Roman Polanski's film, "The Pianist" has been garnering many awards, nominations and prizes. It won the Top Prize Palme D'or at the Cannes Film Festival and won for Best Picture and other categories from the National Society of Film Critics, the Boston Society of Film Critics, the San Francisco Film Critics Circle, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts and the French Cesars. It was nominated for the Golden Globe Awards and the Oscars in many categories and in Poland it was nominated in all thirteen for their Oscar-equivalents, the "Orły" [Eagles].

Based on a book published in 1999 "The Pianist. The Extraordinary True Story of One Man's Survival in Warsaw 1939-1945," the film is a true historical documentary about Wladyslaw Szpilman, a Polish-Jewish musician who worked for Polish Radio when the Nazis invaded Poland during WWII and how he survived the ordeal with the help of his Polish friends, particularly actor Andrzej Bogucki, and in the end, by the kindness of a German officer, Captain Wilm Hosenfeld, who was himself a musician and teacher.

The film inspired many articles recently - see last month's newsletter. Since the film dealt with only one aspect of the musician's life, his ordeal for survival, I wondered how many moviegoers have thought about Szpilman's life before and after that and about what role did he play in the life of Polish music? Here is the answer:

Władysław Szpilman was born on December 5, 1911 in Sosnowiec. He studied at the Chopin Academy in Warsaw from 1926 to 1930 and then went on to Berlin to study piano at the Music Academy under Kreutzer and Arthur Schnabel and composition under Schreker. He returned to Warsaw in 1933 to study with the great Polish master, Adam Michalowski. He worked for Polish Radio from 1935-63 as a pianist, with a break during the war years, and from 1945 on as assistant to the chief director of the music section. He performed both as a soloist and with famous violinists Bronisław Gimpel and Tadeusz Wroński. He organized the Warsaw Quintet in 1962 by adding Stefan Kamasa, viola and Aleksander Ciechański on the cello to violinists Gimpel and Wroński and gave more than 2,000 concerts until 1986 with them in the U.S., Japan and Mexico.

He also composed from an early age. He wrote a Violin Concerto in 1931 (at age 20) and one book lists it a having been lost during the Warsaw Uprising and another lists it as having been published by PWM, the official music publisher. Perhaps, they meant that the original manuscript was destroyed. He wrote several orchestral pieces: Concertino for Piano and Orchestra (1939). He also wrote a Paraphrase on Own Theme (1947 ), Small Overture (1967), Ballet Scene (1968) and Waltz in Old Style (1969).

He wrote several piano pieces: Life of Machines (1931), Toccatina, Three Miniatures (1954), Little Piano Pieces (1972) and music to three films: Wrzos (1937), Doktor Murek (1939) and Zadzwońcie do mojej żony [Call my Wife] (1957).

However, he was best known for his songs. He wrote more than 500 of them (with 50 of them for children) between 1945 and 1978. Some of them were published by PWM; others in Czytelnik and Synkopa. Many of them were hits: Czerwony autobus [Red Bus], Nie wierzę piosence [I don't believe the song], Tych lat nie odda nikt [No One Can Return Those Years], and Zakochani [Lovers]. Szpilman received an award from Polish Radio for his Children's Songs in 1953 and in 1954 won Third Prize for Three Piano Miniatures in a competition sponsored by the Polish Composers' Union.

His songs were sung by many of the popular singers of the day, especially Sława Przybylska (Mgła [Fog] and Zakochani [Lovers] and several of them were in the repertoire of Syrena Teatr. These pop songs were fox-trots, rumbas, beguines, tangos, waltzes and slow-fox. The latter, Oddaj mi każdy dzień [Give Me Back Each Day] was named Song of the Month in October, 1960 by Polish Radio.

Many of his songs were published in an illustrated music magazine "Śpiewamy i Tańczymy" [We Sing and Dance], which began as a bi-weekly in 1954 and from 1963 as a monthly. It was devoted to the most popular dance songs of the day. Each issue contained three, four or five of the most popular songs heard on radio and from pop singers. The journal also featured articles about music, composers, famous performers, events, etc...

In the first issue we find To idzie młodość [Here comes youth], by Sygietynski (of Mazowsze fame); a foxtrot Sto lat [100 Years] by Szpilman and a tango Siedem róż [Seven Roses] by Maklakiewicz. The third number seems to have been devoted to the city of Warsaw, with songs by Sygietyński, Tu jest Warszawa [And Here is Warsaw] and Szpilman's Pojdę na Stare Miasto [I will Go to Old Town]. All in all, in the 194 issues published between 1954 and 1962 there were 47 songs by Szpilman. From 1963 there were only a few. I also noticed songs by non-Polish composers, like, "O Sole Mio," "Solvejg's Song" "La cucaracha" "Siboney" "Duke Ellington's "Caravan," Gershwin's "I've Got Plenty o'Nothing," Schubert's "Serenade" and so on, all the songs that were popular in other parts of the world in the 1950s and 1960s. Of the Polish composers' songs I found songs by Danilowski, who had founded the famous Chor Dana with Mieczysław Fogg as soloist. These songs were "Co nam zostało z tych lat" [What Has Been Left From These Years], as well as the most popular songs by Poland's Irving Berlin- Henryk Wars (Henry Vars)- one of which was featured in the film in a scene where the pianist plays in a coffee house in the ghetto (Umowiłem się z nią na dziewiątą).

These issues also included many of the songs from the two Folk Dance and Song Ensembles, Śląsk and Mazowsze arranged by their leaders, Hadyna and Sygietyński. Songs by Lutosławski were also included, as well as those written under his pseudonym, Derwid. The late composer always mentioned that he had to compose music for radio and children in school in order to make a living and many of the outstanding Polish composers of the 20th c. did the same.

I am happy to say that the Polish Music Center at USC has several of Szpilman's songs in its archives. They are part of the Walter Ossowski collection that was donated to the Center by the generosity of Irene Semski from Buffalo, NY two years ago. We have a PWM publication of an album, "Piesni i piosenki wybrane;" "Walczyk murarski;" also some of the "Spiewamy i Tanczymy" numbers, specifically 1970 #6 and 1972 #3.

There is also a 5-CD set entitled "Szpilman. Musical Portrait" which was released by Polish Radio in 2000 to honor the great artist and composer. The music is taken from the Polish Radio Archives and give a beautiful picture of the man and his music. There are nineteen of his most popular songs, sung by Irena Santor, Hanna Skarzanka, Mieczyslaw Fogg, Andrzej Bogucki, Chor Czejanda, Marta Mirska, Slawa Przybylska, Rena Rolska, Ludmila Jakubczak and Joanna Rawik.

As a pianist he is featured in a recording of his Concertino from a Polish Radio performance in 1969. He also plays a Chopin Mazurka and a Nocturne, as well as three pieces by Rachmaninoff and Schumann. In another of the CDs he plays Brahms, Grieg and Cesar Franck with violinist Bronisław Gimpel. The fourth CD features the Warsaw Quintet in music by Brahms and Schumann. The last one is devoted to children, with music composed by Szpilman to poems by Broniewski, Brzechwa, Januszewska, Tuwim and Krzemienicka and to three fairy tales by Brzechwa, Chotomska and Januszewska. According to the CD notes, Polish composer Wojciech Kilar compared Szpilman to Cole Porter, Gershwin and McCartney, and told of his envy of Szpilman's talent to write beautiful melodies. The famous Kilar also is the music composer for the Polanski film.

As I mentioned at the beginning, the film is based on the book written by Szpilman. It was first written in Polish right after the war, but because of the prevailing political conditions it did not succeed in getting published. The English version was published in 1999 and was named Book of the Year by the LA Times. I found the Epilogue very interesting. "Szpilman began working for Radio Warszawa with the same piece that he had been playing live on the radio that last day, amidst a hail of German artillery and bombs." The piece is Chopin's Nocturne in C-sharp Minor.

I also learned in the Epilogue that the German officer was taken prisoner by the Russians and died in a prisoner of war camp at Stalingrad in 1952, a year before Stalin's death. Szpilman had learned his identity and tried to save him, to no avail and later found out about his tragic end. He also visited the widow during one of his tours in Germany. The "Pianist" died on July 6, 2000 in Warsaw at age 88 - but his music lives on. His songs have been an integral part of Polish culture and have enriched it for more than fifty years.

In a series of concerts of contemporary music, the Little Orchestra Society, with its director, Dino Anagnost conducting, presented an evening of film music that included some of the brilliant work of Wojciech Kilar, one of Poland's major composers. Under the title, NO SUBTITLES NEEDED: The Language of Foreign Film Music, the popular orchestra is presenting a tribute to Federico Fellini and the composer Nino Rota, with music from La Strada and La Dolce Vita, as well as Rota's music from Visconti's The Leopard. Other selections include the Oscar-winning score from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the immensely popular themes of Michel LeGrand, and the premiere of a score by the Greek composer, Minos Matsas. Apart from Wojciech Kilar's widely performed orchestral and chamber pieces, he is probably best known internationally for his film scores, of which there are about 150, including those for many early Zanussi films, Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula, Andrzej Wajda's Pan Tadeusz, and Roman Polanski's The Pianist.