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Episode 32: Landowska on Music - By Wanda Landowska, Collected, Edited, and Translated by Denise Restout, Assisted by Robert Hawkins (Pt. III, Ch. 5)
Born of Jewish descent in Warsaw, Poland in 1879, Wanda Landowska would go on to achieve an impressive career as a keyboardist, specializing in the works of Johann Sebastian Bach and other composers from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. What is perhaps most remarkable about her career is that not only was she a performer of the highest rank – and one for whom her on-stage manner was known to have great individuality, charm and intimacy – but also she was extremely well-read, particularly in the area of musicology. Landowska’s vast writings, collected in the present volume – published five years after her death by her student and domestic partner, Denise Restout – represent discussions about many aspects pertaining to musical performance and interpretation.
Regarded for her revival of the harpsichord, Landowska was a student of Jan Kleczynski and Alexander Michalowski, both of which were authorities on the music of Frédéric Chopin. Additional studies in counterpoint and composition were taken with Heinrich Urban in Berlin. Landowska also studied with Moritz Moszkowski.
Following an elopement to Paris in 1900, with Henry Lew (who later died in a car accident following the First World War) Landowska began to give harpsichord performances, her famous Pleyel harpsichord having not been completed until 1912. This period saw concert tours throughout Europe. Also at this time, her essays began to be published. During the first decade of the twentieth century, Landowska taught at the Schola Cantorum in Paris and, a few years later, from 1912-19, at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin. Following her American debut in 1923, she taught for several years in Philadelphia at the Curtis Institute.
By 1925, Landowska had established the École de Musique Ancienne in Paris and, by 1927, her famous home in Saint-Leu-la-Forêt, which would become a center for the performance and study of old music. She held residence there thru 1940, during which time she often attended – both as guest and performer – the famous salons of Natalie Clifford Barney. Becoming a naturalized French citizen in 1938, Landowska was the first person to record, at the harpsichord, the Goldberg Variations of J. S. Bach.
The years of the Second World War were hard on Landowska, her home in Saint-Leu having been looted. Priceless instruments and manuscripts were stolen. Having fled Europe for the USA with Denise Restout, the two arrived in New York on December 7, 1941, the date of the attack on Pearl Harbour. The two eventually settled in Lakeville, Connecticut, in a peaceful home where Landowska continued performing and teaching. Landowska gave her final public performance in 1954. That same year saw the issuing of her recording of The Well-Tempered Clavier by J. S. Bach.
Though not limited to the harpsichord (Landowska performed frequently at the piano), the instrument was, however, her primary vehicle of expression and she achieved success in conveying to contemporary composers, the reasons they ought to write for the instrument. Both Manuel de Falla and Francis Poulenc composed for her, works for harpsichord.
While the selections presented here represent a small sampling of the artist’s work, it is worth noting that the lives with whom Landowska came into contact during her life, included the likes of Louis Diémer, Gabriel Fauré, Serge Koussevitzky, Pierre Monteux, Arthur Nikisch, Ignacy Jan Paderewski, Camille Saint-Saëns, Albert Schweitzer, Leopold Stokowski, Igor Stravinsky, Leo Tolstoy and many others. Landowska passed away in 1959 in Lakeville, Connecticut, at the age of eighty.
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By Penny Johnson
5
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Born of Jewish descent in Warsaw, Poland in 1879, Wanda Landowska would go on to achieve an impressive career as a keyboardist, specializing in the works of Johann Sebastian Bach and other composers from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. What is perhaps most remarkable about her career is that not only was she a performer of the highest rank – and one for whom her on-stage manner was known to have great individuality, charm and intimacy – but also she was extremely well-read, particularly in the area of musicology. Landowska’s vast writings, collected in the present volume – published five years after her death by her student and domestic partner, Denise Restout – represent discussions about many aspects pertaining to musical performance and interpretation.
Regarded for her revival of the harpsichord, Landowska was a student of Jan Kleczynski and Alexander Michalowski, both of which were authorities on the music of Frédéric Chopin. Additional studies in counterpoint and composition were taken with Heinrich Urban in Berlin. Landowska also studied with Moritz Moszkowski.
Following an elopement to Paris in 1900, with Henry Lew (who later died in a car accident following the First World War) Landowska began to give harpsichord performances, her famous Pleyel harpsichord having not been completed until 1912. This period saw concert tours throughout Europe. Also at this time, her essays began to be published. During the first decade of the twentieth century, Landowska taught at the Schola Cantorum in Paris and, a few years later, from 1912-19, at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin. Following her American debut in 1923, she taught for several years in Philadelphia at the Curtis Institute.
By 1925, Landowska had established the École de Musique Ancienne in Paris and, by 1927, her famous home in Saint-Leu-la-Forêt, which would become a center for the performance and study of old music. She held residence there thru 1940, during which time she often attended – both as guest and performer – the famous salons of Natalie Clifford Barney. Becoming a naturalized French citizen in 1938, Landowska was the first person to record, at the harpsichord, the Goldberg Variations of J. S. Bach.
The years of the Second World War were hard on Landowska, her home in Saint-Leu having been looted. Priceless instruments and manuscripts were stolen. Having fled Europe for the USA with Denise Restout, the two arrived in New York on December 7, 1941, the date of the attack on Pearl Harbour. The two eventually settled in Lakeville, Connecticut, in a peaceful home where Landowska continued performing and teaching. Landowska gave her final public performance in 1954. That same year saw the issuing of her recording of The Well-Tempered Clavier by J. S. Bach.
Though not limited to the harpsichord (Landowska performed frequently at the piano), the instrument was, however, her primary vehicle of expression and she achieved success in conveying to contemporary composers, the reasons they ought to write for the instrument. Both Manuel de Falla and Francis Poulenc composed for her, works for harpsichord.
While the selections presented here represent a small sampling of the artist’s work, it is worth noting that the lives with whom Landowska came into contact during her life, included the likes of Louis Diémer, Gabriel Fauré, Serge Koussevitzky, Pierre Monteux, Arthur Nikisch, Ignacy Jan Paderewski, Camille Saint-Saëns, Albert Schweitzer, Leopold Stokowski, Igor Stravinsky, Leo Tolstoy and many others. Landowska passed away in 1959 in Lakeville, Connecticut, at the age of eighty.