Wendy Lands - Wendy Lands Sings the Music of the Pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman

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Free Music Notes for Wendy Lands Sings the Music of the Pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman

Free Music Review: Music for a candle-lit cafe...
Hit: 5 Stars

Into that idiom steps Wendy Lands and her wonderfuly dusky pop alto voice. On this CD, Wendy performs the music of Polish composer Wladyslaw Szpilman, the subject of Roman Polanski's Oscar Nominated film 'The Pianist'.

Given the terrible events depicted in The Pianist, it may at first be a bit unnerving for the listener to discover that the serious interpreter of Chopin, honed by the Holocaust, went on to compose lighthearted, almost sweet little cabaretesque numbers.

And this CD features Szpilman's best melodies, jazzed up and with newly interpretted lyrics. Stock full of smokey ballads, Land's voice and Szpilman's music call out for a candle-lit table tucked into the corner of an old french cafe.

Like many good composers of tunes for popular consumption, Szpilman knew when to throw in a few maneuvers from the classical trick bag to make his music truly pop. Listening, you'll hear a cross-rhythm used to liven up a simple melody, or an odd turn of harmony tossed in to wake up the listener.

Seduction is a recurring theme in this appealing selection of 12 songs. Szpilman probably wouldn't have imagined accompanying these Irvin Berlin/Cole Porter-type melodies with this electronic-acoustic mix, a completely and unmistakable modern-early 21st-century sound. But, as a pop composer, he would probably have dug the instrumentations and arrangements that draw freely from jazz, swing and soft-rock idioms.

Yes, there are shadows and darkness. Loss, regret and redemption are themes present in the lyrics and melodies, but probably not any more so than in most pop music - and the CD is certainly not burdened by them.

But truly, lyrics such as those in Someday We Will Love Again, Without You, Prisoners of Evening and I'm Set Free have a particularly poignant edge when one ponders how much the composer lost and found during his incredible journey.

I highly recommend this disc. If you want to sample it, find "Fall In Love Again" - which is not only my personal favourite, but also nominally the first single (at least, it's the one I've heard on radio once).

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