Lakeville Salutes Wanda Landowska

Wanda Landowska was famed for her performance, study and teaching of Bach and other Baroque composers and for returning the harpsichord to the 20th-century performance hall. The instrument had been shunned, even immolated, by French revolutionaries as a symbol of the nobility, and the small instrument was eclipsed in the 19th century by the grand piano, large halls, big orchestras and changing tastes. 

Landowska, a Polish-French refugee, fled the Nazis and came to New York City in 1941 where she performed and taught extensively. She is said to have been the first artist to record Bach’s Goldberg Variations on the instrument for which it had been written — harpsichord, not piano. Responding to criticism of her style from cellist Pablo Casals, Landowska quipped, “You play Bach your way, and I will play him his way.”

Tough woman.

That is clear from recordings, reviews and lengthy film clips on YouTube, where the link between her crisp style on the harpsichord and the extraordinary technique with arched digits that dropped like hammers on the keys is startling. 

Landowska moved into a gigantic old house in Lakeville on Millerton Road overlooking Lake Wononscopomuc with her student, translator and friend Denise Restout. Landowska died there in 1959.

But her work lives on. Among her many admirers, Leszek Wojcik, recording studio manager at Carnegie Hall in New York City, bought a house in Sharon three years ago. As a tribute to his fellow Polish musician, Landowska, he decided to organize a single event to plumb community interest and pride in her work. “It’s a live salute,” he tells me.

“I am underwriting the whole thing.” (The $10 tickets cover the cost of cleaning the venue after the performance, he said).

So Wojcik sought a place for a harpsichord concert here. He began by walking about the sanctuary of the Lakeville United Methodist Church, clapping his hands to gauge the acoustics. It sounded good to him. So he persuaded the church board to give him the go ahead, and he arranged for harpsichordist Bradley Brookshire to perform works celebrating Landowska’s career: Bach (JS), Bach (CPE), Scarlatti (D) and Handel this Saturday, Sept. 23, at 4 p.m. 

Christine Gevert, harpsichordist and founder of Crescendo, a chorus and orchestra specializing in early music at Trinity Church in Lime Rock, says Landowska was a huge influence on her. “As a music student in Chile, I was incredibly taken by her recordings of Bach. They were so exuberant and infectious.” 

There were few harpsichords in Chile at that time, but when she moved to Germany to study at the Hamburg Conservatory, she found the harpsichord room and would sneak in there to play the instruments. She studied the repertoire and style and technique of playing Baroque music for the harpsichord. “I wanted to continue this legacy in the United States.” Gevert organized her own tribute to Landowska in 2009.

In addition to her scholarship and skill, Gevert admired Landowska’s impulse to communicate with audiences. She performed close to them and she spoke to them as well — novel moves at the time.

“I am incredibly pleased that Leszek has taken this on. Perhaps it will set something in motion.”

“Lakeville Salutes Wanda Landowska” presents harpsichordist Bradley Brookshire in a performance of Baroque masters this Saturday, Sept. 23, at 4 p.m. at the Lakeville United Methodist Church. Admission is $10. For reservations and information, call Leszek Wojcik at 917-751-1805, or email him at leszek966@gmail.com.