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August 16: The Harpsichordist
Wanda Landowska, who almost singlehandedly revived the harpsichord in the early 20th century, died on this date in 1959. Warsaw-born, she was a child prodigy on piano and began winning prizes in Poland and Germany during her teen years. Landowska married the Polish folklorist Henry Lew in Paris in 1900 but was very active in the lesbian salon run by American expatriate Natalie Clifford Barney, where Landowska often provided musical accompaniment to various artistic performances. In the 1930s, she met Denise Restout, who became her life companion and the preserver of her artistic legacy. The two women lost everything they owned, including Landowska’s music school, library, and instruments, when the Nazis invaded France in 1940. The two women ended up in America, where Landowska resumed her touring and teaching and made the first-ever recording of Bach’s “Goldberg Variations” on the instrument for which it had been originally composed.
“I never practice; I always play.” —Wanda Landowska
Watch an excerpt from a 1997 documentary, Wanda Landowska: Uncommon Visionary
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