Wanda Landowska

Wanda Landowska (born July 5, 1879, Warsaw, Pol., Russian Empire—died Aug. 16, 1959, Lakeville, Conn., U.S.) was a Polish-born harpsichordist who helped initiate the revival of the harpsichord in the 20th century.

Landowska studied composition in Berlin in 1896, and in 1900 she went to Paris. There, influenced by her husband, Henry Lew, an authority on folklore, she researched early music and keyboard instruments. She taught at the Schola Cantorum (established 1894), first played the harpsichord in public in 1903, and in 1909 published, with her husband, Musique ancienne, a study of 17th- and 18th-century music. She remained until the beginning of World War II the principal exponent of 17th- and 18th-century harpsichord music, particularly that of Johann Sebastian Bach and François Couperin, on whose works she wrote several studies. In 1925 she founded a school for the study of early music at Saint-Leu-La-Forêt, near Paris, and in 1941 settled in the United States. Among the modern works she inspired were the harpsichord concerti of Manuel de Falla and Francis Poulenc. Her collected writings may be found in Landowska on Music (1965; edited by Denise Restout).