Can love be understood through music, science, and the body? Is a broken heart merely a metaphor, or can it be a real medical condition? Where does the line run between intense emotion and emotional madness? These questions will be explored by the creators of the unique concert-lecture “How to Mend a Broken Heart? How Not to Go Crazy with Love?”, which will take place at the Witold Lutosławski Concert Studio of Polish Radio on 11 February 2026 at 7:00 PM. The Polish Radio Orchestra in Warsaw will be conducted by Anna Sułkowska-Migoń.
The evening combines symphonic music, science, and pop culture, creating a multi-layered story about love - from innocent infatuation, through obsession and the physiological effects of emotions, to distance and irony.
The concert program leads the audience through successive stages of experiencing love. The intimate opening - composition Witek and Alina by Wojciech Kilar from the film A Chronicle of Amorous Accidents - introduces the world of first love. Next, excerpts from Adolphe Adam’s ballet Giselle portray romantic and physical love, inscribed in movement and dance.
How to mend a broken heart will be explained by Professor Zbigniew Nawrat, an physicist and habilitated doctor of medical sciences — originator and chief designer of the Robin Heart cardiac surgery robot (the first Polish and European robot for heart surgery). The first part of the concert will conclude with another work by Wojciech Kilar, Orawa - music built on rhythm and pulse, evoking the work of the heart and the communal nature of emotions.
The second part of the evening opens with a piece everyone knows but rarely hears live: Maurice Ravel’s Boléro - a musical portrait of obsession, compulsion, and growing tension. It will serve as a musical prologue to a lecture by Maja Herman - psychiatrist, psychotherapist, and medical influencer - who will attempt to outline the boundaries between love and obsession.
The musical centerpiece of the evening will be the Prelude to the musical drama Tristan and Isolde by Richard Wagner - one of the most famous musical depictions of absolute love, bordering on madness.
The evening will conclude with a quiz entitled “Desires”, prepared by Irena Cieślińska, director of the Copernicus Science Centre and an acclaimed author of popular-science texts. Sensual riddles will be accompanied by music in which pulse, love, desire, and madness intertwine as one: the tango.
The concert-lecture “How to Mend a Broken Heart? How Not to Go Crazy with Love?” is an invitation for everyone who wants not only to listen to music, but also to better understand the emotions that govern it. It is a meeting of art, science, and experience - in a space that has long fostered deep reflection and exceptional sound quality.
The event is part of the project “Szkiełko i ucho” - a joint initiative of the Copernicus Science Centre and the Polish Radio Orchestra in Warsaw, carried out by the Association of Musicians of the Polish Radio Orchestra, with funding from the from the NextGeneration EU funding (Investment A2.5.1). Funding from the European Union: PLN 189 200.
Media patronage: Polish Music Information Centre POLMIC.
Tickets are available at the Polish Radio Concert Studio box office and online via the provided link: https://www.polskieradio.pl/79/988/Artykul/3642242,jak-naprawic-zlamane-serce-jak-nie-oszalec-z-milosci
