Background
Felicja Blumental was born in Warsaw, Poland, into a musical family, daughter of a violinist.
Felicja Blumental was born in Warsaw, Poland, into a musical family, daughter of a violinist.
She studied at the National Conservatory in Warsaw, taking piano lessons from Zbigniew Drzewiecki (who founded the International Frederick Chopin Piano Competition) and composition lessons from the composer Karol Szymanowski. She later studied privately in Switzerland with Józef Turczyński, a noted Chopin interpreter and scholar.
She began piano lessons at the age of five, and made her debut at the age of ten. Blumental"s repertoire was wide and adventurous, ranging from the Portuguese baroque to South American contemporary works. Her numerous recordings also included many forgotten concertos by composers such as Carl Czerny (Piano Concerto in A minor, Op214), Ferdinand Ries (Piano Concerto in C-sharp minor, Op55) and John Field.
Heitor Villa-Lobos wrote his Piano Concerto Number.
5 for her; she was soloist at the world premiere on 8 May 1956, at the Royal Festival Hall, London, with the Philharmonia Orchestra under Jean Martinon, and she also recorded the concerto in Paris, under the baton of the composer. Krzysztof Penderecki dedicated his Partita for harpsichord and orchestra to her.
Among her recordings was a boxed set of Beethoven"s complete works for solo piano and orchestra, including two early works without opus number, as well as Beethoven"s own arrangement for piano of his violin concerto. lieutenant is, however, her Chopin playing for which she will be most remembered.
A pianist of considerable power, despite her diminutive size, her recordings of the Chopin mazurkas, in particular, are considered landmark interpretations.
She died in 1991 in Israel, on one of her many concert tours of the country. She is buried in Tel Aviv"s Kiryat Shaul Cemetery. Her daughter, the singer Annette Céline, is one of the organizers of the Felicja Blumental International Music festival held annually.