The event is organized by Polish Radio Two, the public broadcaster’s music and arts channel, in collaboration with the Jewish Historical Institute.
The concert programme presents a cross-section of Szpilman’s symphonic and popular works, including A Small Overture, the Concertino for Piano and Orchestra – written in the Warsaw Ghetto – and a selection of his popular songs in orchestral arrangements.
The Polish Radio Orchestra in Warsaw will be conducted by Michał Klauza, with pianist Paweł Kowalski performing as the soloist in the Concertino.
Born in 1911, Szpilman studied piano performance and composition in Warsaw and Berlin.
He worked at Polish Radio for four years until September 23, 1939, when he gave a final live recital of Chopin’s music before the station ceased operations due to German bombings.
Szpilman and his family were then forced into the Warsaw Ghetto.
His parents, two sisters, and brother all perished in the Holocaust.
Szpilman survived by finding work as a musician, which spared him from deportation.
He eventually escaped to the so-called Aryan side of the city.
After the collapse of the Warsaw Uprising, he hid among the ruins and survived with the help of Polish friends and German Army officer Wilm Hosenfeld.
After the war, Szpilman served as director of Polish Radio’s music department until 1963, after which he pursued a concert career, performing both as a soloist and in a duo with Polish-born American violinist Bronisław Gimpel.
He also co-founded the Warsaw Piano Quintet, which gave around 3,000 concerts across several continents and recorded for Polish Radio, the BBC, Radio Sweden, and German broadcasters.
His body of work includes around 500 songs – many of them hits – as well as several symphonic compositions that remain in the concert repertoire to this day.
Szpilman died on July 6, 2000, at the age of 88.
His wartime memoir was adapted by Roman Polański into the Oscar-winning film The Pianist.
(mk/ał)