More Info on Wanda Landowska harpsichordistSimilar Undetermined MusicSearch Artistopia
Biography
Inline|date=January 2012 Wanda Landowska (5 July 1879 – 16 August 1959) was a Poland|Polish (later a naturalized France|French citizen) harpsichord ist whose performances, teaching, recordings and writings played a large role in reviving the popularity of the harpsichord in the early 20th century. She was the first person to record Johann Sebastian Bach 's " Goldberg Variations " on the harpsichord (1931).
Biography
Landowska was born in Warsaw , where her father was a lawyer, and her mother a linguist who translated Mark Twain into Polish language|Polish . She began playing piano at the age of four, and studied at the Fryderyk Chopin Music Academy|Warsaw Conservatory with the senior Jan Kleczynski, Sr.|Jan Kleczynski and Aleksander Michalowski . She also studied composition with Heinrich Urban in Berlin. After marrying the Polish folklore|folklorist Henry Lew in 1900 in Paris, she taught piano at the Schola Cantorum there (1900–1912).
She later taught harpsichord at the Berlin University of the Arts|Berlin Hochschule für Musik (1912–1919). Deeply interested in musicology , and particularly in the works of Bach, François Couperin|Couperin and Jean-Philippe Rameau|Rameau , she toured the museums of Europe looking at original keyboard instruments; she acquired old instruments and had new ones made at her request by Pleyel et Cie|Pleyel and Company . These were large, heavily-built harpsichords with a 16-foot stop (a set of strings an octave below normal pitch) and owed much to piano construction. Responding to criticism by fellow Bach specialist Pablo Casals , she once said: "You play Bach your way, and I'll play him his way." http://glenngould.org/mail/archives/f_minor/msg01400.html GG and Landowska's famous misquoted remark.
A number of important new works were written for her: Manuel de Falla 's El retablo de maese Pedro (''Master Peter's Puppet Show ) marked the return of the harpsichord to the modern orchestra. De Falla later wrote a harpsichord concerto for her, and Francis Poulenc composed his Concert champêtre for her.
She established the École de Musique Ancienne at Paris in 1925: from 1927, her home in Saint-Leu-la-Forêt became a center for the performance and study of old music.
When World War II|the German Army invaded France , Landowska, who was Jewish, fled with her assistant and companion Denise Restout , leaving Saint-Leu in 1940, sojourning in southern France , and finally sailing from Lisbon to the United States . She arrived in New York City|New York on 7 December 1941, a day which coincided with the bombing of Pearl Harbor . The house in Saint-Leu was looted, and her instruments and manuscripts stolen, so she arrived in the United States essentially without assets. Citation needed|date=January 2012 She settled in Lakeville, Connecticut in 1949, and re-established herself as a performer and teacher in the United States, touring extensively. Her Domestic partnership|companion , Denise Restout, was editor and translator of her writings on music , including Musique ancienne , and Landowska on Music .
Camera Three program
A Camera Three series program entitled Reminiscences of Wanda Landowska aired 17 March 1963 on CBS .imdb title|id=1163449|title=Reminiscences of Wanda Landowska It was a dramatization of some writings of Landowska as read by Agnes Moorehead .
Reviews and opinions
"''Almost needless to say, the playing is full of vigorous gestures and individual ideas. She was no respecter of text and there are little repeats here and there which are no more indicated than they are necessary. Yet such matters seem something of an irrelevance, since they only reflect an attitude of the time adopted by a celebrated pioneer of the harpsichord revival in the twentieth century. No, what charms me in Landowska's recital is her affecting poetic insight into Scarlatti's music; she is not just rediscovering the proper conjunction of composer and instrument, she believes in it and feels it intensely. http://www.gramophone.net/Issue/Page/August%201994/112/859672/%28DD.+Scarlatti+24+Keyboard+Sonatas.+Wanda+Landowska+%28hpd%29. Gramophone August 1994; p. 112 "
" She always played the music “as written” with the result that a series of fast notes did not sound like “bundles of them” (North 1700) but like a sewing machine. Thanks to her wide influence this blight can be heard in her pupils to this day. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1965/mar/11/the-landowska-approach/ The Landowska approach by Sol Babitz; March 11, 1965 " (by Sol Babitz )
See also
Contemporary harpsichord
References
Reflist
External links
http://www.glbtq.com/arts/landowska_w.html "Landowska, Wanda", glbtq by Smith, Patricia Juliana (2002)
http://www.usc.edu/dept/polish_music/PMJ/issue/6.1.03/landowskabach.html The Interpretation of Bach's Works by Wanda Landowska (translated by Edward Burlingame Hill)
http://video.google.com/videoplay? docid=6033483526618256923& ei=TsrsSNLTIILi2gK3n6CiCw& q=vaimusic.com& vt=lf& hl=en Wanda Landowska and others speak about her work. YouTube
http://video.google.com/videoplay? docid=6033483526618256923& ei=TsrsSNLTIILi2gK3n6CiCw& q=vaimusic.com& vt=lf& hl=en Wanda Landowska, vintage footing of her playing Bach. YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=j7n_emJqIMk Camera Three: Reminiscences of Wanda Landowska (1963) on YouTube
Persondata | NAME = Landowska, Wanda | ALTERNATIVE NAMES = | SHORT DESCRIPTION = Polish-French classical musician | DATE OF BIRTH = 5 July 1879 | PLACE OF BIRTH = Warsaw, Austria-Hungary (present-day Warsaw, Poland ) | DATE OF DEATH = 16 August 1959 | PLACE OF DEATH = DEFAULTSORT:Landowska, Wanda Category:1879 births Category:1959 deaths Category:Academics of the École Normale de Musique de Paris Category:Piano pedagogues Category:Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw alumni Category:Polish harpsichordists Category:Jewish classical musicians Category:Jewish musicians Category:People from Warsaw Category:Performers of early music Category:Polish Jews Category:Polish musicians Category:Naturalized citizens of France Category:Schola Cantorum de Paris faculty Category:Place of death missing
