Background

Godowsky was born on February 13, 1870, in Žasliai, Lithuania, the older of two children and the only son of Mathew Godowsky, a physician, and Anna (Lewin) Godowsky. His father died in 1871, and it was to his mother that Leopold owed the quick recognition of his musical talent and the careful guidance of his musical development.

Education

Although Godowsky studied violin and then piano with marked success from the age of four and began composing at seven, he was not hurried into a public career as a child prodigy. Paradoxically, Godowsky had almost no formal training after childhood. A brief session at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik in 1884 and a rather desultory arrangement with Saint-Saëns at Paris during the years 1886-90 provided his only advanced lessons; his sole degree was an honorary Doctor of Music awarded years later (1934) by the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.

Career

Godowsky's debut as a pianist was at Vilna in 1879, and it was not until two years later that he was allowed to tour in recitals through the nearby provinces. He first visited the United States in 1884-1886, playing in concerts with the American singers Emma Cecilia Thursby and Clara Louise Kellogg and the Belgian violinist Ovide Musin. In 1891 he was back again, to marry and settle down to a decade of touring, teaching (New York, Philadelphia, the Chicago Conservatory), and maturation. It was during these years that he developed his theory of "weight and relaxation" in piano playing, the idea that pianistic power should come not through muscular force but by a relaxed use of arm weight, and his preoccupation with left-hand technique. This maturation period ended abruptly with Godowsky's first recital in Berlin (December 6, 1900), a phenomenally successful performance that overnight put him among the top-ranking pianists of the world. For nine years he made his headquarters in Berlin, touring extensively and teaching. From 1909 to 1914 he was director of the Piano Master School of the Viennese Academy of Music. Then in 1914 he returned once more to the United States, this time for good (he was naturalized in 1891 and again in 1921), except for recital tours in Europe and around the world. In the early 1920's he gave up most of his public playing, turning more to composition, transcription, and editing of piano music, but continuing the master classes through which he taught selected pupils in the West and in New York. A paralytic stroke in 1930 slowed down his activities; he never played the piano again. Death came to him at New York, long his nominal home, after an operation for an intestinal obstruction on November 21, 1938. Godowsky's compositions and transcriptions for piano tend to be rather like their creator: short but pithy, full of pedagogic zeal hidden beneath a witty exterior. The pieces are grouped under such exotic titles as Triakontameron ("30 moods and scenes in triple measure"), Walzermasken, Renaissance, Miniatures, Java Suite. Best known is his group of "53 Studies on Chopin Etudes, " paraphrases in which the originals are dressed richly but reverently in the harmonic and polyphonic garb of Godowsky's own imagination. Progress and improvement, whether of the individual pianist or of the whole musical world, were very present concerns of Godowsky throughout his life; for years he worked in behalf of a United States Department of Fine Arts that would sponsor a national conservatory, opera house, and symphony orchestras.

Achievements

• Godowsky was a renowned virtuoso pianist and composer, known for his exceptional piano technique. His outstanding contribution to piano playing lay in his extraordinary development of the ordinarily weaker and subordinate left hand.

Works

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  • Godowsky: Original Piano Works & Transcriptions

    (While Leopold Godowsky may be lesser known today, in his ...)

  • Godowsky: Sonata & Passacaglia

    (Perhaps it's true that Vladimir Horowitz claimed Leopold ...)

  • Godowsky: Piano Music: Passacaglia / Alt-Wien / Transcriptions of Schubert, Weber & Strauss

    (Alt-wien, Passacaglia - Transcription de Schubert, Weber ...)

  • Godowsky: Original Works and Transcriptions
  • Godowsky: Piano Music, Vol. 13
  • Godowsky: Easy Listening Piano Classics
  • Godowsky: Triakontameron: 30 Moods And Scenes In Triple Measure

Connections

On 30 April 1891 Godowsky married Frieda Saxe, a childhood friend. The couple had 2 children.

Father:

Mordkhel Godowsky

Mother:

Khana-Sheyna Levin

Spouse:

Frieda Saxe

Daughter:

Dagmar Godowsky

She was an American silent film actress.

Son:

Leopold Godowsky Jr.

He was an American violinist and chemist, who together with Leopold Mannes created the first practical color transparency film, Kodachrome.

References

• Godowsky, the Pianists' Pianist. a Biography of Leopold Godowsky.
• Leopold Godowsky (Great Pianists of the 20th Century, Vol. 38)