Oskar Strok’s tango : Leshchenko sings -Tell Me Why, Madame?

Piotr LESCHENKO (b. 1898 in a village Isaeva, Ukraine) was known as ’the king of the Russian tango’ and his singing was passionate and rich. Born in a Russian town south of Odessa in what was to become Romania after the 1st world war, he became an icon throughout Eastern Europe, one of the most sought after popular singers of his time. Having left Russia after the Bolshevik revolution, he toured in Europe, gaining enormous success in Warsaw, Paris, Riga, Bucharest - where he finally settled, and run his own cabaret. These 1931 -35 recordings are part of the work from what were considered to be his peak years, from the early to mid 1930s. After World War II the Soviet army came to Romania, Leshchenko and his wife Vera were arrested by communist Romanian militia. Vera was sent to the Soviet Union, where she was condemned to penal labour and Piotr was imprisoned near Bucharest. He died in a prison hospital on July 16, 1954. Oscar Davidovich STROK was born in Dvinsk (Latvija) on 24 December 1892. His father was a theatre orchestra musician. started getting interested in music very early. First he learned to play violin, then - piano. At the age of 12 he entered the Conservatoire where he studied in the piano class. In Latvia in . of the 20th century, worked as a pianist and conductor of a dance orchestra and composed musical romances, waltzes, and jazz compositions. In 1928 he went to France on a concert tour. In the interim between the 1st and the 2nd World Wars, his dance music was extremely popular in Europe. It could be heard everywhere -- in Paris, London, Warsaw and Berlin or Moscow -- at restaurants and cafes, concert halls and dancehalls, thousands and thousand records of his music were issued. After the composer’s trip to Shanghai and Tokyo in 1935, his most beautiful tangos, such as: „Ach, eti cziornyje głaza“ (Ah, Those Black Eyes), „Skazitie, poczemu?“ („Tell Me Why, Madame?) or „Siniaja rapsodija“ (Lunar Rhapsody) became well-known in China and Japan as well. That is why was called “Tango King“ already on his lifetime. He died on 22 June 1975 in Riga. Recording: Piotr Leshchenko - Skazhitie, pochemu? (Tell Me Why, Madame?) (Oskar Strok), Columbia c. 1932 The photograpsh show pre-war Bucharest.