Santu De Silva responds to me:

>> But there was a lovely Paul Weston instrumental arrangement based on
>> the opening theme of one of the Opus 10 set of Etudes (No. 3 in F).
>> I used to have it on a Capitol LP, one of Weston's mood music albums,
>> and I'm sure it also had words written for it, but I can't remember
>> what they called it.  Maybe someone else can help?
>
> I listened to this on the Classical Music Archives, and what I heard was
> a piece I was accustomed to playing in E major; I wonder whether there
> is some confusion somewhere?  Perhaps there are two etudes, one in each
> key, with the same tune????
>
> How Deep is the Night, was the title of the "song".

Aha.  Well, that was enough of a clue. It's apparently "So Deep Is The
Night" from the 1945 film "A Song To Remember", a Chopin biopic, with
Cornel Wilde playing Chopin and Merle Oberon as George Sand, who has the
memorable line, "Discontinue that so-called Polonaise jumble you've been
playing for days." Our correspondent who wanted to know about Chopin-derived
pop songs should certainly look up the film.

It's described as adapted from Chopin's "Tristesse" instead of the etude.
Maybe that's a transcription in a different key? It was also recorded
by Mantovani and someone called Welk J.  It was apparently not a Weston
copyright; according to ASCAP the tune has six authors, probably lyricists,
some of them maybe pseudonyms, the only somewhat familiar name being Al
Stillman, who co-wrote pop hits such as "Moments To Remember" and "No,
Not Much" for the Four Lads, and "Chances Are" and "It's Not For Me To
Say" for Johnny Mathis.  [Is that enough trivia for everyone...?  Yes
sir, I'll shut up now.]

Donald

             ***********************************************
The CLASSICAL mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R)
list management software together with L-Soft's HDMail High Deliverability
Mailer for reliable, lightning fast mail delivery.  For more information,
go to:  http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html