Wanda Landowska

Wanda ( Aleksandra ) Landowska ( born July 5, 1879 in Warsaw, then Russian Empire; † August 16, 1959 in Lakeville, Connecticut) was a Polish harpsichordist and pianist.

Artistic Career

Landowska received her first piano lessons at the age of three years. At fourteen, she completed her education at the Warsaw Conservatory. After studying composition with Heinrich Urban in Berlin, she became a teacher at the Schola Cantorum in Paris and worked intensively with early music and the harpsichord. From 1913 to 1919 she taught at the Berlin Academy of Music. After a brief interlude in Basel, she taught in 1920 in Paris at the École Normale de Musique. In 1923 she made ​​the first recordings after they had already started in 1905 eight piano pieces for the Welte-Mignon reproducing piano recording studio of M. Welte & Söhne. In 1925, she founded in Saint -Leu- la -Forêt school " École de Musique Ancienne " where they held summer courses annually. She also taught Ralph Kirkpatrick and Rafael Puyana. From 1925 to 1928 she taught at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia (USA).

Wanda Landowska played on a harpsichord modernized the French Pleyel piano factory, which connected the keel mechanics with elements of the modern concert grand and the she reüssierte first in professional circles since 1903. Widespread found her and her harpsichord playing, when she appeared in 1912 with a built in accordance with their wishes by Pleyel harpsichord new model. This guy had a to a 16' - Register Advanced scheduling, as Landowska had met at a historic original by Hieronymus hatred in the Brussels Museum, also as a fifth register a nasal 8 ' in the second manual. The " Landowska " model went into production and became the model for Harpsichord new designs of many other manufacturers in the 20th century, until half a century later, the possible true replica of historical originals with performers and instrument makers prevailed.

Landowska motivated composers to write for this new type of harpsichord. Manuel de Falla dedicated her 1926 Concerto for Harpsichord and Orchestra, 1927/1928 Francis Poulenc composed the Concerto pour clavecin et orchester champêtre FP.049. As first harpsichordist she led in 1933 the Goldberg Variations by Johann Sebastian Bach connected and full on.

Escape and robbery

Because of their Jewish ancestry Landowska fled in June 1940 in the unoccupied by the German Wehrmacht part of France. They had to leave their extensive music library, valuable manuscripts, as well as their famous collection of musical instruments in Paris. On September 20, 1940 confiscated Herbert Gerigk the " Special Task Force for Music " in the Operations Staff Reich Leader Rosenberg for the Occupied Territories (ERR ) the ownership and let the instruments in 54 special boxes packed to Berlin create. Official protests against the art theft of French Cultural Heritage you disagreed with the argument that Landowska was not French, but a Jewess with a Polish passport.

Wanda Landowska was able to get a visa for the USA and embarked in November 1941 in Lisbon. In 1947, she found a new home in Lakeville, where she also taught again after 1950. At the age of seventy-five years she gave her farewell concert in New York.

Many parts of their collection were missing and were thought to be destroyed in the bombing. Various instruments emerged later on at auctions in Belgium, Canada and Australia. A compensation payment is not received Wanda Landowska.

Music Historical importance

Wanda Landowska made ​​in an outstanding way to the rediscovery of the Kiel instruments earned and was thus also an important impulse for historical performance practice. By Wanda Landowska the Bulgarian- French pianist Alexis Weissenberg was strongly influenced in his Bach interpretations.

Compositions

  • Hebrew Poem for Orchestra
  • Serenade for String Instruments
  • Numerous smaller works for piano or harpsichord
  • Cadenzas for piano concertos by Mozart and Haydn
  • Transcriptions and arrangements of folk songs

Compositions before February 26, 1896 in Berlin, source: the diary of Wanda Landowska

  • Waltz in D Minor
  • Minuet in C major
  • Minuet in A Minor
  • March in E Major
  • Polka in D Minor
  • Gavotte in B flat major
  • Under the Willow ( song? )
  • At the cemetery ( song? )

Exhibition

  • 2011: Memories of Wanda Landowska Bach House in Eisenach

Writings

  • Wanda Landowska and Henri Lew Landowski: Musique Ancienne. Mercure de France, Paris 1909 (French )
Emil Orlík Schola Cantorum de Paris Pleyel et Cie Reichsleiter Rosenberg Taskforce Integrated Authority File
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