Re: The Pianist

[Alex Lubet <lubet001...>]

Speaking again only as an American who lived briefly in Poland, I did feel 
a certain compulsion to be there as a sort of witness and to live as Jewish 
a life as possible.  I was also the only Jew (or American) most of my 
colleagues and students had ever met and many of them had been raised 
utterly ignorant of a culture that had so shaped their country.  At the 
risk of going beyond the realm of anything I can easily or rationally 
explain, I felt like I had to be there.  Needless to say, Szpilman's 
situation was entirely different, but there's something about not wanting 
to allow that country's Jewish light to be entirely extinguished.  There 
appears to be a tiny rebirth of Jewish life there now.



At 09:38 AM 3/6/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>The core issue for me in this debate is how did Szpilman define 
>himself...   a question that may shed some light on his decisions. The 
>film, or the events of his life seem to suggest that being a musician was 
>the main focus of his life... more so than being a Jew... How else can one 
>understand his decision to stay in a country in which his entire family 
>was murdered, his entire people were murdered, and he was fully aware of 
>the degree to which his own non-Jewish countrymen participated in the 
>extermination?  It's impossible to "judge" such decisions, but it's 
>important to try and understand them...
>
>Was he indifferent to his Jewishness?  Did he see himself as a Pole first, 
>Jew second, as did so many unfortunate German-Jews?  Was staying in Poland 
>(as a successful musician) the ultimate act of defiance... proving to the 
>Poles and to the rest of the world that Jews are worth while, contributing 
>citizens of the world?
>
>Who knows.
>
>Shirona
>
>* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
>Singer, Songwriter and Teacher of Jewish Music
>  Visit my website at    <http://www.shirona.com>www.shirona.com
>Listen to my music at <http://www.mp3.com/shirona>www.mp3.com/shirona
>* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
>----- Original Message -----
>From: <mailto:wiener (at) mindspring(dot)com>Bob Wiener
>To: <mailto:jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org>World music from a Jewish slant
>Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2003 6:39 AM
>Subject: Re: The Pianist
>
>Is any of Szpilman's music Jewish music?  That is, are we talking about 
>him because he wrote music informed musically (or at least in the lyrics 
>-- did he write them too?) by the fact that he was a Jew, or are we only 
>talking about him because he was Jewish?  I realize that the argument can 
>be made that we are the sum total of our experience, but is Szpilman's 
>Jewish experience in any way apparent in his music?
>
>Bob
>----- Original Message -----
>From: <mailto:lenkal (at) sympatico(dot)ca>lenka lichtenberg
>To: <mailto:jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org>World music from a Jewish slant
>Sent: Sunday, March 02, 2003 12:03 AM
>Subject: Re: The Pianist
>
>Having just seen the film, I am still deeply shaken (many scenes in the 
>early part of the film are close home for my family) . According to 
>today's article in the Toronto Star, Szpilman's son recently produced a CD 
>with 12 of his father's songs sung in English by Montreal Wendy Lands 
>(Wendy Lands Sings The Music Of The Pianist). Sony has issued five CDs and 
>CD sets of Szpilman playing the classics, but there are also his three 
>musicals, the children's songs and the hundreds of other pop tunes. Yes 
>Shirona i think you are right that it was his celebrity that kept him in 
>Poland as it also allowed him to survive in the first place, while the 
>refusal to leave after the destruction I think is both a kind of 
>resistance, as well as a need to rebuild from the ashes, some bits of the 
>existence that was lost; apart from that, a certain fatigue maybe to move 
>anywhere at all, that I feel was there in my family's (or whatever little 
>was left of it) case.
>lenka
>
>lenka lichtenberg, singer-songwriter, yiddish and world music performer. 
>for mp3s, audio clips and performance updates, visit 
><http://www.lenkalichtenberg.com>www.lenkalichtenberg.com
>----- Original Message -----
>From: <mailto:lubet001 (at) umn(dot)edu>Alex J. Lubet
>To: <mailto:jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org>World music from a Jewish slant
>Sent: Saturday, March 01, 2003 12:01 PM
>Subject: Re: The Pianist
>
>
>
>
>
>Shirona wrote:
>
> > After seeing Roman Polanski's "The Pianist" (a powerful and upsetting
> > film) - I looked up Wladyslaw Szpilman, the late Jewish/Polish
> > composer/pianist who's autobiographic account of surviving  WWII in
> > Warsaw is the basis of this film .  He was a prolific classical
> > composer, before and after the war (he stayed in Poland until his
> > death in 2000) - but also wrote some 500 songs, 150 of which are
> > considered the "evergreens" of Polish popular music...and 40
> > children's songs for which he received awards... Is anyone familiar
> > with his music and songs? I couldn't help wondering though - how could
> > he stay in Poland after the entire Jewish population was wiped out,
> > and the Poles proved themselves to be just as savage and eager to get
> > rid of the Jews as the Germans... Was he such a musical celebrity in
> > Poland that being Jewish, in his case, didn't matter?
> >
> > I haven't seen the film yet, but I've heard that his celebrity was the
> > reason he stayed.  Having lived and worked in Poland a while in 1999,
> > I made many good, non-Jewish friends, who were deeply empathetic,
> > caring, and curious about the Jewish legacy in their country.  Being
> > there (and teaching a Jewish music course) was pretty eerie, rather
> > like what Isaac Singer might have suggested, surrounded by millions of
> > Jews, the vast majority of them ghosts.  I felt immensely connected to
> > the place (although my own heritage is in Lithuania and Ukraine),
> > because the markers of the lost Jewish world.  I sometimes burst into
> > tears just walking down the streets of Lublin.  I was invited back and
> > would have jumped at the chance had it not been for health problems.
> >
> > I don't think I've answered your question, especially since I'm not a
> > Pole and had only a bit of the language, but the place has a way of
> > holding one.  There was no way to be naive about the anti-Semitism,
> > the grafitti was everywhere, but I also had incredible friends, some
> > of the best folks I've ever known.  I also got the impression that
> > some Jews felt the need to stay as a sort of act of resistance.
> >
> > As bad as it was for Jews after the war, it got considerably worse in
> > 1967, when there was a huge employment purge after the Six-Day war.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >   Shirona* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
> > * *
> > Singer, Songwriter and Teacher of Jewish Music
> >  Visit my website at    <http://www.shirona.com>www.shirona.com
> > Listen to my music at <http://www.mp3.com/shirona>www.mp3.com/shirona
> > * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
>
>--
>Alex Lubet, Ph. D.
>Morse Alumni Distinguished Teaching Professor of Music
>Adjunct Professor of American and Jewish Studies
>Head, Division Of Composition and Music Theory
>University of Minnesota
>2106 4th St. S
>Minneapolis, MN 55455
>612 624-7840 612 624-8001 (fax)
>
>
>
>---------------------- 
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>---------------------+
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