Warsaw Concerto

The Warsaw Concerto was commissioned for the 1941 film Dangerous Moonlight, about a Polish pianist flying for the RAF. Rachmaninoff had declined to supply anything and the producers asked Addinsell for something in that manner; he wrote roughly ten minutes of concerto, orchestrated with Roy Douglas, and the result outgrew the film entirely. It sold in the millions on record, was played in concert halls that had never heard of the picture, and created a whole line of short romantic concertos written for the screen.