[ Applause ]
[ Background Sounds ]
[ Music ]
[ Applause ]
>> Thomas Sheehan: Thank you.
Thank you.
Good evening.
Thank you so much
for coming tonight.
My name is Tom Sheehan, I am the
Organist and Associate Director
of Music at the National
Cathedral just
up the hill here in Washington.
But I'm really honored tonight
to be the harpsichord performer
for this Wanda Landowska
celebration and event.
That was the Sonata in D
Major by Domenico Scarlatti.
And this -- that was
featured on a recording of all
of the Scarlatti
sonatas by Landowska,
about which you'll be hearing
a little bit more later.
That piece will come back
later on in this evening.
But for now, I'll turn it
over to our next presenter.
>> Carol Lynn Ward-Bamford:
Thank you.
Greetings.
Welcome to today's program,
"Restitution, Restoration
and Repertoire: New Findings
in the Wanda Landowska
and Denise Restout Papers
at the Library of Congress".
I'm Carol Lynn Ward-Bamford
from the Music Division
and I'm curator of
musical instruments.
We are on the stage where
Wanda Landowska performed
in concert nearly a
hundred years ago.
And on this stage today --
and you've just heard the
harpsichord, was one of hers,
and it is nearly a
hundred years old as well.
Around the sounds of this Pleyel
harpsichord we will weave the
themes of restitution,
restoration, and repertoire
in telling the story of
Landowska's life, her music,
her teaching, her musical
instruments, books,
manuscripts, and
this harpsichord.
"Durable", according to
Webster's Dictionary means,
"Being able to exist
for a long time
without significant
deterioration
in quality or value; enduring."
Wanda Landowska's
harpsichord is durable.
Wanda Landowska's
legacy is enduring.
And they will endure here
at the Library of Congress
with the gift of her
cultural heritage collection.
[ Background Sounds ]
>> Carla Shapreau: Thank
you for coming this evening.
My name is Carla Shapreau.
I'm from the University
of California, Berkeley.
I want to thank the
Library of Congress
and its Musical Instrument
Curator,
Carol Lynn Ward-Bamford,
for holding this panel
and performance, and for
inviting me to contribute.
Thanks also to the
Taube Foundation
for sponsoring this event.
When musical instruments are
used in performance, displayed
or exhibited, we often learn a
little more about the instrument
than the maker's name, if that.
We are rarely aware of the
instrument's provenance,
the history of its
ownership, and possession.
Provenance is the portal
to the object biography,
and the lives connected to it.
It also potentially
enhances our understanding
of how a particular
instrument is contextualized
in its history, involving prior
owners, performers, collectors,
composers, and others,
sometimes over the centuries,
and bringing cultural,
political, and social history
into the mix for a much richer
and more layered understanding
of the instrument and its
historical encounters.
During the Nazi era,
musical material culture,
including musical
instruments, were confiscated
in significant numbers.
In some instances, they
were recovered and returned,
providing an opportunity to
listen to the instrument,
to study it, and to consider
it in the context of its path
through history, not
as a "tabula rasa."
In the case of Wanda Landowska's
Pleyel harpsichord onstage this
evening, in the Coolidge
Auditorium,
it has a dramatic
World War II history.
When the German military
invaded France in 19 --
in May 1940, Wanda Landowska
was at the height of her career.
She was an internationally
renowned harpsichord
and piano soloist, an
accomplished scholar,
writer, teacher and composer.
She had amassed an
extensive music library,
including manuscripts,
rare printed music, books,
and an impressive musical
instrument collection.
Landowska's love of Bach and
other composers of the 17th
and 18th centuries had led her
earlier in her life to study
and investigate antique
musical instruments and the role
that they might play
in the performance.
And she stated, quote, "I
came to the realization
that the keyboard works of the
17th and 18th centuries ought
to be played on the instrument
for which they had been
composed, the harpsichord.
This idea took complete
possession of me,
and I decided to carry it out.
I started to look
for an instrument,
the modern reconstructions
made around 1900 by Érard
and Playel were not the ones
I had dreamt of," end quote.
Landowska said that
she set out, quote,
"to reconstitute a harpsichord,
approaching as closely
as possible those of
the middle 18th century
when they had reached the height
of their glory for richness
of registers and beauty
of sonority," end quote.
In this pursuit, she turned
to Gustave Lyon, the director
of the Pleyel Piano Firm in
Paris, and his chief engineer,
Monsieur Lamie [phonetic],
who embarked
on a new harpsichord
design for Landowska.
One of her requirements
was a 16-foot register,
adding a lower octave.
In 1912, Pleyel grand model
harpsichord was completed
and launched into the world,
which Landowska introduced
the --
at the Bach Festival in Breslau.
In 1922, Pleyel added an iron
frame to its ground model
to maintain the string tension.
And Landowska performed,
recorded,
and taught on this
Pleyel model, although not
without some criticism for
its design then and now.
I will defer to Thomas Sheehan
and Barbara and Thomas Wolf,
our harpsichord experts, for
a more technical discussion
of these design changes
and their impact.
Landowska was born in Warsaw
in 1879, educated there as well
as in Berlin and Paris,
and settled in
Saint-Leu-la-Forêt outside
of Paris in 1925, where
she established her School
of Ancient Music.
And here you can see, hopefully,
the interest of the
concert hall.
She built a small
concert hall at this --
at her home, and maintained
a large music library
and collection of
musical instruments.
And as you can see from
this Pleyel advertisement,
she also promoted Pleyel's
instruments, saying in this ad,
quote, "I love my
Pleyel harpsichord.
It's my best friend; my
closest confidant," end quote.
So here you see Pleyel included
a promotional inscription
on many of its grand models,
counting Landowska's involvement
in the design of her
-- and her preference
for this Pleyel model.
This inscription on the
Library of Congress's Pleyel
in the hall today reads,
quote, "The lower register,
which the ancients
called '16 feet' was added
to Pleyel harpsichords beginning
in 1912, following the requests
and suggestions of
Wanda Landowska."
With Hitler's rise to power
in January of 1933, composers
and musicians who did not
comport with Nazi policies began
to experience prosecution
based on religion and race,
as well as politics
and aesthetic views.
By 1940, because she was
Polish and of Jewish heritage,
Landowska was blacklisted
by the Nazis
as a musician and composer.
In the first edition of the
notorious book, "Lexicon of Jews
in Music", by German
musicologist Theo Stengel
and Herbert Gerigk.
Landowska's assistant, Denise
Restout, recalled of life
in France just before
the Nazi invasion.
"We waited and waited each day,
believing that something
would happen
and we would not have to go.
We were still there when
the Nazis invaded the north
of France, and that
was on May 10th, 1940.
As they advanced, we could
hear the bombing from out --
from our house in
Saint Leu," end quote.
On June 10th, 1940, four days
before the Germans occupied
Paris, Landowska fled
her home and music school
in Saint-Leu-la-Forêt.
Restout recalled of
this great flight
that they would carry only what
they could quickly save, quote,
"A few indispensible
books and music scores
and some notebooks," end quote.
By one estimate, Landowska's
library contained approximately
10,000 objects.
Landowska and Restout headed
south and stopped briefly
at Blois on the Loire River, and
according to Restout thousands
of frightened people were
trying to catch the train south,
but all trains had stopped.
They were able to travel
by car to Banyuls-sur-Mer
in the Pyrenees, where sculptor
Aristide Maillol found Landowska
a place to stay.
In September 1940, the
contents of Landowska's home
and music school
were confiscated
by the Sonderstab Musik.
The Sonderstab Musik was a
special music taskforce led
by musicologist Dr.
Herbert Gerigk --
and he is the gentleman
on the right on the slide,
which carried out
musical confiscations
in France and other regions.
A subdivision of the much
larger Einsatzstab Reichsleiter
Rosenberg, the ERR.
And there's an organizational
chart here; basically,
on a topical basis
by property type.
The ERR was led by Alfred
Rosenberg in the center
on the image on the left.
He was the -- he headed the
ERR, the Nazi organization
that plundered cultural property
in various nations
in occupied Europe.
So the ERR became operational
in France in July 1940.
Landowska's books, sheet music,
musical manuscripts, artwork,
phonograph records, and musical
instrument collection were
packed by the staff of
the Sonderstab Musik
and 15 French workers over
a two-week period filling 53
or 54 crates, which
was initially stored
at the Louvre Depot,
before shipment
to the Berlin Musical Offices.
We have an inventory
from the Sonderstab Musik
for the property
they confiscated,
prepared on February 19th, 1941.
And I don't know if you
can see I highlighted
in red instrument number
30 list, "Cembalo 3046" --
it's actually "80463",
and "192665 51".
This is the instrument
onstage this evening, this --
in Coolidge Auditorium.
And we know this because the
Sonderstab Musik inventory --
and you see a little
section of it there,
with the Pleyel manufacturing
numbers,
which matches the numbers
today on the Pleyel onstage.
The center photograph shows
a Pleyel manufacturing number
stamped into the
instrument's jackboard.
It's the same number.
The photograph on the
right are Pleyel's numbers,
so that photograph from
underneath the instrument.
On February 5th, 1940, the
French government protested
to the French authorities
in France regarding
the confiscation
of Landowska's musical
collection,
asserting that her property
constituted irreplaceable French
artistic cultural patrimony.
The Germans flatly rejected this
request on January 8th of '41,
stating that the seizure by
the Sonderstab Musik was made
on the basis of an
order by Hitler,
and that the property was
not French cultural patrimony
but artistic property
of a Polish-Jewish
national, Wanda Landowska.
Moreover, the German
response stated
that Landowska had repeatedly
and decisively supported Jews
who were well-known
as enemies of Germany,
referring to Landowska's
1940 performance
with violinist Bronislaw
Huberman at a concert
in the Grand Opera House in
Paris to support Polish aid.
Meanwhile, Landowska remained
in the south of France,
where she waited
for about 18 months
to obtain the documents required
for passage out of Europe,
which she acquired with
the help of Varian Fry,
an American journalist working
for the Emergency
Rescue Committee.
In her 62nd year, Landowska
traveled from the south
of France through
Spain and to Lisbon.
She made this trip with
what is today the Library
of Congress's second
Landowska Pleyel harpsichord,
which was not looted, but has
its own dramatic World War II
history, which I will
mention very briefly
at the end of the talk.
Landowska and her student
set sail for New York Harbor
on the SS Exeter on
November 28th, 1941.
And here you see
a ship manifest.
She arrived in the US
on December 8th, 1941,
one day after the
attack of Pearl Harbor.
She listed herself on the
manifest as Wanda Lou,
ne Landowska, her married
name and her maiden name,
place of birth, Warsaw,
Poland, citizen of France,
and her race or people
as Hebrew.
Landowska's assistant, Restout,
recalled at their arrival
in New York, quote, "We did
look rather suspicious arriving
in America with practically no
luggage and one harpsichord."
[laughter] Restout recalled
of Ellis Island, quote,
"We didn't know why we were
there or why we were being held.
Finally we were told that
our passports were only good
for three months.
We were there all
day, all night,
the next day, and the next day."
And they were actually spelled
-- held on special inquiry.
Local musicians and
France came to their aid
and Restout remarked,
quote, "We were released,
but we had to deposit a
bond of $500 for each of us.
That was $1,000.
And we had only a total
of $1300 to our names.
So we arrived in the New World
with a harpsichord, and $300."
Meanwhile in Germany,
Landowska's looted collection
originally shipped to Berlin,
had been moved to
Leipzig in 1943.
But in December of '43,
allied bombing reportedly hit
the storage location in Leipzig,
where the Sonderstab Musik
had deposited Landowska's
and other musical objects.
What remained was evacuated
to two locations;
two main locations.
But there were other
items apparently scattered
to various deposits
in the countryside.
One major cache was in
Langenau Castle in Hirschberg...
in Silesia, but this came --
this area came under Russian
and Polish control
in the spring of '45.
And the postwar disposition
of most
of these evacuated
objects remains unclear.
Some speculate that these
confiscated materials were taken
to Russia.
But the second main evacuation
location was a monastery
in Bavaria in the countryside,
which is where this harpsichord
in the Library of Congress
onstage this evening was
deposited for safekeeping
by the Nazi Einsatzstab
Reichsleiter Rosenberg.
Long before the war ended,
the fine arts community,
museum directors, curators,
and scholars became alarmed
at the potential of the
war for the destruction
of cultural property in Europe.
In the US these concerns
were brought to the attention
of President Roosevelt,
who on August 20th, 1943,
established the American
Commission for the Protection
and Salvage of Artistic and
Historic Monuments in War Areas.
To carry out this mission the
US military established the
Monuments Fine Arts and
Archives Section of the US Army.
After the war, this division
was involved in locating,
protecting, and returning looted
and displaced cultural
property in war torn Europe.
So the US Army on
May 30th, 1945,
discovered what it referred
to as, quote, "A castle full
of pianos, accordions, violins,
et cetera, believed to have come
from French museums,"
end quote, in what turned
out to be the monastery,
the Raitenhaslach.
Many of Landowska's confiscated
musical instruments and some
of her library materials
were amid this deposit
of looted musical property,
largely stolen in France.
The US Army reported
that this cache consisted
of about 65 pianos,
spinets, harmoniums
and other instruments,
modern and antique in crates,
as well as 80 crates
of music and books,
many with French markings.
It was estimated that it
would take 25 truckloads
for the ERR material alone.
Confiscated property
was intermingled
with other property
also evacuated
for safekeeping from
allied bombing.
The US Army described the
conditions at the Raitenhaslach
as "Chaotic," with materials
distributed throughout the
building, some in locked
rooms, but others not.
Many of the crates had been
opened with some damage
and loss of property reported.
The US Army further noted
the lack of security,
and the fragile nature
of the musical instruments
before transferring the objects
by truck to the allied run
Munich Center Collecting Port --
Point for inventory,
protection and return.
Landowska's Pleyel,
however, today on the stage,
was not found until
December 10th, 1945.
A US Army memorandum stated,
quote, "The Pleyel harpsichord,
now located in the
second floor hallway
of the military government
quarters at Altotting,
which is understood to have been
removed from the Raitenhaslach
by the former Burghausen
Detachment,
is a special model
invented by Mme.
Landowska.
First Lieutenant Doda Conrad of
the Office Military Government
of Bavaria, will arrive
Altotting 12 December,
bringing with him an
expert packer from Munich
to crate this instrument
for removal.
It is requested that he be
given all possible assistance,"
end quote.
Now, Doda Conrad, in addition
to being a Monuments Man,
was a singer and a close
friend of Landowska's.
And he actively searched for
her looted musical property.
Now, Landowska had prepared
a detailed inventory
of her confiscated property.
And in this slide you can
see there is an entry here.
She submitted this to
the French government.
And this -- her inventory
was utilized
in the postwar search
for her property.
An excerpt from this inventory
includes her Pleyel harpsichord,
number 192665, among
other items.
This number matches the number
of the Sonderstab Musik
inventory for Landowska,
and the number of the
Pleyel onstage this evening.
For the many thousands
of confiscated objects
that were processed by the
allies for repatriation,
to the presumed nation
of origin,
property cards were prepared
for those that passed
through the Allied Munich
Central Collecting Point.
And this is what the
building looked like.
These cards included an
object description, condition,
presumed owner, identifying
marks, and other information.
So here you see the
property card
for this harpsichord onstage.
Landowska's looted Pleyel
was deposited by the ERR
at Raitenhaslach,
and was identified
by property card
number Munich --
Munich number "18376,
Raitenhaslach 1659".
The Pleyel harpsichord onstage
with us this evening was
repatriated to France
from the Munich Central
Collecting Point
on January 9th, 1946.
So here you see a slide
of the shipment back
to France from Munich.
It was the first of several
shipments from Munich to France
from Landowska's --
of Landowska's looted
musical property.
The others followed on July 31st
of '46, September 30th of '46,
and finally April 27th of '49,
based on research to date.
And I have here a slide --
this is a provisional list
that identifies Landowska's
property recovered and listed
in Munich's property cards
as having been deposited
at Raitenhaslach by the ERR
and recovered by the US Army.
So there were quite a few
items, as you can see.
Many of Landowska's
confiscated musical instruments
and library items
remain missing today.
And here are a few slides.
I've just showed you a few.
And I think one of these
slides is in the display --
one of these images is
in the display case.
We learned from correspondence
between Doda Conrad
and Wanda Landowska, as
well as Pleyel records,
that the Landowska -- that
Landowska had a possessory right
to the Pleyel onstage that
was confiscated from her home
in France, but she did
not own it at the time.
Pleyel loaned Landowska the
harpsichord for her use.
The Sonderstab Musik had
seized it with the false belief
that it was Polish-Jewish
owned property.
Pleyel demanded payment for
its looted harpsichords --
there were actually two, and
the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter
Rosenberg paid Pleyel
30,000 Francs
for the harpsichord
onstage tonight.
Landowska needed more than
one instrument to be able
to accept performance
engagements outside of New York,
and on June 3rd, 1945, she wrote
to Mr. Renyard of Pleyel asking
to purchase two large
model harpsichords.
She said, quote, "Given
that these instruments will be
intended for my concert tours
in all of America, this would
be magnificent advertisement
for Pleyel," making
the point that, quote,
"Interest for the
harpsichord is very alive
in America," end quote.
But Pleyel had been devastated
during the German occupation
of France.
Pleyel replied via telegram on
June 8th of '45 stating, quote,
"Manufacturing of
harpsichords interrupted,
impossible to supply for
several years," end quote.
By letter of 2-14-45,
the director
of Pleyel informed Landowska,
"The alarming situation."
And that, "Harpsichord
production had been suspended
in '39 and had not been restored
partly because of," quote,
"progressive shrinking of our
staff due to the forced absence
of draftees, then prisoners, and
finally the labor conscriptions
for work in Germany," end quote.
Pleyel reported that it had
been completely deprived
of necessary supplies,
that its lumberyard
and certain buildings
were destroyed
by German aerial
bombings in August of '44,
resulting in the destruction
of Pleyel's technical folders
on the production
of harpsichords.
Pleyel wrote that the most --
the cost of exportation
would be prohibitive
and that future possibilities
could not be predicted,
and his desire for Landowska to
understand the details in order
to realize, quote, "Exactly the
cruel impossibility," end quote,
that Pleyel faced in not being
able to fulfill her order.
But in 1946, Pleyel agreed
to loan Landowska
the Pleyel it had put
at her disposal before the war
that was confiscated, recovered,
and returned to France,
and is onstage tonight.
The instrument was shipped
to Landowska in New York
on the SS Indochinois, via
the French transport company,
Bourgain Freres, through New
York Correspondence Seven Seas
Mercantile Transport Company.
The records reflect
many difficulties
with duty and customs issues.
So one obtains a fascinating
glimpse of the drama unfolding
over this harpsichord onstage
in 1940 and after the war
through the original
Pleyel ledger, which you see
on this slide, preserved
in the archive
of the Musee de la
Musique in Paris.
Page 53 of the ledger
includes the entry
for this Pleyel onstage.
And here is a brief
translation with a close-up
of the relevant entries.
The instrument appears
to have been made on
or about September 9th, 1932.
Fabrication number is
80463, exit number 192665.
Pleyel notes that, "German
authorities were located
at Hotel Commodore
Boulevard Hausmann in Paris,
and had taken an instrument that
Pleyel had lent to Landowska.
As a result, on October
29th, 1940,
the Einsatzstab paid
Pleyel the 30,000 Francs
for the instrument.
And we also see from this
ledger that on March 14th, 1955,
Pleyel finally sold this
instrument to Landowska
for 285,250 Francs,
or about $805.
The Library of Congress
Collection preserves many
records that document
the evolving provenance
of the Pleyel onstage
this evening.
And in the paperwork -- and
I think this document is
in the display case,
the original.
This is evidence of the
instrument's shipment
from France to Landowska in New
York on September 11th, 1946.
So Landowska photographed the
October 1946 arrival in New York
of which she referred to here
as "Pleyel 51", also 1926665,
the instrument onstage,
in its shipping crate.
And here you see this
is an undated photograph
that documents the two
Library of Congress Pleyels
in Landowska's home, both with
the dramatic wartime stories,
one confiscated by the Nazis
and recovered by the US Army,
number 51, and the second
number 57, taken by Landowska
on her flight from
the South of France.
So a few words about the second
Landowska Pleyel in the Library
of Congress, which can be seen
in the Music Division's
Reading Room.
This instrument was
purchased for Landowska by one
of her students, and sent
to Landowska in the South
of France in early 1941.
Denise Restout recalled in
a 1974 interview that one
of Landowska's students
from Switzerland had come
to visit her at Bagnol-sur-Mer.
This student was
reportedly Elizabeth --
excuse me, Isabel Neff, who
was, according to Restout,
distressed to see Landowska
without a harpsichord,
and sold her life insurance
policy to raise funds
to buy the last available
Pleyel in Paris.
Another of Landowska's
students managed to ship
that Pleyel harpsichord
from Paris to Landowska
in the south of France.
Restout stated of how
the student managed
to get this harpsichord
to Landowska, quote,
"That's a very amusing story,
because she went straight
to the commander in Paris
and was received by
a German officer.
She told him she wanted to send
a piano to the south of France.
'A piano,' he asked, 'you want
permission to ship a piano?'
'Well,' she replied, 'it's
really a harpsichord.'
'For whom,' he asked.
'For Wanda Landowska,'
she replied.
'Oh, I admire her music
so much,' he exclaimed.
'I am from Vienna.'
So he signed the permit,
Pleyel shipped the harpsichord
in a box, which had her
name written across it
in letters a foot high, and
it went through the whole
of France without incident.
It was a miracle," end quote.
So here you see the
Pleyel ledger
that lists this second
harpsichord as number 194 188,
purchased by Landowska,
it says in the ledger --
although we know
from Denise Restout
that a student paid for it.
It was purchased on
February 7th, 1941.
Landowska took this instrument
with her from the south
of France through Spain and
on the SS Exeter in Lisbon
on November 28th,
1941, bound for Paris.
Here you see a slide where
you can see the instrument
and the number on the jackboard,
and the number underneath the
instrument, so it is a match.
And here you see the migration
of these two instruments during
this very short period of time,
1940 to '46, and both
these instruments are today
in the Library of Congress.
Landowska died on August
16th, 1959 in Lakeville,
Connecticut at age of 80.
Upon Denise Restout's
passing in 2004, she bequeath
to the Library of Congress
the musical collection she had
inherited from Landowska,
consisting of approximately
41,000 items,
as well as two Pleyel
harpsichords,
a Chalice clavichord, a Steinway
piano, and other property,
stating in a letter to a
friend in 1994 of the Library
of Congress, "It seems
to me that this is one
of the most durable and
responsible institutions."
After all that Landowska and
Restout have lived through
and lost, durability and
preservation meant a great deal.
When one studies or listens
to a musical instrument
in performance as
we listen tonight,
one takes in a universe.
That universe is much
larger if one knows
where an instrument has been,
who has played and owned it,
and in what countries
and political climates
and cultural circumstances
it has traversed.
Thank you.
[ Applause ]
[ Background Sounds ]
>> Thomas Sheehan: So you're
about to hear three pieces
of music, the first of
which is called "Berceuse".
It is by Wanda Landowska.
It was originally
written for the piano.
I have adapted this
for the harpsichord;
for this particular harpsichord.
I think this is a --
it was written very
early on when she was --
before she got started
really getting interested
in harpsichord music.
So I think she would probably
approve of its translation,
transcription into a
harpsichord performance.
And then the final piece is
a harpsichord arrangement
of a Polish folksong which
is associated with weddings.
And Landowska recorded this
piece on this instrument,
and I have attempted
as much as possible
to recreate the effect of it.
>> Okay.
[ Background Sounds ]
[ Music ]
[ Background Sounds ]
[ Music ]
[ Applause ]
>> Bret Werb: Okay.
Thank you all for coming out
to the Library this evening.
My name is Bret Werb, and
thank you, Library of Congress
for the invitation to take part
in this fascinating program.
Can everybody hear me?
[ Inaudible Comments ]
I can't see you, but -- okay the
name Wanda Landowska is not all
that well known nowadays,
present company happily
excluded.
As this slightly
exaggerated cover illustration
by Bruce McCall suggests,
there was a time
when Landowska was indeed the
world's hottest harpsichordist,
the superstar virtuoso,
and internationally celebrated
concert and recording artist,
and pioneer proponent
of the so-called
"Back to Bach" movement.
That's a little close-up
on that one.
[laughter] Landowska's career
spanned well over 50 years.
She was moreover a
world class personality
and charismatic figure
whose early music advocacy
and extravagant deportment,
both on and off stage,
attracted a cultish
fan base and a coterie
of worshipful disciples.
[ Background Talking ]
In tribute to this flair
for theatrics then I'll myself
begin somewhat dramatically.
You're about to hear an excerpt
from Landowska's last
ever European recording.
Listen closely at
around 30 seconds
in you'll discover why this
moment marked a career turning
point as well as
the end of an era.
The piece will probably
sound a little familiar.
[ Music ]
When this recording
was made in June 1940,
the World War was well underway.
German armies were on the
move, and that threatening,
thundering sound caught
on the record is thought
to be a barrage of
antiaircraft fire aimed
at warplanes over Paris.
According to reports, her
studio engineers dive for cover.
But it's said and as could be
heard, Landowska played on.
An eyewitness attested that
the more noise the bombs made,
the more she concentrated
on the music.
Yet the end of that Scarlatti
session marked the beginning
of Landowska's transition from
honored French citizen artist,
a Knight of the Legion
of Honor, no less,
to uprooted itinerary refugee.
Long in denial about the racial
agenda of Germany's rulers,
she was finally convinced
by trusted friends
that indeed her life
was in danger.
As her secretary and companion,
Denise Restout explained,
Landowska was first of
all of Jewish origin,
although she was two generations
converted to Catholicism.
In addition to this Jewish
background, she was also a Pole.
As far as the Nazis
were concerned,
these were the worst
things one could imagine.
Also, they appreciated art
and they knew the
collection she had.
She loved France, she loved her
house, she didn't want to leave.
Nonetheless, as we've heard
from the previous presentation,
she packed up a few belongings
from her estate near Paris
and fled almost immediately.
More than a year of
provisional safe havens ensued
in unoccupied France,
during which time she
implausibly managed to acquire
by post from Switzerland
and through France a brand new
Pleyel harpsichord, before she
and her companion
were to reach Lisbon
and then at least New York.
And they arrived around
that infamous news day --
famously infamous news day,
the day the Japanese
attacked Pearl Harbor.
Landowska in exile in her
60s with very little money,
very little English, but
with a very big harpsichord,
and an ego to match,
quickly rebuilt her career,
and within a few years was
flourishing in the New World.
As before, her celebrity was
principally as a performer
and recording artist,
secondarily as a much sought
after instructor of
keyboard instruments.
In Europe, though, she'd also
enjoyed considerable reputation
as a scholar, researcher,
and polemicist.
Her major legacies to the music
world were the reestablishment
of the harpsichord as a part
of the contemporary
instrumentarium.
Pre-Landowska it was often
dismissed as an outmoded relic
of curiosity; and the
principle and now commonplace
of historically informed
performance practice.
Unquestionably, a
founder and icon
of the early music renaissance,
Landowska also inspired a host
of 20th century composers
to create new works for her
and her instrument, most
notably Manuel de Falla
and Francis Poulenc, but also
Jean Françaix, Henri Sauguet,
Daniel Pinkham and as we've
heard, Witold Lutos awski.
She inspired countless
other creative efforts.
The music historian Richard
Taruskin even suggested
that Landowska's playing
and composing may have
been an early stimulus
for Stravinsky's
neoclassic phase.
Landowska herself can be
placed among those moderns
to have fashioned new
repertoire for the harpsichord.
She was in fact an accomplished
composer, who while still
in her teens, received a
full regimen of instruction
and harmony in counterpoint
at the Hochschule in Berlin.
Her first works for
solo piano appeared
in print before she turned 20.
I believe the Library's
archivist,
Chris Hartten will be
sharing some samples
of her schoolwork
during his presentation,
and Thomas Sheehan has
already performed a pair
of Landowska compositions, the
Berceuse, originally for piano,
and her own arrangement of
the Polish wedding song,
"Oj Chmielu", "The Hop".
The name refers not to a
dance step, but to hops,
the flowery herb
used in brewing beer,
but which has ancient ritual
connotations in Polish folklore.
So just a few words now about
Landowska's relationship
to folklore and folklorists.
Like many Polish musicians of
-- as they say, Jewish descent,
Landowska was deeply drawn
to the folk music and dance
of her native country.
She rhapsodized about
childhood summers spent
in the countryside near Kielce
in south central Poland where,
again, according to Denise
Restout, she heard and sang
with relish innumerable
folksongs and danced
with Polish peasants' authentic
mazurkas and polonaises.
Landowska even claimed
that she herself collected
and transcribed many
folk melodies.
Such was her interest
in this material.
Beyond this ethnographic --
these ethnographic pursuits,
however, she appraised
these melodies
from the perspective
not of a romanticist
but of a modernist;
a modernist composer.
The only major work of hers
to be published and not even
in her lifetime is a suite of
Polish folksongs reconceived
for harpsichord and
chamber ensemble.
I guess that's a page from
that publication as published
by Hildegard Music
in Pennsylvania.
Landowska had yet another
point of contact with folklore,
albeit of a different sort,
and that connection was
through her husband Henrik,
also known as Henryk,
also known as Henri Lew.
We learned very little about
Lew from biographical writings
on Landowska; not much beyond
the fact that he was killed
in a traffic accident
in Berlin in 1919.
Restout says of him that he
was a journalist, an actor,
and a remarkable ethnologist,
specializing in Hebrew folklore.
True enough, Lew was a
journalist and ethnologist
from Lublin, and remarkable
for his time precisely
because he was a Polish-Jewish
journalist and folklorist,
that his is field was
Polish-Jewish folklore
and his studies were written
and published in Polish.
Lew had been described as, "The
moving spirit among researchers
who believe Jewish culture and
customs were a legitimate part
of the country's
treasury of folklore."
In Lew's day and beyond,
this was considered a
controversial point of view.
But after eloping to
Paris with Wanda in 1900,
Lew dropped those pursuits and
instead devoted himself fulltime
to managing his increasingly
famous spouse's evermore
busy career.
He even changed his name
to Henri Lev Landowski.
[laughter] Yet, though
he clearly loomed large
in her life, one finds that
it said little mention of him
in Landowska's writings
and interviews.
If her ties to Jewish ethnicity
had been played down --
and she and others certainly did
soft pedal these, then it might
at least be noted that her
husband and collaborator
of nearly 20 years was both the
compiler of a popular collection
of Jewish jokes and stories,
and the translator into Polish
of the novel "Stempenyu," a
classic account of the lives
and culture of itinerate
Jewish musicians, Klezmerin,
by the famed Yiddish
writer Sholem Aleichem.
And these are two of his
publications translated
into Polish from the
Yiddish, both published
around the same time that
he was wooing Landowska
and married Landowska.
And a look at the list
of Landowska's compositions
perhaps reveals Lew's impact
on her artistic direction.
For there, we find
among several examples
of reworked Polish folk
music both the Hebrew poem
and "Rhapsody Oriental".
As you've already
heard from Carla,
many Landowska manuscripts
were lost
when the Germans
plundered her estate.
However, the Rhapsody, once
regarded as missing has turned
up in the Library's
Landowska-Restout Collection.
I believe it may be
an arrangement --
and I suspect that anyway,
of the Hebrew poem
judiciously retitled.
In any case, the
increasing accessibility
to Landowska-Restout archive;
raises the possibility
that we may have an
opportunity to hear some
of this music performed one day.
Clearly, there is more to
the story of Wanda Landowska
as a creative musician and
composer, and more yet to learn
about her relationship
with her mysterious consort
and Henryk Lew; and about her
often underplayed connection
to her Polish-Jewish heritage.
We're going to move
to the next media.
And again, I'm not sure
whether this is going to work,
but I will try to
close with a clip
from a TV program produced not
long after Landowska's death.
In it the actress Agnes
Moorehead portrays Landowska
reading from her
private diaries.
This material is largely
missing from the writings
that Denise Restout collected,
translated, and published
in the volume "Landowska
on Music".
Toward the end of that
book, Restout even states
that her mentor's biographical
writings will form the nucleus
of a subsequent volume.
That volume, unfortunately,
never did appear.
So until the Library's archive
yields up more treasures,
Moorehead's reading
offers our best glimpse
yet at what the still unexplored
personal journals might reveal
about otherwise unspoken aspects
of Landowska's life and art.
>> Agnes Moorehead
[as Wanda Landowska]:
I dare not open this
new notebook.
It frightens me.
And yet it is still empty.
But all that oppresses me,
this tumultuous anxiety,
this dreadful sorrow.
I feel it bursting in me and
I do not have the courage
to analyze it or
to write about it.
This empty notebook tells me
all that it does not contain.
From morning to evening and
from evening to morning,
I am running away from
the specter of war,
but it does not leave me.
This morning in the news
in a small Lithuanian town,
they have cut out the
tongues of the priests.
Others condemned to death have
had to dig their own graves.
One horror supersedes another
and not knowing where I go,
I shut myself in with the
Well-Tempered Clavier.
A while ago, it was with
the score of Don Giovanni,
but I almost prefer
Bach's fugues
because of their
technical difficulties.
This worry of a professional
order becomes immediate
preoccupation and
hides the nightmare,
at least for a few hours.
This monstrous and gigantic
misunderstanding shaking
humanity, this world full of
hatred, whipped and driven
to a paroxysm, is
it spontaneous?
How can one witness
what is happening;
witness would stand and survive?
Last night, I accidentally
spilled some boiling water
on my left hand.
This physical pain appeased me.
I thought, "I'm suffering a
little, so little in comparison
with what my Aunt Ruja must
have suffered in Poland.
Who was with her?
Where and how did she perish?"
I claim my part of
distress in life.
The idea of being sheltered
seems unjust and odious to me.
>> Bret Werb: And thank
you for your attention.
[ Applause ]
>> Chris Hartten: Good evening.
My name is Christopher Hartten.
I am an Assistant Section
Head in the Music Division,
and I was the lead
archivist on the processing
of the Wanda Landowska
and Denise Restout papers.
It's my sincere pleasure
to have an opportunity
to share a few words about the
truly remarkable collection
that has enabled
our program today.
Consisting of more than 41,000
items and 250 containers
of material, spanning from the
latter half of the 19th century
through the end of the 20th, the
collection documents the life
and legacy of one of the
foremost performers, innovators,
teachers, and scholars
of the harpsichord.
It also serves as an
extraordinary resource
and grim reminder of the
tortured historical period
that Landowska navigated
to ensure
that her musical contributions
would not meet the same fate
as many of the materials
and instruments
that passed through her hands.
The legacy of Landowska owes
a great deal to the efforts
of Denise Restout, her student,
secretary, personal assistant,
and eventual caretaker.
Restout bore witness to
the activities and thoughts
of Landowska on a daily basis,
and dutifully recorded
everything that flowed
from the mouth of "Mamusia", as
she was affectionately known;
from profound musical ideas
to requests for produce
from the local market.
Restout's relationship with
Landowska was not merely one
of idolization, but
rather discipleship,
as even in her handwriting,
Restout imitated Landowska,
much to the chagrin of those
who processed the collection.
[laughter] Restout ultimately
accompanied Landowska
to New York in December 1941,
and then to Lakeville,
Connecticut in 1949.
After Landowska's
death ten years later,
she dedicated her life to the
only thing that made sense,
the meticulous preservation
of Landowska's legacy
and personal property.
From 1971 until her
own death in 2004,
Restout operated
the Landowska Center
from the picturesque country
home known as "Oak Knoll"
in modern day Salisbury,
Connecticut, serving as library,
museum, teaching studio,
and living space for more
than a quarter century, the home
aged alongside its occupant and
yet somehow remained
frozen in time,
as if Landowska herself still
inhabited the house nearly 50
years later.
Music Division staff
examining the materials
that Restout bequeathed to
the Library were awestruck
by the volumes upon volumes
of antiquarian scores,
stacks of papers, realia,
and instruments present
in the space.
As movers transferred boxes
and carefully carried a pair
of Pleyel harpsichords,
a clavichord,
and a piano out of Oak
Knoll, there was no question
that the legacy of
Landowska would continue,
but who would be
its next Restout?
When I first joined the staff of
the Music Division back in 2009,
no collection seemed too
tall an order to process.
Even an unruly sprawling
collection
of materials pertaining to an
instrument that I did not play,
a performer with whom I was not
familiar, and written partially
in a handful of languages
that I did not read.
[laughter] I realized the folly
of my enthusiasm in short order,
but I also very much saw
an opportunity to learn
about a spirited woman who
captured the minds of audiences
and even nations with her
approach to performance,
writing, and scholarship.
And so I learned.
Landowska's story of hardnosed
triumph and resilience
in the face of war was
incredibly inspiring,
and it very much remained so
as Europe once again stares
down the wanton destruction
of art and culture.
The Landowska and Restout papers
contain nine series or groupings
of materials for
harpsichordists and scholars
of performance practice.
The music series
provides a direct link
to Landowska's technical
understanding
of the harpsichord
and her musicality.
Consisting largely of
printed scores obtained
after her immigration to
the United States in 1941,
these materials featured
annotations by Landowska
and Restout for many of her
most notably performed works,
Bach's "Well Tempered Clavier"
Poulenc's "Concert champêtre",
Handel's "Suites
for Harpsichord",
and countless others.
Also present are manuscript
scores and sketches
of Landowska's own compositions,
one just elegantly performed,
including a series of
sketchbooks from her years
in Breslau and Berlin
from 1893 through 1896.
Landowska was a prolific
author of letters, journals,
and literary works of
historic performance practice
in musical reception.
Correspondence in the
collection fills nearly 40 boxes
and reflects not only Landowska
and Restout's relationship
with renowned composers,
students, and performers,
such as José Iturbi,
Aaron Copland,
Rafael Puyana, and
Francis Poulenc.
But also, lesser known
figures whose actions
and observations -- as Carla
has demonstrated, are critical
to reconstructing
Landowska's life and legacy;
singer Doda Conrad, students
Elsa Schoenecky [phonetic]
and Dia Matheau [phonetic],
and Restout herself.
Both Landowska and Restout
fastidiously logged daily
journals, and left a paper trail
of their teaching engagements,
social gatherings, mundane
business activities,
and thoughts on musical topic
stretching near continuously
from 1894 through 1999.
Whether perched at her
desk with pen in hand
or gesticulating dramatically
in summer master classes,
Landowska was an endless
font of musical ideas.
She opined frequently on
concepts of authenticity,
nationality, progress, and
popular appreciation of music,
most notably laid bare in her
monograph, "Musique Ancienne",
or "Music of the Past",
first published in 1909.
Landowska had an anecdote
for just about everything.
Behind her dramatic and motive
veneer was an extraordinarily
witty and humorous persona.
In an undated artist survey for
RCA Victor, Landowska was asked
who was the most interesting
person she had ever met,
and why.
Her response, "An elephant,
because his nose is
bigger than mine."
[laughter] Although
relatively little
of Landowska's personal property
crossed the Atlantic in 1941,
we are fortunate that thousands
of photographs were among
those indispensible items
that survived this
tumultuous period.
The earliest of these
photographs date
from the late 1890s.
One can clearly see
that even as a child,
Landowska was quite photogenic.
The collection features
wonderful images of her in just
about every setting
imaginable; at the Pleyel,
in her concert hall at St.
Leu, with leading dignitaries
of the period: Paderewski,
Honneger, de Falla,
and Milhaud just to name a few.
Landowska's nimble spiderlike
fingers were also captured
for posterity.
Of particular significance, as
Carla has detailed, are images
and the accompanying inventories
of Landowska's collection
of musical instruments
and her library
of antiquarian scores
[inaudible].
In the case of the instruments,
these photographs represent the
last, and perhaps in some cases,
only surviving images
of the intact items.
The scores were not
photographed individually,
but we are fortunate to possess
multiple inventories created
at different points in time that
speak to the evolving contents
of Landowska's music library.
When coupled with
related subject files
and correspondence, these
materials present a detailed,
if incomplete, picture
of the state and fate
of Landowska's treasured
possessions.
There are many other impactful
items in the collection
that colorize and contextualize
the storied life of Landowska;
programs, personal
effects, financial documents
and posters, among others.
The Library even retains three
of Landowska's velvet gowns
and a bronze casting
of her shoes.
Despite her larger
than life persona
and magnificent projection
in the concert hall,
I can assure you that she was
in fact quite petite in stature.
We have a saying in
the archives profession
that the items not present
in the collection often tell an
important story of their own.
And this is absolutely the
case with the Landowska
and Restout materials.
That said, the materials
that we do have available
for scholarship, for
performance, for preservation
of cultural heritage, are
of immeasurable valuable.
We have witnessed the
application of all three
of tonight's event, and we
will witness them continually
as future generations
explore the mystique
and legacy of Wanda Landowska.
Thank you.
[ Applause ]
>> Barbara Wolf: I'm Barbara.
He's Tom. And we first
encountered the Pleyels,
now at the Library
in June of 2004
after Denise Restout had died.
And they had made it clear
that they would like everything
to come in the collection
to the Library.
But it was not just the
papers and the music
that the Library wanted, but
everything had to come as well,
the dresses and the instruments.
And so the Library asked us
to go to Connecticut and look
at the instruments in the house
and recommend whether this
was a good idea or not,
and assess the instruments.
So the instrument onstage was
in the large front living room
of the house, and it gave
a pretty good overall
impression initially.
There was missing veneer from
the area along the top edge
and on the peddle wire.
It was dirty with dust
and mold, and I regret
to say cat spray
covering everything
from [laughter] knee level down,
as was everything in the house.
But it was recognizably
in tune at A440,
which after all the years since
her death is quite remarkable.
The registers went on and off.
The coupler, which
is the mechanism
that allows the keyboards
to be played together
from the lower one, was
highly inconsistent,
as was the regulation.
There were some missing
buff pads,
but there was a clear indication
that the jacks had
been staggered,
which was an important
point to players.
The second Pleyel over
in the Reading Room next
to Rachmaninoff's desk
was in another room
with a small Steinway piano
and a Challis clavichord.
Having suffered from water
damage and a bleaching
of the finish, it did
not present so well.
There were more inconsistencies
in the action,
some of the pedals didn't work,
and what did play
was more irregular.
Later, we discovered
that the nut
which holds the strings
near the tuning pins,
had become separated
and shifted,
which caused misalignment
of the strings.
We found a large supply
of leather tongues --
the leather plectra that
plucked the strings,
regulating tools,
cloth, and leather.
And these materials
were invaluable
in making the musical finishing
of the restoration cohesive.
Curiously, there were
no spare strings,
no covers, or moving equipment.
The decision was made to
conserve the Pleyels as much
as possible and make them
functional without rebuilding,
restringing, or refinishing.
This approach preserves
more of what Denise
and Wanda actually
felt and heard.
Replacement of missing
veneer helped
to make them visually
presentable.
We recommended limited use
of the instruments in order
to preserve as much of
their character as possible,
while allowing occasional
performances
to illuminate their influence
in the early 20th century.
As with -- in all of
these instruments,
the operative parts, the
leather and the cloth
and these materials
tend to be the ones
that suffered the most from use.
So if you're trying to
hang onto anything old,
you have to watch
your use of it.
It's important to understand
that these instruments while
they're beautifully made using
excellent materials are
rather perversely engineered.
They resemble a historical
harpsichord only
in that they have a
plucking mechanism.
The caste iron plate, massive
framing, open bottom --
you can look right into
the instrument from below,
the thick soundboard and heavy
keys with weighted jacks,
and the long scaling, which
is the basic tunnel design
requiring heavier strings,
are simply not present
in historical harpsichords.
Leather plectra of a different
type were occasionally used
in early harpsichords, but
bird quill was the norm.
Recordings give the
false impression
that these instruments
with their five registers
and four sets of
strings were loud.
This is not the case.
The thick soundboard and
heavy framing dampened most
of the resonance.
Indeed, we've been told by the
harpsichord maker William Dowd
and harpsichordist Albert Fuller
about attending a
town hall concert
of Landowska in the early 1950s.
The stage was darkened,
with only a couple
of lamps for light.
Landowska entered and spent
several minutes arranging the
pedals, carefully obscuring
her feet with a long skirt
so that no one could
steal her registrations.
[laughter] Until the
audience noise subsided,
and only then did
she begin to play.
Dowd tells of leaning forward
in his seat to hear every nuance
of the performance, but
was highly disappointed
by the volume the
instrument produced.
As makers and restorers
of antique
and historically
accurate instruments,
we would not have let a
Pleyel through our front door
if it hadn't been Landowska's.
Despite their influence
on harpsichord design
through the middle
of the 20th century,
Wanda's own characterization
of them is telling.
On her first trip to America in
1923, she's quoted as saying,
"I arrived there
like a lion tamer,
dragging along four large
Pleyel harpsichords.
Since these creatures lumbered
into our lives, we have felt
like keepers in the big
cathouse at the zoo,
often at feeding time.
But at least for the
moment they seemed
to have stopped growling."
[laughter] So I will let Tom
make other comments if he wants,
but also we would talk
to Tom a little bit
about his registration and use
of the instrument, too, so --
>> Thomas Sheehan: Oh,
that would be great,
but the main thing I was
wondering about is you mentioned
that these are not engineered
like any historic harpsichord,
and I wonder if you could
go into a bit more detail
about exactly what
that would look
like from a technical
perspective,
but also sound like.
>> Thomas Wolf: Well, from a --
the main thing is that there --
this is essentially a
plucked piano; which is fine,
and it's a musical
instrument of its own.
But it really doesn't resemble
very much the harpsichord
that Wanda was hoping
to recreate.
>> Thomas Sheehan: Yes.
>> Thomas Wolf: So for example,
this weighs about as
much as a Steinway.
It takes four people to move it.
>> Barbara Wolf: Piano movers.
>> Thomas Wolf: Piano
movers to move it;
whereas a classical
French harpsichord
from the same period -- many of
you have probably seen Barbara
and I carrying it up the
stairs after a concert.
So I mean this is
-- in a way it's --
if the classical French
harpsichord were a Ferrari,
this would be a Mack truck.
[laughter] I mean,
it's wonderfully made.
It's beautifully made with
wonderful materials in it.
But it is really
perversely engineered.
It's sort of like --
we had a colleague once
who owned a Peugeot
from the 1950s.
And in order to change
the headlight,
the fender had to be removed.
And it's very much
the same thing here.
As a young man who was supremely
self-confident, I was sent off
by Frank Hubbard to fix the
Pleyel of a harpsichordist
in Boston, Irma Rogell.
And Frank told me, he
said, "If you do anything,
don't try to fix the coupler
because you're going to be there
for four or five hours."
So about 5:00 in the afternoon,
the coupler wasn't working,
and I thought I knew
what I was doing.
About 11:00, I departed with
a very annoyed Miss Rogell.
[laughs] The coupler was fixed.
>> Barbara Wolf: And we actually
took it apart for the first time
since it was restored
in 2007 -- '07/'08.
We really did take it apart
last week because of the fact
that the coupler was
[laughter] showing signs of wear
and it needed to be regulated.
And it took -- we
were astonished
because even knowing
what we were looking for
and having the right tools
at hand and everything,
it took the better
part of two hours
to dismantle it sufficiently.
Fortunately, the Library
sent a photographer that day
so that things that people
would probably not see
for another 25 years
were documented.
And then we thought, "Well,
it will certainly go
back together faster,"
and it was close to two
hours [laughter] just
because of the very clever
but totally unnecessary
way that it's assembled.
>> Thomas Wolf: One of the
really moving things for us was
at the home in Lakeville.
This harpsichord was sitting
there and this was an instrument
that she had made all
of her recordings on.
Most of the recordings that she
did for RCA were actually made
in the Lakeville house.
And RCA had arranged a
system where she would step
on a foot pedal when the muse
struck her and she could record.
And then she would
call up the next --
she would call the next morning
and a technician would
take the train up
and change the reels and tape.
But through the modern
world of CDs, we were able
to hear this harpsichord
being played
by Wanda in her own house.
And it just -- it was really --
it was one of those
incredible things --
>> Barbara Wolf: Well, it was
-- to -- yes to amplify on that,
the executors for the estate
who had met us to let us
into the house after we were
finished, they said, "Oh,
have you heard her play?"
They were not musicians
and we said, "Oh, yes."
But "Well, why don't you listen
to this CD while we're
finishing up some things here?"
And so they left us in
the living room, yes,
with this instrument and put
on the Goldberg Variations
and whatever it was for us.
And we got truly goose bumpy
just standing in that room
where she had made the recording
listening to it, as if the ghost
of Wanda were in
the room playing.
It was true.
I wanted to ask you how
exactly did Lutos awski specify
the registration?
>> Thomas Sheehan: He didn't.
>> Barbara Wolf: He didn't; aha.
>> Thomas Sheehan: He didn't.
Yes.
>> Barbara Wolf: Okay.
>> Thomas Sheehan: I --
one of my own inventions
based on listening to --
>> Barbara Wolf: I
mean, very nice, but --
>> Thomas Sheehan: Oh.
>> Barbara Wolf: I
was curious, yes.
>> Thomas Sheehan: Yes; no
I spent a while listening
to other Landowska recordings --
>> Barbara Wolf: Yes.
>> Thomas Sheehan: And how
she used this instrument,
and I found that most of the
time she plays on two manuals,
if there is a melody
and accompaniment.
>> Barbara Wolf: Yes.
>> Thomas Sheehan: And
I'm guessing that that's
because there's a voicing
difference in this instrument
versus a more historically
authentic instrument.
It doesn't seem to favor
treble melody as much
as I was expecting it to.
>> Barbara Wolf: Hmm.
>> Thomas Sheehan: So I
often find that I am matched
in more melody and
accompaniment than I would a --
on a more common
instrument today.
>> Barbara Wolf: Yes.
>> Thomas Sheehan: So that --
hence the two manuals and the
buff stop for the accompaniment.
>> Wanda Wolf: Right.
For those of you who maybe
aren't quite sure what we're
talking about and
can't see exactly here,
on the peddle layer down here,
which is of course
a modern thing --
you don't find this on antique
instruments, but Pleyel --
you know, the thing is
Pleyel made fabulous pianos.
Through the 18th
century into the 20th --
or 19th century into the 20th
century, he was her piano maker,
which is why she went to him and
sort of, you know, browbeat him
into creating this instrument
for her, which is more
or less what that inscription
says, which is I made this thing
with a 16-foot because
Wanda made me do it.
[laughter] But it has -- let
me see, one, two, three --
>> Thomas Sheehan: Seven.
>> Barbara Wolf: Four --
>> Thomas Sheehan: Seven.
>> Barbara Wolf: Seven pedals,
which are very close together,
and which Wanda with her
little tiny, you know,
less than five foot tall
feet she put ballet slippers
on in order to maneuver
all of this very cleverly.
And here, Tom is saying, "Oh, I
should have worn my organ shoes.
I forgot them."
>> Thomas Sheehan: [Laughs]
That wouldn't have been
helpful [overlapping].
>> Barbara Wolf: And even so,
with his big feet,
he's still able to --
>> Thomas Sheehan: Sort of --
>> Barbara Wolf: Manage this.
[laughter] But it's very --
it's extremely tricky knowing
exactly what needs to be up
and what needs to be
down, and when and how.
And I've seen people
demonstrating this instrument
at concerts in the past who
have gotten completely flummoxed
thinking they had set it up
right, and then somehow got off,
and then perhaps
got everything off
and couldn't turn
anything back on.
So if Tom was -- I
thought your registration
in the Berceuse was really --
>> Thomas Sheehan:
Oh, thank you.
>> Barbara Wolf: Interesting.
>> Thomas Sheehan:
Thank you very much.
>> Barbara Wolf: But -- so if
you wanted to say anything more
about that or demonstrate
it, [overlapping] --
>> Thomas Sheehan: No, it was
a very similar registration.
But I've -- another
thing I found was
that the four-foot stop played
down an octave has a
very different effect
than the eight-foot
stop played at pitch.
>> Barbara Wolf: Yes.
Yes.
>> Thomas Sheehan:
And that was an effect
that I used in the
Berceuse to --
>> Barbara Wolf: Yes.
>> Thomas Sheehan: Again,
to try to bring the
melody to the fore --
>> Barbara Wolf: Yes.
>> Thomas Sheehan: Which does --
the instrument seems
to have a little bit
of trouble with normally.
>> Barbara Wolf: Yes.
Great.
>> Thomas Sheehan: Yes.
>> Barbara Wolf: Thank you.
>> Thomas Sheehan: Thank you.
[laughter]
[ Applause ]
So the program tonight
will close with two pieces
by William Byrd and
by Francois Couperin.
The Byrd piece is
called "Wolsey's Wilde",
and the Couperin
piece is a suite
of five different
movements, which --
it's sort of a political
in joke at the time.
I did a lot of reading
about this and it's a story
that does not bear
telling tonight.
[laughs] But it's a very
dramatic sort of portrayal
of different characters
that Couperin had in mind.
And the reason both of these
pieces, that I chose both
of these pieces for tonight
is that they both appeared
on the program when Wanda
Landowska played here
at the Library of Congress.
So these are sort of
returning home these pieces
with this instrument
here at this stage.
[ Background Sounds ]
[ Music ]
[ Background Sounds ]
[ Music ]
[ Applause ]
>> Carol Lynn Ward-Bamford:
Thank you.
[ Applause ]
>> Carol Lynn Ward-Bamford:
Thank you, Tom.
Thank you all for joining us.
A big thanks to my colleagues
and to the harpsichord.
Good night.
[ Applause ]