The pianist of the Warsaw ghetto
In Polanski's film The Pianist, it appears that the Polish pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman spent a few months in the destroyed Warsaw trying to survive. Actually, his ordeal lasted two years, according to his memoirs collected in the book The Death of a City, published in 1945 in reduced circulation. However, it was not an obstacle for the authorities at the time to condemn and censure it. The book didn´t agree with their vision of the war, as if Szpilman's torments did not count for history.
It was not until 1998 that the memoirs, with the collaboration of a Polish author, were republished, first in German, and then in English under the title The Pianist. Two years later, they were published in Spain under the title El pianista del ghetto de Varsovia.
In 2002, the Polish director Roman Polanski adapted these memoirs for the cinema, resulting in the ultra-award-winning film The Pianist, starring the brilliant actor Adrien Brody in the role of Wladyslaw Szpilman.
The film begins with Szpilman, on a Polish radio station, performing a posthumous opus by Chopin, a piece from his youth that Frédérik did not want to be published in his lifetime. Perhaps because of this, a renowned biographer has described it as a mediocre work. It didn't seem that way to Polanski, or to the audience.
The piece is Nocturno N° 20 in C sharp minor. The rendition is by the Polish pianist Janus Olejniczak, who recorded the entire piano for the soundtrack.
It is the year 1939, September, and the German invasion has begun. The bombings interrupt the performing of Szpilman.
Following, the whole piece by Canadian pianist Jan Lisiecki.
