Wanda Louise Landowska

Wanda Louise Landowska (1879-1959), Polish pianist, harpsichordist, and teacher, born in Warsaw, and educated at the Warsaw Conservatory. After making her concert debut in Warsaw, she moved to Paris in 1900 and began her efforts to revive the harpsichord and its early music. In 1903 she gave her first public harpsichord concert, using an instrument constructed according to her technical specifications.

In 1925, after teaching in Germany and Switzerland, Landowska settled in a Paris suburb, where she founded a school and concert hall that became an important center of musical activity. She left France in 1940, coming to the United States in 1941. Landowska made many important harpsichord recordings, including the whole of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier. Although her main interest was in the keyboard music of the 17th and 18th centuries, she inspired modern composers to write for the harpsichord, among them the French composer Francis Poulenc and the Spanish composer Manuel de Falla.