’s tourism office says.

The rest of the year, the statue stands alone above its pool, the trees around it turn orange in autumn, and the gardens keep their hours.