All four of my grandparents were born in Poland, and my father’s parents actually lived with us. Because of that fact, there was often polka music playing on the radio in our house when I was a young boy in the late 1940s.

The most popular station was WACE in Chicopee. On weekdays my grandparents listened to Andy Szuberla, the rhyming Polish announcer, and on Sundays the station aired an hour of polkas sponsored by the Banas Furniture Store. At the beginning and conclusion of each program, that show featured a theme which I eventually learned was Chopin’s “Polonaise.”

I was only an elementary school student back then, but that melody always stirred something in my Polish genes. Over the decades I heard the opus played scores of times both as a solo piano work and in its full symphonic version. It never failed to positively affect me.

Now leap forward to March 2024. My wife and I were on a cruise ship off the east coast of Italy. One of the featured performers on the ship was a pianist named Enrico who I believe is of Filipino heritage. He would play every evening in the atrium of the ship and seemed to have a limitless internal repertoire, as I never noticed any sheet music in front of him.

Early in the trip I requested that he play “Bridge Over Troubled Waters.” “One of my favorite songs,” he said and immediately started playing the tune. I believe we listened to him every day of the cruise while relaxing and conversing with some of our fellow passengers.

Our oceanic sojourn was almost concluded, and we had just one more port to visit before it would be time for us to leave the ship. We had visited Spain, France, Italy and Croatia and been exposed to the culture and mores of those nations. It had been a wondrous, if too short, experience but, as we prepared to go to dinner that evening, something was nagging at my brain.

One of the recent ports we had visited was Bari, Italy. To my great surprise and edification, I learned that in the early 1500s, the Dutchess of Bari had married the king of Poland and thus had been the Polish queen for a few decades. Poland had a large empire in Eastern Europe back then and, in some mysterious way, my Polish genes were excited by this new information. I suddenly found myself thinking about Chopin.

Later, we were again in the atrium. My wife went to speak to a tour guide with a question concerning our next day’s final onshore excursion. I noticed that Enrico had just completed a number, and I went over to him. “Can you play Chopin’s Polonaise?” I asked him. He seemed pleased by the question. “Yes,” he quickly replied, “but you have to sit in that chair over there to listen.”

He pointed to a big easy chair about six feet away. I thought it was a strange condition but, what the heck, it was a simple one to comply with. As soon as I sat down, he began playing, and he seemed more engaged with the piece than usual. It was almost as if he had been waiting for someone to request the melody. There was emotion and spirit coming out of that piano and Enrico was clearly savoring every moment. I could see other people stop chatting and listen to the music.

My wife returned and I whispered to her that he was playing my request. Enrico wound up with a final crescendo. He leaped off his bench and came over to me with his hand extended. I had never seen him do that before. We shook hands and he said to me, “How was that?” I was momentarily tongue-tied and found myself saying to him “Dzienkuye” (thank you), the only Polish word I used the entire trip.

All the art, cathedrals and Roman ruins I saw on the trip have already blended into each other and I know they will coalesce into a big jumble of memories. But I am sure that moment with Enrico playing Chopin will be a crystal-clear memory for the rest of my days, and the fascinating thing to me is that the moment had its original roots with a polka music station I listened to when I was a small boy.

Richard Szlosek lives in Northampton.