Love songs a record of will to live

By SUE ZEIDLER

Now that Wladyslaw Szpilman's harrowing survival in Nazi-occupied Warsaw has come to the screen as an Oscar-nominated film, the son of The Pianist wants his father's songs to be known to the world.

With the same dedication that drove Andrzej Szpilman to get his father's long-forgotten memoirs published, becoming the basis for Roman Polanski's film, he has now spearheaded an album of his father's love songs - pop classics in Poland from the 1940s and 1950s.

"This CD is testament to the power of music and the will to live of a man who survived the difficult years in hiding, not least by recalling note by note, bar by bar, every piece of music he ever played or composed," wrote the son in the album's liner notes.

The album, titled Wendy Lands Sings the Music of the Pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman, was produced by Hip-O Records, a division of Vivendi Universal's Universal Music Group.

Szpilman - famous in pre-war Poland for his film scores and popular songs - performed Polish radio's last live music broadcast on September 23, 1939, as German shells exploded, eventually knocking out the station's power.

The airwaves would remain silent for six years as Nazis occupied the city during the war, which claimed the lives of nearly half a million Jews crammed into the ghetto, including Szpilman's family. The musician somehow survived, eking out a half-starved existence in the ruins of Warsaw.

When Radio Warsaw resumed broadcasting in 1945, it picked up exactly where it left off, with Szpilman playing the same Chopin nocturne he performed in 1939.

The film, nominated for seven Oscars, ends shortly after the war, showing Szpilman beginning to resume his career. The composer went on to perform around the world as a soloist and in duos and with chamber groups such as the Warsaw Piano Quintet. Many of his songs also became mainstays of Polish pop culture.

Immediately after the war, Szpilman wrote his story and it was published in 1946. But the powerful account was then banned by the communist authorities and forgotten until it was reissued, on his son's insistence, shortly before Szpilman's death in 2000.

The pianist lived long enough to learn that Roman Polanski, also a Holocaust survivor, would be directing the film based on his memoirs. But the son and father had only talked about their dream of bringing his music to America and beyond.

"He felt American music was the highest sort of popular music. At home we listened to Duke Ellington, Billy May, Ted Heath and his Orchestra. He loved American standards and jazz," the younger Szpilman said in an interview.

The younger Szpilman brought the library of compositions to song producer John Leftwitch, who has worked with contemporary artists such as Ricki Lee Jones and Lyle Lovett.

Together, Leftwitch and Szpilman chose Canadian singer Wendy Lands to record the songs with new English lyrics.

The result is a jazzy-sounding album featuring romantic songs written during World War II amid the harshest conditions.

For Lands, getting this gig has been her big break in the United States after leaving Canada, where she was a well-known singer and television personality.

"I had a great career in Canada, but decided to take the plunge and come to Los Angeles, where I faced the ugly truth that everything that defined me in Canada, like hits on radio and awards, meant nothing here," she said.

"I went through the whole audition process, knowing that there were at least 25 other women vying for this incredible opportunity.

"People ask me if they chose me because I was Jewish. I don't think they knew," she said, but added that her background may have helped her identify with the music.

"The melodies are very Eastern European. My grandmother was also a pianist. These are the kinds of melodies that she played and I definitely had a connection," Lands said.

Since recording the album, Lands has been a regular guest at events surrounding the movie, such as premieres and the recent Golden Globe Awards.

She plans to tour and perform Szpilman's music live as well as record some of her own original songs.

- REUTERS