Nowaczyk was concerned above all to reconstruct with the greatest possible accuracy the day-today realities of the composer’s life and times, and in the process to bring what I called ‘a real sense of historical immediacy’ to a story whose outline is already well known, but which is held by most of us at a certain distance. Nowaczyk’s findings are evidence-based throughout, but at the same time they are informed by an historical imagination that brings the events to colourful...
