Customer Reviews

Landowska: Uncommon Visionary

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Wanda Landowska's recordings continue to be reissued, and reviews of them on the website continue to attract interest. Her admirers will welcome this worthy DVD. It may cost much more than the average price but its value is inestimable.

Somehow the compilers have contrived to tell her story in chronological order without need for a commentator. Pupils, other musicians, critics, friends, and (most valuably) Landowska herself do all the talking. Film clips and stills are incorporated.

Known from her recordings to be a dazzling personality and creative performer, it is no surprise to see that a similarly vivid persona is revealed in her only filmed interview. Amongst other things, when reminiscing, she describes how she spent many hours playing on her harpsichord for the great Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy. "He was the most musical human being I ever met," she comments.

Landowska's personal losses and victories, the genius and the ferocious willpower - all are made evident. There are also all the known film clips of her playing her Pleyel harpsichord. How those fingers arch back, each one poised above the keys like a scorpion's tail!

The documentary material extends for nearly an hour, after which, as a bonus, you can listen to her pioneering 1933 recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations.

I bought this in tape when it first came out and have enjoyed replaying several times since. I'm glad to see it here on DVD. This is an interesting video account of the life of Ms. Landowska with sound recordings and some of the few films that were taken of her playing. A valuable part of this is a filmed interview of her in later life, recounting her discovery of the harpsichord and early performances and how she lacked good instruments so she had one made specially for her, and her loss and then recovery of it after the war. A MUST-SEE by anybody vaguely interested in this talented and highly skilled performer.