Home > Wanda Landowska

Landowska was born in Warsaw, where her father was a lawyer, and her mother a linguist who translated Mark Twain into Polish. She began playing piano at the age of four, and studied at the Warsaw Conservatory with Kleczynski and Michalowski . She also studied composition with Heinrich Urban in Berlin. After marrying the Polish folklorist Henry Lew in 1900 in Paris she taught piano at the Schola Cantorum there (1900-1912). She later taught harpsichord at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik (1912-1919). Deeply interested in musicology, and particularly in the works of Bach, Couperin and 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 and Company. These were large, heavily-built harpsichords with a 16-foot stop and owed much to piano construction. They have largely fallen out of fashion in the past four decades, and have done much to harm the modern appreciation of Landowska's recordings.

A number of important new works were written for her: Manuel de FallaManuel de Falla y Matheu ( November 23, 1876 November 14, 1946) was a Spanish composer of classical music. He was born in Cadiz. From the late 1890s he studied music in Madrid, studying piano with Jose Trago and composition with Felipe Pedrell. It was fro's El retablo de maese Pedro marked the return of the harpsichord to the modern orchestra. Falla later wrote a harpsichord concerto for her, and Francis PoulencFrancis Jean Marcel Poulenc ( January 7, 1899 January 30, 1963) was a French composer. Poulenc was born in Paris. His mother, an amateur pianist, taught him to play, and music formed a part of family life. As a young man, in 1918 he was fulfilling his Nat composed his Concert champêtreThe Concert champetre is a concerto for harpsichord and orchestra by Francis Poulenc. It was written in 1927-28 for the harpsichordist Wanda Landowska who said she "adored" playing it as it made her "insouciant and gay!" (Ivry 1996) Landowska was responsi for her.

She established the École de Musique Ancienne at Paris in 1925: from 1927, her home in Saint-Leu became a center for the performance and study of old music. When GermanyThe Federal Republic of Germany ( German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland is one of the world's leading industrialized countries, located in the middle of the European Union. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark and the Baltic Sea, to the east invaded France, Landowska, a naturalized French citizen of JewThe word Jew is used in a wide number of ways, but generally refers to either a follower of the Jewish faith, a child of a Jewish mother, or a member of the Jewish culture or ethnicity. This article discusses the term as describing an ethnic group; for aish origin, escaped with her assistant and companion Denise Restout, leaving Saint-Leu in 1940Events January-February January 5 FM radio is demonstrated to the FCC for the first time. January 6 World War II: Mass execution of Poles, committed by Germans in the Poznan, Warthegau. January 12 World War II: Russia bombs cities in Finland. February 2 F, sojourning in southern FranceThe French Republic or France ( French: Republique francaise or France is a country whose metropolitan territory is located in western Europe, and which is further made up of a collection of overseas islands and territories located in other continents., and finally sailing from LisbonLisbon (in Portuguese, Lisboa is the capital and largest city of Portugal. It is the seat of the district of Lisbon. Geography and Location Lisbon is situated at 38 degrees, 43 minutes north, and 9 degrees, 8 mintes west. It is located in the west of the to the United States. She arrived in New York on December 7, 1941. The house in Saint-Leu was looted, and her instruments and manuscripts stolen, so she arrived in the United States essentially without assets. She settled in Lakeville, Connecticut in 1949 and re-established herself as a performer and teacher in the United States, touring extensively. Her pupil Denise Restout was editor and translator of her writings on music, including Musique ancienne, and Landowska on Music.