Friends of Chopin Australia - Rafal Luszczewski in Recital Thurs, 01 May 2025
https://www.friendsofchopin.org.au/rafael-luszczewski-in-recital
I have heard Rafal Luszczewski give many exceptional and well-received recitals in Warsaw, surely the informed critical home of many of today's greatest Chopin interpretations. The prodigious International Chopin Piano Competition will be launched once again later this year in Warsaw. The Preliminaries are already in progress.
Luszczewski is also to be commended on his many musical activities beyond recitals in a characteristically Polish cosmopolitan musical career embracing teaching, conducting superb Masterclasses and the extraordinary initiative of setting up Chopin piano competitions in South American countries.
A unique individual and charming man who plays unencumbered by the inflated vanity of far too many concert artists.
An exceptional, indeed for many Australians overwhelming, piece on this programme, is his own personal arrangement for solo piano of the Warsaw Concerto by Richard Addinsell. What a brilliant idea this turned out to be!
The fine and affecting romantic wartime movie Dangerous Moonlight (1941), also known as Suicide Squadron, uses this remarkable composition as a theme in this too often neglected film. A slightly sentimental movie but so what? It was made actually during wartime after all (1941) and is not an historical reflection ....
The superb pianist on the soundtrack was the great Hungarian Lajos (Louis) Kentner. In 1932 he was awarded the 5th Prize in the 2nd International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw. He later distinguished himself in bravura performances of Liszt compositions and Bartok concertos in London. In chamber music he was Yehudi Menuhin's partner. Menuhin wrote: '.....a very great musician, one of the last from the grandiose pianists from the world of Liszt, Busoni and early Rubinstein.' He performed often in Poland and served on many international juries including the International Chopin Competition. Perfect then for the Warsaw Concerto by Addinsell! Unaccountably, he was not originally credited for this remarkable role in the publicity for the film.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Kentner
The theme was convincingly and movingly written by Addinsell in the style of a Rachmaninoff concerto when the great Russian was unable to accept the cinema commission. 'The film's director had originally wanted to use Sergei Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto, but this idea was either forbidden by the copyright owners or was far too expensive' (Roy Douglas)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dangerous_Moonlight (1941)
The plot features a Polish concert pianist who is wounded as a fighter pilot during the Battle of Britain and falls in love with an American war correspondent. This moving film and its fragmented theme transports us to convincing and poignant emotional heights. It is a magnificent and profound statement of the immense sense of Polish patriotism, honour and sheer courage in squadrons that were so shamefully treated at the conclusion of the war.
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Warsaw was 90% systematically destroyed during WW II |
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During the Warsaw Uprising August 1, 1944 – October 2, 1944 |
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Warsaw rebuilt It is a miracle the city exists at all today, quite apart from the miracle of Poland, given its fraught history, flourishing as a sovereign nation within the European Union |
No. 303 Squadron RAF "Tadeusz Kościuszko Warsaw" is one in question, famous for its many victories, valiant aeronautical and flying brilliance, Spitfires and Hurricanes were not simple aircraft to fly and fight.
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| Born on 14 April 1915, Jan Zumbach was a Polish fighter pilot who became an ace during the Second World War. |
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| Merian Cooper and Cedric Fauntleroy |
Do try and see the film before you attend the recital
After hearing Luszczewski give an outstanding performance of the concerto in this dramatic arrangement for solo piano and other piano works in the Steinway Salon in Warsaw before a select audience of ambassadors and Chopin connoisseurs, I wrote in my review:
'Last night at the Steinway Salon in Warsaw I attended an excellent recital, a truly inspiring programme with much audience appeal, given by Rafal Luszczewski, a Steinway artist.
Perhaps the finest Op.40 'Military' Polonaise I have ever heard. No cliché there, just Polish nobility, passionate resistance and honour. His own arrangement of the Richard Addinsell Warsaw Concerto for solo piano was also magnificent, indeed overwhelming, but not yet recorded'
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