Mr McFall's Chamber

Dancing Under The Shadows sees the ensemble performing with pianist Simon Smith - 'a phenomenon – nothing daunts him, technically or musically' (The Scotsman) – in concerts that explore the music of Eastern European dance bands. In the '20s and '30s Argentine tango took the whole world
by storm, but nowhere more so than Poland, where songwriters and dance band leaders wrote their own tango numbers and, during the '30s, developed a specifically Polish style. The lavish nightclub scene in Warsaw and Krakow flourished to the music of these composers, albeit under the shadow of the rise of fascism over the border in Germany.

Many of the songwriters, composers, bandleaders, singers and musicians, the vast majority of whom were Jewish, were murdered in the death camps. This programme features tango numbers by Artur Gold, Jerzy Petersburski, Fanny Gordon and Zygmunt Wiehler, amongst others. It also includes Grazyna Bacewicz’s first piano quintet, written soon after the war. Bacewicz, leader of the Polish Radio Orchestra from 1936 until 1938, continued to live in Warsaw throughout the war, playing in clandestine concerts as well as for the Main Relief Council.