Background
Restout, Denise was born on November 24, 1915 in Paris. Arrived in United States, 1941. Daughter of Fernand Emile Jules and Juliette Louise François Restout.
(Wanda Alexandra Landowska (5 July 1879 - 16 August 1959) ...)
Wanda Alexandra Landowska (5 July 1879 - 16 August 1959) was a Polish (later a naturalized French citizen) harpsichordist whose performances, teaching, recordings and writings played a large role in reviving the popularity of the harpsichord in the early 20th century. She was the first person to record Johann Sebastian Bach's Goldberg Variations on the harpsichord (1931
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Restout, Denise was born on November 24, 1915 in Paris. Arrived in United States, 1941. Daughter of Fernand Emile Jules and Juliette Louise François Restout.
She later studied drawing, geometry, history of arts, and painting at the Bazot Studios in Paris, and was admitted to the School of Applied Arts in 1928. She studied piano, harmony, counterpoint, musicology, voice and organ with expert teachers, and harpsicord, along with keyboard repertoire of the 15th and 18th centuries, with Wanda Landowska, beginning in 1933.
She was assistant, protégé, domestic partner, editor, and biographer for noted harpsichordist Wanda Landowska. Born in Paris to Fernand and Juliette (née Frangois) Restout, she earned a Certificate of Primary Studies with honors from the public schools in Paris. Restout worked for a time at the Pleyel Company factory in France.
In 1933 she began study of the harpsichord with Landowska and the organ with Joseph Bonnet.
As a performer Restout appeared at Landowska"s public master classes in France, the Netherlands and Strasbourg. Landowska, a naturalised French citizen of Polish-Jewish descent, and Restout escaped Saint-Leu-la-Forêt, France during the Nazi advance in 1940, and arrived in the United States on 7 December 1941 at Ellis Island, the day Pearl Harbor was attacked.
When Landowska died on 16 August 1959, Restout inherited her estate including her papers and collection of musical instruments. She continued to teach at the Landowska Center, their home in Lakeville, Connecticut until her death.
Restout became a naturalized United States citizen in 1961.
Three years later, in 1964, she published, with the assistance of Robert Hawkins of The Hotchkiss School, Landowska on Music, a collection of Landowska"s writings on music, which included material from Musique ancienne which Restout translated into English from the original French, and many of the master-class notes that Restout had saved during their flight from France. Restout was a faculty member (at large) of the now defunct Barlow School (which is now The Kildonan School) in Amenia, Dutchess County, New York, the Peabody Conservatory of Music, the Hartt School, University of Southern Mississippi, and Purchase College. She was awarded the Amicus Poloniae citation by the government of Poland.
Restout died in 2004, aged 88, at Saint Francis Medical Center, Hartford, Connecticut.
(Wanda Alexandra Landowska (5 July 1879 - 16 August 1959) ...)
Organist St Mary's Ch, Lakeville, 1971—1997. Member of French and Am Musicological Association, American Guild Organists, French Guild Organists, American Federation Musicians (Woman of the Yr 1996).