Director
Roman Polanski
's film The Pianist is based on the memoirs of Polish classical pianist
Wladyslaw Szpilman
about his harrowing experiences under the Nazi occupation of Warsaw during World War II. The soundtrack album consists almost entirely of
Chopin
piano pieces, most of them played by
Janusz Olejniczak
. Most of those, in turn, are solo performances, although
Olejniczak
is joined by
the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra
, conducted by
Tadeusz Strugala
, for
Grand Polonaise for Piano and Orchestra
. The sole non-
track is the excerpt from
Wojciech Kilar
's score,
"Moving to the Ghetto October 31, 1940,"
a klezmer-like piece running only 1:45 in which
Hanna Wolczedska
plays clarinet, accompanied by
the Warsaw Philharmonic
. Appropriately, the album ends with an actual recording by
Szpilman
of the
Mazurka in A Minor, Op. 17, No. 4
. ~ William Ruhlmann