Warsaw Concerto

Warsaw Concerto

The "Warsaw Concerto" is a single-movement piano concerto written for the 1941 film, "Dangerous Moonlight" (also known under the later title "Suicide Squadron"). It was written by British composer Richard Addinsell. The orchestration was by another Briton, Roy Douglas, whose contribution is rarely acknowledged.

The film's love-story plot revolves around the fictional composer of the piece, a piano virtuoso and "shell-shocked" combat pilot, who is a refugee in England from the World War II occupation of Poland and considers returning to Poland to rejoin the war. The actor, Anton Walbrook, was an accomplished amateur pianist, so his hands are seen playing in the film, but in fact the music on the soundtrack is played by an uncredited pianist, Louis Kentner.

The film-makers wanted something in the style of Sergei Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini and Second and Third Piano Concertos, but were unable to persuade Rachmaninoff himself to write a new piece or to afford to use any of these existing pieces.

The music was later used in another film, "The Sea Wolves" (1980), with Addinsell's themes arranged by Roy Budd.

Appearances in popular culture

The theme of the concerto is borrowed in a popular-music love song whose lyrics include "The world outside will never know..." recorded by The Four Coins. [ [http://www.ntl.matrix.com.br/pfilho/html/lyrics/w/world_outside.txt "The World Outside" lyrics] ]

The theme charted at #18 on UK Singles chart in January 1959, as "The World Outside" by Ronnie Hilton, a very popular singer in the UK.

Spike Milligan repeatedly refers to the piece in his autobiography "" as 'the bloody awful Warsaw Concerto'.

Gonzalo Rubalcaba, the Grammy Award-winning Cuban jazz pianist and composer, recorded a Latin arrangement of the "Warsaw Concerto" in 2005.

Notes

External links

* [http://classyclassical.blogspot.com/2005/10/richard-addinsells-warsaw-concerto.html Richard Addinsell's Warsaw Concerto] Analysis and description of Addinsell's Warsaw Concerto
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/cotw/pip/we8cu/ Composers of the Week] - Addinsell and Noel Coward
*


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