Named one of the Best Books of 1999by the Los Angeles Times, The Pianist is a great movie directed by Roman Polański and starring Adrien Brody . The Pianist won the Cannes Film Festival’s most prestigious prize—the Palme d’Or.

On September 23, 1939, Władysław Szpilman played Chopin’s Nocturne in C-sharp minor live on the radio as shells exploded outside—so loudly that he couldn’t hear his piano. It was the last live music broadcast from Warsaw: That day, a German bomb hit the station, and Polish Radio went off the air.

Though he lost his entire family, Szpilman survived in hiding. In the end, his life was saved by a German officer who heard him play the same Chopin Nocturne on a piano found among the rubble. Written immediately after the war and suppressed for decades, The Pianist is a stunning testament to human endurance and the redemptive power of fellow feeling.

Now the widow and son of Władysław Szpilman have taken the author of a book alleging Szpilman collaborated with the Gestapo to court.

Halina Szpilman Grzecznarowska and Andrzej Szpilman want the Warsaw regional court to force an apology from Agata Tuszyńska for the accusations carried in her biography of Wiera Gran, a Jewish singer who knew Szpilman in the Warsaw ghetto.

In Roman Polanski’s 2002 film, based on Szpilman’s own account, the composer survives the liquidation of the ghetto and the war thanks in part to the intervention of a Captain Wilhelm Hosenfeld, a compassionate German army officer appalled by his country’s treatment of the Jews. Despite the dangers the German befriended the starving Szpilman, giving him food, clothes and shelter.

But in her biography, titled “The Accused: Wiera Gran”, the singer alleged Szpilman worked for the Jewish police in the ghetto, helping to organise the transport of thousands of Jews to the Treblinka death camp.

The Szpilmans claim the accusations have tarnished the composer’s name and thus warrant an apology.

“My father was never a policeman in the ghetto,” Andrzej Szpilman told the court. “These fantasies of a sick woman were presented as fact by the media.” Mr Szpilman added that Gran’s accusations may have been born out of a festering jealousy and bitterness she had for his father because she herself had never managed to escape from allegations of collaboration.

Such was the strength of the allegations that Gran was forced to leave Israel, where she had moved after the war, and settle in France. While the smear of collaborator haunted Gran till her death in 2007, Szpilman enjoyed a successful musical career in post-war Poland, and in 1998, just two years before his death, his account of his remarkable survival, also called The Pianist, brought him international recognition.

The Szpilmans’ lawyers also produced documents showing that the name of  Władysław Szpilman was never recorded as a ghetto policeman, and that no ghetto survivors other than Gran ever accused him of collaboration.

But the author has stood by her book.

“I wrote about Gran and quoted her on what she had to say about Szpilman,” said Ms Tuszyńska. “Should I have changed what she said? I was not in the ghetto where everything happened and nor was Andrzej Szpilman.” She added that her book explained that there was never any evidence to support the accusations, and that when she made them Gran was an old and frail woman.

Do następnego razu… (Till next time…)

Named one of the Best Books of 1999by the Los Angeles Times, The Pianist is a great movie directed by Roman Polański and starring Adrien Brody . The Pianist won the Cannes Film Festival’s most prestigious prize—the Palme d’Or.

On September 23, 1939, Władysław Szpilman played Chopin’s Nocturne in C-sharp minor live on the radio as shells exploded outside—so loudly that he couldn’t hear his piano. It was the last live music broadcast from Warsaw: That day, a German bomb hit the station, and Polish Radio went off the air.

Though he lost his entire family, Szpilman survived in hiding. In the end, his life was saved by a German officer who heard him play the same Chopin Nocturne on a piano found among the rubble. Written immediately after the war and suppressed for decades, The Pianist is a stunning testament to human endurance and the redemptive power of fellow feeling.

Now the widow and son of Władysław Szpilman have taken the author of a book alleging Szpilman collaborated with the Gestapo to court.

Halina Szpilman Grzecznarowska and Andrzej Szpilman want the Warsaw regional court to force an apology from Agata Tuszyńska for the accusations carried in her biography of Wiera Gran, a Jewish singer who knew Szpilman in the Warsaw ghetto.

In Roman Polanski’s 2002 film, based on Szpilman’s own account, the composer survives the liquidation of the ghetto and the war thanks in part to the intervention of a Captain Wilhelm Hosenfeld, a compassionate German army officer appalled by his country’s treatment of the Jews. Despite the dangers the German befriended the starving Szpilman, giving him food, clothes and shelter.

But in her biography, titled “The Accused: Wiera Gran”, the singer alleged Szpilman worked for the Jewish police in the ghetto, helping to organise the transport of thousands of Jews to the Treblinka death camp.

The Szpilmans claim the accusations have tarnished the composer’s name and thus warrant an apology.

“My father was never a policeman in the ghetto,” Andrzej Szpilman told the court. “These fantasies of a sick woman were presented as fact by the media.” Mr Szpilman added that Gran’s accusations may have been born out of a festering jealousy and bitterness she had for his father because she herself had never managed to escape from allegations of collaboration.

Such was the strength of the allegations that Gran was forced to leave Israel, where she had moved after the war, and settle in France. While the smear of collaborator haunted Gran till her death in 2007, Szpilman enjoyed a successful musical career in post-war Poland, and in 1998, just two years before his death, his account of his remarkable survival, also called The Pianist, brought him international recognition.

The Szpilmans’ lawyers also produced documents showing that the name of  Władysław Szpilman was never recorded as a ghetto policeman, and that no ghetto survivors other than Gran ever accused him of collaboration.

But the author has stood by her book.

“I wrote about Gran and quoted her on what she had to say about Szpilman,” said Ms Tuszyńska. “Should I have changed what she said? I was not in the ghetto where everything happened and nor was Andrzej Szpilman.” She added that her book explained that there was never any evidence to support the accusations, and that when she made them Gran was an old and frail woman.

Do następnego razu… (Till next time…)

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So the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is demanding that Poland’s Association of Folk Artists stop giving out what it calls the “People’s Oskar.”

Waldemar Majcher of the Association of Folk Artists said Monday the dispute is the result a misunderstanding. But he also questioned Hollywood’s demand.

Majcher said the “People’s Oskar,” was named after Oskar Kolberg, a 19th-century Polish ethnographer who wrote some 10,000 Polish folk songs. Still remembered and respected in Poland, Kolberg died in 1890.

In its 10-year history, the “People’s Oskar” — a metal plaque with an engraved image of Jesus — has been awarded to individual artists, museums, folk festivals and even a bread fair.

Last week, Majcher said, he received a letter from Polish lawyers representing the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences protesting the use of the name “Oscar” in its Polish spelling “Oskar.”

The letter from Wardynski and Partners — which Majcher read to The Associated Press — demands the Association of Folk Artists stop using that name and said the academy had obtained protection of the “Oscar” trademark in Poland in a law adopted in 2000.

The letter said the “verbal trademark Oscar … is inseparably associated with the Academy Awards.”

“The letter gave us a scare, but we are receiving plenty of encouragement from people,” Majcher said, adding that in some ways members of his association are impressed that “such a big institution got interested in our modest project.”

He said a team of lawyers is preparing a response defending the use of the name People’s Oskar.

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Thousands fans arrived on Sunday and were given the chance to see Polish pop acts including VooVoo i Haydamaky, Zakopower, Coma, T. Love and Lady Pank.

The 50,000-seat arena, which will also host a semifinal, was built on the site of the old 10th Anniversary Stadium, which had stood since 1955 and welcomed Pope John Paul II in 1983.

The opening of the new stadium — originally planned for last June — had been repeatedly put off because construction experts and firefighters were finding work incomplete or needing improvement, including faulty outside stairs.

Take a look at the November blog:

Foldable roof in National Stadium in Warsaw

Do następnego razu… (Till next time…)

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One of the best known hits of Irena Jarocka was “Odpływają kawiarenki” (Sail Away Cafes).

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The concept behind the Wrocław Guitar Festival (Wrocławski Festiwal Gitarowy, often referred to simply as the ‘Gitara’) is simple. To give this majestic instrument a platform to shine. Every year the festival invites some of the leading lights of the music world to show off their skills on the six-string, and previous plectrum pluckers in Poland include the likes of Rafael Cortes, Tommy Emmanuel, Giampaolo Bandini and many more. Typically there is one main concert per night for the duration of the festival, which takes place in one of Wrocław’s most prestigious venues such as in the Philharmonic Hall, the Hala Ludowa, or the Great Hall of the Wrocław Town Hall. The festival is also accompanied by master classes, workshops, instrument displays, music publishing presentations, and meetings with the artists themselves.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Have anyone of you attended it?

Do następnego razu… (Till next time…)

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Villas died at her home earlier this month of untreated pneumonia and complications from a broken leg. She was 73 and lived alone in a house in Lewin Kłodzki, in southern Poland.

Her funeral at Warsaw’s Powązki cemetery, a burial ground for many Polish celebrities, drew hundreds of fans of her powerful voice that spanned four octaves. They came with flowers, her picture, and the national white-and-red flag with a black ribbon attached to it in a sign of mourning.

Culture Minister Bogdan Zdrojewski said in a message that her “unique talent and unconventional ways will not be forgotten.”

“She was exceptional, unusual, one of the best recognizable personalities on Poland’s musical stage in recent decades,” Zdrojewski said in a letter that was read during a funeral Mass at the packed St. Borromeo Church in Powązki.

From 1966 to 1969, Villas — a cascade of curly blond hair and crinoline dresses her trademarks — sang at the Casino de Paris and at the famed Dunes Hotel in Las Vegas, performing with luminaries such as Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Paul Anka and Eartha Kitt.

She also recorded songs for Capitol Records.

She appeared in several United States movies, including 1969’s “Paint Your Wagon” with Lee Marvin and “Heaven with a Gun” with Glenn Ford.

In 1970, she returned to Poland to tend to her ailing mother, and found herself trapped as the communist authorities refused to approve her passport. She did not return to the U.S. until 1987 with a tour that started at New York’s Carnegie Hall.

Born Czesława Cieślak in Belgium in 1938 to a Polish coal miner, she once said her career was launched in 1960 by the head of state Polish Radio, composer Władysław Szpilman — whose own story of survival during the Holocaust was the theme of director Roman Polański’s 2003 Oscar-winning movie “The Pianist.”

Villas was also known as a colorful personality who refused to bend to the requirements of a career. Since the late 1980s, she had given only occasional performances.

Do następnego razu… (Till next time…)

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Cicha noc, święta noc

Cicha noc, święta noc,
Pokój niesie ludziom wszem
A u żłobka Matka Święta
Czuwa sama uśmiechnięta
Nad Dzieciątka snem,
Nad Dzieciątka snem.

Cicha noc, święta noc,
Pastuszkowie od swych trzód
Biegną wielce zadziwieni,
Za anielskim głosem pieni
Gdzie się spełnił cud,
Gdzie się spełnił cud.

Cicha noc, święta noc,
Narodzony Boży Syn,
Pan wielkiego majestatu
Niesie dziś całemu światu
Odkupienie win,
Odkupienie win.

Silent Night, holy night

Silent Night, holy night
Brings peace to people everywhere
And at the manger, the Holy Mother
Watches alone, smiling,
Over the Child’s sleep,
Over the Child’s sleep.

Silent night, holy night,
The shepherds from their flocks
Run greatly surprised
After the angel’s voice announcing
Where the miracle has been fulfilled,
Where the miracle has been fulfilled.

Silent night, holy night,
God’s (new)born Son,
The Lord of great majesty
Brings today to the entire world
The redemption of sin,
The redemption of sin.

Here are 2 different versions of this carol:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Do następnego razu… (Till next time…)

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