WŁADYSŁAW SZPILMAN, pianist and composer, was born on 5 December 1911 in Sosnowiec, Poland. His parents were Samuel and Estera (née Rappaport) Szpilman. He married Halina Grzecznarowska on 30 June 1950 in Warsaw. Together they had two sons, Andrzej and Christopher.

Szpilman's initial training as a pianist was at the Akademia Muzyczna im Frederyka Chopina (Frederick Chopin Academy of Music) in Warsaw under two former students of Liszt, Józef S´midowicz and Aleksander Michałowski. In 1931 he enrolled at the Akademie der Künste (Academy of Arts) in Berlin, where he studied piano under two of the most distinguished players of the day, Artur Schnabel and Leonid Kreuzer, and composition under Franz Schreker, the renowned composer of Der ferne Klang and other similarly successful operas. During this time he wrote a number of compositions, including the piano suite Życie Maszyn (‘The Life of Machines’), a concertino for piano with orchestra, a symphonic suite, a violin concerto, many works for piano and violin, and several songs.

On his return to Poland in 1933, Szpilman formed a highly successful duo with the violinist Bronisław Gimpel, the basis, twenty-nine years later, of the Warsaw Piano Quintet. In addition to Szpilman (piano), and Gimpel (first violin), the Warsaw Piano Quintet was comprised of Krzysztof Jakowicz (second violin), Stefan Komasa (viola), and Aleksander Ciechanśki (cello). Their worldwide tours, with some 2,500 concert performances, soon earned the group a reputation as an ensemble of world standing. Szpilman, the core and founder of the group, played with the quintet for twenty-four years until 1986. He was employed by Polish Radio from 1935 until 1963, except during the years of the Second World War. From 1936 he composed approximately 500 songs, about 150 of which were in the Polish pop charts and are popular even today. He also composed the scores for Wrzos (1937), Dr Murek (1939), and Pokój zwycięży świat (1957), among other films.

During the Second World War Szpilman managed to continue practising his art in the Warsaw ghetto, primarily as a pianist and composer. He was playing a Chopin nocturne at Polish Radio when the Germans seized Warsaw. It was the same piece that would later save his life when a German officer, Captain Wilm Hosenfeld, heard him playing and spared him the tragic fate of many others.