OTD in early British television: 15 August 1938
John Wyver writes: Late on the evening of Monday 15 August 1938 (well, late for AP, in fact 10.12pm), Marjan Rawicz and Walter Landauer gave a short recital on two pianos. They were also studio guests the following afternoon, presumably because once the crew had brought in two concert grands for the cameras, AP was keen to derive the most value from them. Their programme both times was composed of Frank Churchill’s compositions from the soundtrack of the previous year’s Disney animation Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
Per Wikipedia:
Rawicz and Landauer were an immensely popular piano duo team that performed from 1932 to 1970. They were initially based in Vienna, Austria, but moved to the United Kingdom in the early part of their career. They were known for their arrangements of popular classics…
Rawicz and Landauer met by chance at a resort in 1930 or 1931, when Landauer heard Rawicz whistling a tune he liked, and asked him what it was and how to play it on the piano. It proved to be a polka by Bedřich Smetana. They soon discovered a mutual interest, and their duo was born.
By 1932 Rawicz and Landauer had broadcast on Austrian radio, and in 1933 they had a concert tour throughout Europe. They escaped Nazi Europe in 1935 and moved to the United Kingdom with their wives.
During the war they were interned on the Isle of Man, and in the post-war years they toured regularly, often with tenor Richard Tauber, until Rawicz’s death in 1970. Walter Landauer continued playing as a solo pianist, until his own death in 1983.
Here they are playing in the 1945 Mancunian Films production Home Sweet Home:
Image: autograph photo of Rawicz and Landauer currently available online from Tamino Autographs (hence the watermark) for $145.
[OTD post no. 241; part of a long-running series leading up to the publication on 8 January 2026 of my book Magic Rays of Light: The Early Years of Television in Britain, which can now be pre-ordered from Bloomsbury here.]
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