MUSIC
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`The Pianist' goes pop: CD unveils modern sounds of Polish composer Wladyslaw Szpilman
by Larry Katz
Wednesday, January 29, 2003

There is more to the music of Wladyslaw Szpilman than meets the ear in ``The Pianist.''

In ``The Pianist,'' director Roman Polanski's harrowing, heart-rending and altogether extraordinary movie, actor Adrien Brody portrays Szpilman and re-enacts the unlikely story of his life in and around the Warsaw ghetto during World War II. We see Szpilman transformed from an urbane classical pianist to a desperate survivor who repeatedly escapes death while his family and more than 3 million other Polish Jews are systematically murdered by the invading German forces.

``The Pianist'' is accurate as far as it goes. But, like the book by Szpilman on which the movie is based, it leaves out part of Szpilman's musical story.

While Szpilman (pronounced SHPIL-man) was a respected classical pianist, he was even more highly regarded as a pop songwriter. Now, on the heels of the successful all-classical soundtrack to ``The Pianist,'' a new CD titled ``Wendy Lands Sings the Music of the Pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman'' reveals the light and lively side of Szpilman.

``My father was not known as a pianist in Poland,'' Szpilman's son Andrzej says from Italy, where he has traveled from his home in Germany to speak at a showing of ``The Pianist.'' ``He was known only as a composer of popular songs.

``He wrote songs before the war,'' Andrzej says. ``Until the big deportation in '42, he wrote songs in the Warsaw ghetto. Several became very popular after World War II. Two of them you hear on the Wendy Lands record, `Fall in Love Again' and `My Memories of You.' He wrote songs up until 1973, about five or six hundred songs in all. I'd say about 100 of them were hits.''

Not a polka in the batch either. Szpilman's songs sound far more American than Polish.

``My father was very impressed with American composers like Gershwin,'' Andrzej says, ``and he loved jazz. 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. I have recordings made in '46 and '47 of him playing hit songs, American standards and jazz. He was going in the direction of Errol Garner.''

On the CD by Lands, a Canadian singer/songwriter little known in the United States, Szpilman's music goes in the contemporary direction of a Norah Jones or Sarah McLachlan.

``People who have seen the film are shocked to hear how contemporary this record sounds,'' Lands says from her home in Los Angeles. ``They find that this guy was like a Gershwin or a McCartney. He wrote incredible melodies.''

Lands' CD is part of Andrzej's ongoing effort on behalf of his father, a man who was more concerned with artistry than self-aggrandizement.

Immediately after the end of World War II, the elder Szpilman returned to his job as a pianist at Polish Radio and wrote a startling account of his wartime survival titled ``Death of a City.'' It disappeared shortly after its publication in 1946. Andrzej, born in 1956, did not know of the book's existence until he discovered a copy in his father's bookcase at age 12. Five years ago, he succeeded in getting it republished as ``The Pianist'' in Germany.

``My father was not interested in having it published,'' Andrzej says. ``He told me, `Do what you want, but I don't think the story will interest anybody.' ''

Szpilman died at 88 in 2000 before his book was made into a movie by one extremely interested reader, Polanski, a Polish Jewish Holocaust survivor himself.

Certain that Polanski's movie would create new interest in Szpilman's compositions, which include classical works, movie scores and children's music, last year Andrzej began work on a CD that would showcase Szpilman's pop talents.

``I felt I owed it to him to present his music to an American audience,'' he says. ``First we found American writers to write new lyrics, because the original lyrics, some by great Polish poets, were very local, very Polish. Then we auditioned singers and found Wendy Lands.

``We didn't inform any of them, not even Wendy, about my father's story,'' Andrzej says. ``His life was destroyed by Germans and the war, but I didn't want the lyrics to be influenced by his story. Of course, when they found out his story they were quite shocked. His story is difficult to imagine. To go out from this hell seems impossible.''

On ``Wendy Lands Sings . . .,'' Szpilman's melodically and rhythmically rich music is turned into thoroughly modern pop songs. Lyricists such as David Batteau and Michael Ruff provide the romantic words. Studio stalwarts such as guitarists Greg Leisz and Heitor Pereira play uncluttered arrangements by producer John Leftwich, best known for his years as Rickie Lee Jones' bassist.

``John had a vision,'' Lands says. ``He wanted this to sound current, because he really believes these melodies are timeless.''

By bringing Szpilman's music to a pop audience it never had a chance to find during his lifetime, this new CD adds a remarkable postscript to the story of survival told in ``The Pianist.''

But what would Szpilman think of this transformation of his songs into up-to-date American pop?

``My father was always dividing music into good and bad,'' Andrzej says. ``This is very special music played by great musicians. I'm sure he would have loved it.''