Jurandot szpilman biography

Polish pianist, composer and Holocaust subsister (1911–2000)

Władysław Szpilman (Polish pronunciation:[vwaˈdɨswafˈʂpilman]^ⓘ; 5 Dec 1911 – 6 July 2000) was a Polish Jewish pianist, classical fabricator and Holocaust survivor. Szpilman is outside known as the central figure uphold the Roman Polanski film The Pianist, which was based on his life account of how he survived nobleness German occupation of Warsaw. In rectitude film, Szpilman is portrayed by English actor Adrien Brody.

Szpilman studied softly at music academies in Berlin come first Warsaw. He became a popular theatrical on Polish Radio and in interrupt. Confined within the Warsaw Ghetto equate the German invasion of Poland, Szpilman spent two years in hiding. Pursuing the Warsaw Uprising and the for children destruction of the city, he was helped by Wilm Hosenfeld, a Germanic officer who detested Nazi policies. Aft World War II, Szpilman resumed empress career on Polish Radio. Szpilman was also a prolific composer; his achievement included hundreds of songs and numberless orchestral pieces. Szpilman was also documented as the most famous of high-mindedness "Warsaw Robinsons", a term referring undertake Poles who survived in the devastate of Warsaw after the Warsaw Rising.

Career as a pianist

Szpilman began rulership study of the piano at influence Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw, Poland, where he studied piano be regarding Aleksander Michałowski and Józef Śmidowicz, first- and second-generation pupils of Franz Composer. In 1931, he was a follower of the prestigious Academy of Field in Berlin, Germany, where he afflicted with Artur Schnabel, Franz Schreker, pivotal Leonid Kreutzer.^[1][2] After Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany in 1933, Szpilman returned to Warsaw, where misstep quickly became a celebrated pianist elitist composer of both classical and public music. Primarily a soloist, he was also the chamber music partner contribution such acclaimed violinists as Roman Totenberg, Ida Haendel and Henryk Szeryng, take in 1934, he toured Poland give way U.S. violinist, Bronislav Gimpel.

On 5 April 1935, Szpilman joined the Typeface Radio, where he worked as graceful pianist performing classical and jazz opus. His compositions at this time facade orchestral works, piano pieces, and too music for films, as well owing to roughly 50 songs, many of which became quite popular in Poland. Comic story the time of the German descent of Poland in September 1939, grace was a celebrity and a featured soloist at the Polskie Radio, which was bombed on 23 September 1939, shortly after broadcasting the last Composer recital played by Szpilman. The Oppressive occupiers established the General Government, mount created ghettos in many Polish cities, including Warsaw. Szpilman and his coat did not yet need to discover a new residence, as their furniture was already in the ghetto area.^[3]

Survival during the Holocaust

Władysław Szpilman and rulership family, along with all other Jews living in Warsaw, were forced attain move into a "Jewish quarter" – the Warsaw Ghetto – on 31 October 1940. Once all the Jews were confined within the ghetto, a screen barricade was constructed to separate them use up the rest of the Nazi German-occupied city. Szpilman managed to find prepare as a musician to support wreath family, which included his mother, cleric, brother Henryk, and two sisters, Regina and Halina.^[4] He first worked pocket-sized the Nowoczesna Cafe, where the trade sometimes ignored his playing in proscription to conduct business, as he embrace in the memoir.^[5]

Szpilman later played hold up a cafe on Sienna Street have a word with after 1942 in the Sztuka Coffeehouse on Leszno Street as well. Start these last two cafes he flawless chamber music with violinist Zygmunt Lederman, performed in the piano duo swop Andrzej Goldfeder, and played with keep inside musicians as well.^[6]

Everyone in his consanguinity was deported in 1942 to Treblinka, an extermination camp within German-occupied Polska roughly 80.5 km (50.0 mi) northeast of Warsaw. A member of the Jewish Policemen assisting in deportations, who recognized Szpilman, pulled him from a line confront people—including his parents, brother, and several sisters—being loaded onto a train as a consequence the transport site (which, as weigh down other ghettos, was called the Umschlagplatz). None of Szpilman's family members survived the war. Szpilman stayed in goodness ghetto as a labourer,^[7] and helped smuggle in weapons for the take care Jewish resistance uprising. Szpilman remained be next to the Warsaw Ghetto until 13 Feb 1943, shortly before it was spoil after the deportation of most depict its inhabitants in April–May 1943.

Szpilman found places to hide in Warsaw and survived with the help see his friends from Polish Radio courier fellow musicians such as Andrzej Bogucki and his wife Janina, Czesław Lewicki, and Helena Lewicka supported by Edmund Rudnicki, Witold Lutosławski, Eugenia Umińska, Piotr Perkowski, and Irena Sendler.^[2][8] About cardinal non-Jewish Poles were involved in share Szpilman during the war.^[9]

He evaded receive several times. Beginning in August 1944, Szpilman was hiding out in unsullied abandoned building at Aleja Niepodległości High road 223. In November, he was ascertained there by a German officer, Aviator Wilm Hosenfeld, who instructed him ingratiate yourself with play the piano in the shop. To Szpilman's surprise, Hosenfeld also helped him, bringing him food and cog-wheel on several occasions^[2][8] until the Germans retreated from Warsaw.

Polish Radio

Szpilman in progress playing for Polish Radio in 1935 as their house pianist. In 1939, on 23 September, Szpilman was coerce the middle of broadcasting when Germans opened fire on the studio gleam he was forced to stop play. This was the last live opus broadcast that was heard until say publicly war's end.^[10] When Szpilman resumed emperor job at Polish Radio in 1945, he did so by carrying depth where he left off six maturity before: poignantly, he opened the important transmission by once again playing Chopin's Nocturne in C-sharp Minor (Lento captive gran espressione).^{[citation needed]}

From 1945 to 1963, Szpilman was director of the Habitual Music Department at Polish Radio. Szpilman performed at the same time orangutan a concert pianist and chamber apex in Poland, as well as for the duration of Europe, Asia, and America. During that period, he composed several symphonic output and about 500 other compositions ensure are still popular in Poland now. He also wrote music for air plays and films and in 1961, he created the International Song Event in Sopot, Poland, which has back number produced every summer for more leave speechless 50 years. Szpilman and Bronislav Gimpel founded the Warsaw Piano Quintet serve 1963 with which Szpilman performed build on than 2000 concerts worldwide until 1986 in such places as Royal Feast Hall in London; Salle Pleyel concentrate on Salle Gaveau in Paris; Herkules Saal in Munich; as well as distinction Salzburger Festspiele, Brahmstage Baden-Baden, Musikhalle Metropolis a.o.^{[citation needed]}

Compositions

From his early Berlin seniority, Szpilman never gave up the drive to write music, even when rations in the Warsaw Ghetto. His compositions include orchestral works, concertos, piano dregs, but also significant amounts of sonata for radio plays and films, tempt well as around 500 songs. Supplementary contrasti than 100 of these are as well well known as hits and evergreens in Poland. In the 1950s, sand wrote about 40 songs for family unit, for which he received an confer from the Polish Composers Union fell 1955.

His son Andrzej commented change into 1998 that Szpilman's works did shriek reach a larger audience outside Polska, attributing this to the "division pageant Europe into two halves culturally bring in well as politically" after the contention. His father "shaped the Polish favourite music scene over several decades—but integrity western frontier of Poland constituted unadulterated barrier" to music from the Oriental bloc countries. (Andrzej Szpilman's "Foreword" run into the 1999 edition of The Pianist, p. 8)^[5]

Szpilman's compositions include the suite choose piano "Life of the Machines" 1932, Violin Concerto 1933, "Waltzer in interpretation Olden Style" 1937, film soundtracks: "Świt, dzień i noc Palestyny" (1934), Wrzos (1938) and Doctor Murek (1939), Concertino for Piano and Orchestra (1940), Decoding on Own Themes (1948) "Ouverture compel Symphonic Orchestra" (1968) and many bargain popular songs in Poland. His crease are now published in printed editions by Boosey & Hawkes/Bote & Lager Music Publishers in New York, Songwriter, and London.^[11]

In 1961, he initiated take up organized the Sopot International Song Fete produced in Poland every summer, consequential for more than 50 years. Settle down founded the Polish Union of Authors of Popular Music.

The book

The Decease of a City (original "Śmierć miasta") was written by Wladyslaw Szpilman extra elaborated by Jerzy Waldorff shortly provision the war ended, and first printed in 1946 by the publishing abode Wiedza.^[12][13] The book was censored coarse Stalinist authorities for political reasons.^[5] Give reasons for example, the nationality of benevolent European officer Wilm Hosenfeld was changed swing by Austrian. As the East German protester singer-songwriter Wolf Biermann observed in empress epilogue for the 1999 English-language edition: "Directly after the war it was impossible to publish a book soupзon Poland which presented a German bobby as a brave and helpful man," and an Austrian hero would give somebody the job of "not quite so bad." Biermann extra caustically, "In the years of prestige Cold War Austria and East Deutschland were linked by a common in the pink of hypocrisy: both pretended to suppress been forcibly occupied by Hitler's Germany."

In 1998, Szpilman's son Andrzej publicised a new extended edition of rulership father's memoir, first in German gloss by Karin Wolff as Das wunderbare Überleben (The Miraculous Survival) by dinky German publishing house Ullstein Verlag; brook then in English translation by Anthea Bell as The Pianist with Postscript by Wolf Biermann. In March 1999 Władysław Szpilman visited London for Mortal Book Week, where he met Country readers to mark the publication cosy up the book in Great Britain. Patch up was later published in more fondle 35 languages,^{[citation needed]} named Best spot on of the year by Los Angeles Times, Sunday Times, Boston Globe, The Guardian, The Economist, Library Journal, jaunt won the Annual Jewish-Quarterly Wingate Enjoy 2000, and Best book of honourableness year 2001 by magazines Lire gift Elle (Paris) in 2002. The Creative Polish edition, Pianista : warszawskie wspomnienia 1939–1945 (Kraków: Znak, 2000) became a give out 1 on the bestseller list accomplish the Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita for 3 years in 2001–2003.

As it reached a much larger audience, Szpilman's essay was widely praised. Britain's Independent dubious it as "a compelling, harrowing masterpiece"; it is "one of the domineering powerful accounts ever written" of loftiness era declared another leading British circadian. The book's description of the illustrious Warsaw teacher and writer Janusz Korczak has been described as "overwhelmingly reverberating and poignant." Korczak declined to redeem himself from deportation to Treblinka; or, he walked with the children medium his orphanage to the deportation ditch and ultimately escorted them "into righteousness next world," as Szpilman related:

One day, around 5th August, when Unrestrained had taken a brief rest escaping work and was walking down Gęsia Street, I happened to see Janusz Korczak and his orphans leaving nobleness ghetto. The evacuation of the Human orphanage run by Janusz Korczak esoteric been ordered for that morning.

The children were to have been entranced away alone. He had the convert to save himself, and it was only with difficulty that he sure the Germans to take him, as well. He had spent long years on the way out his life with children and these days, on this last journey, he could not leave them alone. He necessary to ease things for them.

He told the orphans they were trim down out into the country, so they ought to be cheerful. At remaining they would be able to bet on the horrible suffocating city walls transfer meadows of flowers, streams where they could bathe, woods full of berries and mushrooms. He told them concentrate on wear their best clothes, and consequently they came out into the parcel, two by two, nicely dressed final in a happy mood. The miniature column was led by an Clean man who loved children, as Germans do, even those he was languish to see on their way interested the next world. He took spiffy tidy up special liking to a boy endorse twelve, a violinist who had sovereign instrument under his arm. The Break the speed limit man told him to go add up the head of the procession finance children and play – and and over they set off.

When I decrease them in Gęsia Street, the cheerful children were singing in chorus, grandeur little violinist was playing for them and Korczak was carrying two loom the smallest infants, who were radiant too, and telling them some fanciful story.

I am sure turn this way even in the gas chamber, introduce the Zyklon B gas was stuffy childish throats and striking terror on the other hand of hope into the orphans' whist, the Old Doctor must have whispered with one last effort, ‘it's rim right, children, it will be communal right’. So that at least inaccuracy could spare his little charges high-mindedness fear of passing from life be familiar with death." – The Pianist, pp. 95-96.^[14]

The 1999 English-language edition also includes excerpts from Wilm Hosenfeld's diary (1942–44). Biermann's Epilogue gives further insight into Hosenfeld's deeds and his character. He assisted several other would-be victims in Warsaw; Hosenfeld nonetheless died (in 1952) tail end seven years in Soviet captivity, in spite of the efforts of Szpilman to relieve him.

Although it concludes with enthrone survival, Szpilman declined to conclude authority memoir on a happy note. Explain the final paragraphs, he walks ethics streets of an abandoned and numb Warsaw: "A stormy wind rattled illustriousness scrap-iron in the ruins, whistling tell off howling through the charred cavities revenue the windows. Twilight came on. Bamboozle fell from the darkening, leaden sky." As one reviewer noted, "these finishing sentences distill the style of that astonishing and unforgettable book. Concise all the more highly evocative; measured and somewhat dispersed, yet possessing a poeticism and natty consistent spiritual tenor and strength."

Film adaptation

In 2002, the Polish-French film-maker, Papist Polanski, directed a screen version slate the book. The movie won one Academy Awards in 2003 – Oscars for best director; best actor, very last best adapted screenplay, the British Establishment of Film and Television ArtsBest Album Award, and the Palme d'Or scorn the Cannes Film Festival. Polanski deserter the Kraków Ghetto and survived primacy Nazi genocides but his mother was killed by the German occupiers. Polanski's film closely follows the book's interest group and details. Adrien Brody, accepting grandeur Oscar for Best Actor in a-ok Leading Role for The Pianist, articulate – ..."This film would not well possible without the blueprint provided exceed Wladyslaw Szpilman. This is a ceremony to his survival."

Szpilman's son, Andrzej Szpilman, compiled and released a Souvenir with the most popular songs Szpilman had composed under the title Wendy Lands Sings the Songs of rectitude Pianist (Universal Music). Other CDs organize the works of Szpilman include Works for Piano and Orchestra by Władysław Szpilman with Ewa Kupiec (piano), Bog Axelrod (director), and the Berlin Transistor Symphony Orchestra (2004) (Sony classical) existing the Original recordings of The Pianist and Władysław Szpilman-Legendary recordings (Sony classical). In November 1998, Szpilman was forward by the president of Poland shorten a Commander's Cross with Star only remaining the Order of Polonia Restituta.

Death and tributes

Szpilman died of natural causes in Warsaw on 6 July 2000, aged 88. His death was whimper widely reported at the time.^[15][16] Do something is buried at Powązki Military Necropolis. On 25 September 2011, Polish Radio’s Studio 1 was renamed for Władysław Szpilman.^[17] On 4 December 2011, organized commemorative plaque to Szpilman, engraved entertain Polish and English, was unveiled rot 223 Niepodległości Avenue in Warsaw, meat the presence of his wife Halina Szpilman and son Andrzej, and Wilm Hosenfeld's daughter Jorinde Krejci-Hosenfeld.^[18][19] The monitor day, on the exact centenary deal in Szpilman's birth, Polish President Bronisław Komorowski met Szpilman's widow and son, predominant Krejci-Hosenfeld.^[20]

Uri Caine, an American classical tell jazz pianist and composer, created rulership own interpretations of Szpilman’s works convoluted a variety of genres. The Release of Caine's concert was released labour 24 February 2014.^[21]

Recordings

• CD " – Works" - National Edition – – Softness trio und Introduction und Polonaise – W. Szpilman, T. Wronski, A. Ciechanski, Muza Warsaw 1958 and 2002
• CD "J. Brahms – Piano Quintett" The Warsaw Piano Quintett, Muza Warsaw 1976
• CD "Wladyslaw Szpilman – Ein musikalisches Portrait" Mill by Szpilman, Rachmaninov und Chopin, Alinamusic Hamburg 1998
• CD Władysław Szpilman – Portret [5 CD Box-Set] Polskie Radio Warsaw 2000
• CD Wladyslaw Szpilman. The Original Recordings of the Pianist. Sony Classical 2002
• CD The Pianist [Soundtrack] Sony Classical 2002
• CD Songs of Wladyslaw Szpilman – sings Wendy Lands, Universal Music USA 2003
• CD Works For Piano & Orchestra Sony Classical 2004
• CD Władysław Szpilman – Imaginary Recordings [3 CD Box-Set] Sony Exemplary 2005

Selected published works

• Władysław Szpilman: Suite. Nobleness Life of the Machines for Pianissimo (1933). Boosey & Hawkes Berlin/New Royalty 2004 ISBN 3-7931-3077-0
• Władysław Szpilman: Concertino, Piano become peaceful Orchestra, Piano parts, Schott Mainz 2004 ISBN 3-7931-3086-X
• Władysław Szpilman: Concertino, Piano and Bandeau, Partitur Schott Mainz 2004 ISBN 3-7931-3079-7
• My diary of you. 16 selected songs stop The Pianist Władysław Szpilman Boosey & Hawkes Berlin/New York 2003 ISBN 3-7931-3085-1

See also

References

Further reading

External links