Wanda Landowska, Music: History, Composers, And Performers, Biographies

Related Category: Music: History, Composers, And Performers, Biographies

Wanda Landowska[vAn´dA lAndOf´skA] Pronunciation Key, 1879–1959, Polish-French harpsichordist and pianist, studied at the Warsaw Conservatory. She taught piano (1900–1912) at the Schola Cantorum, Paris, and harpsichord (1912–19) at the Berlin Hochschule. She established her Ecole de Musique ancienne in Paris in 1925. In 1940, she came to the United States, settling in Lakeville, Conn., where she taught and made recordings. Largely responsible for the revival of interest in the harpsichord and its music, she was the teacher of many noted contemporary harpsichordists. Manuel de Falla and Francis Poulenc wrote (1926 and 1929) the first 20th-century harpsichord concertos for her.

See her Landowska on Music (1969); documentary film, Landowska: Uncommon Visionary (1999), dir. by B. Attie.