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Warsaw 1930s: Ork. Jerzego Ledermana & Duet Corda, 1933

2,687 views · Published 29 June 2014 · 3:36 · Indexed 25 October 2026

Channel: 240252 · 2014 · Music

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Dobry wieczór (Good Evening) Fokstrot (W.Landau /A.Włast) -- Duet Corda & Orkiestra pod dyr. Jerzego Ledermana, Cristal -Electro 1933 (Polish)

NOTE: Jerzy Lederman was the musical director of Polish branch of the Cristal-Electro label, who also run a very good dance orchestra. Unfortunately, today available is only a handful of his recordings.  He survived the Holocaust, giving concerts at Femina theatre in the nazi Ghetto of Warsaw and later, in the shelter arranged for him by Polish friends on the "aryan" side of the city. After 1945, he conducted Warsaw Symphony Orchestra and also taught music in the musical high school in Warsaw. 

Duet CORDA consisted of two fine singers: one was Zygmunt Piotrowski, tenor and a streetcar driver by his profession, who also sung in popular prewar reveler's group Chór Juranda. His singing partner was a baritone, Ryszard Marrot -- Rottengruber. Under the label name Duet Corda. they recorded for Cristal-Electro  the commercial dance versions of  popular Polish hits. See also a flip side of this record  http://youtu.be/_D5Wq1qjZeY

I devoted this photoshow to Adria - the legendary dance-bar in prewar Warsaw, where the Lederman's orchestra certainly not once played. The name Adria came from the Society Riunione Adriatica di Sicurtà, which was the owner of the building in street Moniuszko 8, located in prewar Warsaw's "West-End area" (in the neighbourhood  of Warsaw Philharmonia, revue-theatre Morskie Oko, theatre Nowości etc.). Adria was opened in 1929 as the most fashionable and most modern night bar in Warsaw, designed in pure Art Deco by famous archirtect  Edward Eber. His wife Alice Eber designed the sign for the restaurant Adria and was the author of the mural, which adorned the ceiling in a dance-hall. The activity of Adria-Company covered the café, the dance bar and a cabaret - therefore the whole od the site consisted of ground-floor hall with a winter-garden café (with birds and plants under the glass roof) and the American bar in a cellar with grand dancing hall for 900 guests and several dance floors, among which one was rotating. All this was air-conditioned, with 5-times per night complete renovation of air-volume in all rooms. The manager and co-owner of the premises "Adria" was Franciszek Moszkowicz, who was also  famous because of his favorit chimpanzee. Frequenting the Adria meant belonging to the highest social status in Warsaw. The night at Adria was an obligatory point in a weekly schedule of most of film and revue-actors, famous musicians, like Karol  Szymanowski, famous poets, like Julian Tuwim or generals, as Wieniawa-Długoszowski.  In Adria, played permanently the Artur Gold and Jerzy Petersburski orchestra, alternating with the orchestra of Henryk Gold. On the piano played composers Henryk Wars and Stanisław Ferszko, sang the revellers or Wiera Gran... The Warsaw's "Saturday Night Fever" of the 1930s meant the evening in the Opera, Philharomonia or the nite-show in cabaret Morskie Oko (depending on musical tastes) and the rest of the night - in Adria or in Oaza (it was the main Adria'a competition in Warsaw). During all time of it's prewar activity, Adria admitted (including the Great Depression years) around 2500 visitors  per day! 
     All that ended during the Warsaw Uprising in 1944, when German bomb pierced the building in Moniuszko 8. After 1945, in partly rebuilt building existed for some time a cheap bar meant to be a "continuation" of prewar luxury restaurant, later replaced by a hall-for-rent for secondary school-student balls.  Now, it's a temporarily arranged office-supplies storage, waiting for a buyer -- who doesn't come, as the permises does not have a garage... "The ideal reached the pavement" -- as sadly wrote one Polish romantic poet.

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