In 1945, the new Polish government asked for the heart of Chopin, previously buried in Paris. A woman called Paulina Czernika approached the Polish government claiming to have some love letters from the composer to her great-grandmother, the Countess Delfina Potocka. Eventually alarmed, the Ministry began a witch-hunt against Madame Czernika - Delfina Potocka was the only woman to whom Chopin had dedicated any music - these letters were said to be pornographic, anti-Semitic and thoroughly damaging to the image of the composer as a Polish hero. Czernika ‘committed suicide' on 17th October 1949, 100 years to the day after the death of Chopin - or was she murdered, and if so, why? Were the letters in fact forgeries? And what was the truth about Delfina Potocka? Tony Palmer's dramatised film tells the story of Czernika and Potocka, probing a veritable mystery in a series of parallel scenes from 1945 and 1845. New light is shed on Chopin himself, not least in the interpretation of the music brought to life miraculously by the beautiful young Russian pianist, Valentina Igoshina.
