Henry Vars

Henryk Wars
Henryk Wars (1944)
Born	Henryk Warszawski 29 December 1902 Warsaw, Poland
Died	1 September 1977 California, United States
Other names	Henry Vars

Henryk Wars, real name: Henryk Warszawski (29 December 1902 – 1 September 1977) was a Polish-born American pop music composer. He composed scores for 50 films during the interwar period in Poland and 60 more in the United States.

He composed dozens of hits for revue-theatres and films including Miłość ci wszystko wybaczy (Love Will Forgive You Everything) sung by Hanka Ordonówna, Umówiłem się z nią na dziewiątą (I Have a Date with Her at Nine) and Sex Appeal sung by Eugeniusz Bodo, Ach, jak przyjemnie (Ah, How Lovely!) and Już nie zapomnisz mnie (Now, You Will Remember Me) sung by Aleksander Żabczyński.

Wars also composed symphonies, now obscure though available on the Internet,as is his Piano Concerto of 1948.

Wars was born to a Jewish musical family in the Russian partition of Poland. He began studies at the Academy of Fine Arts, but soon obtained a scholarship to the Music Conservatory in Warsaw, from which he graduated in 1925, having studied composition with Professor Roman Statkowski and Emil Młynarski. He was a long-time music director for Syrena Rekord. In 1927 he composed a song called New York Times ("I do nothing all day but read the New York Times") that was sung in the Karuzela (Merry-Go-Round) Theatre by Tadeusz Olsza and recorded by Henryk Gold's Orchestra for Syrena Rekord. His first big hit, though, was Zatańczmy tango (Let's Dance a Tango), composed in 1928 for Stanisława Nowicka and Eugeniusz Bodo. He was hired as a pianist for the Morskie Oko theater and joined Henryk Gold's band.

During the 1930s, he composed songs for a string of musical comedies in Poland, and his importance there is comparable to that of Irving Berlin in America. His melodies from this period (along with those of Jerzy Petersburski and Zygmunt Wiehler) are still quite popular in Poland to this day, with his most popular songs often associated with pre-war Lwów. Recent recordings include Ach, śpij kochanie (Ah, Sleep My Darling) by Grzegorz Turnau and others, as well as many performances of Tylko we Lwowie. In 2002, the song Umówiłem się z nią na dziewiątą (I have a date with her at nine) appeared in The Pianist directed by Roman Polański.