Creating Madame Landowska

Annegret Fauser

Women and Music: A Journal of Gender and Culture, Volume 10, 2006, pp.
1-23 (Article)

Published by University of Nebraska Press

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/wam.2007.0002

For additional information about this article

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/209958

[ Access provided at 22 Sep 2020 07:52 GMT from University of Rochester ]

Creating Madame Landowska
Annegret Fauser

T
he famous polish harpsichordist of the twentieth century by championing above
Wanda Landowska has recently been all the “authentic” performance of Bach on the
characterized as an “uncommon vision- harpsichord. Over the past seventy years the
ary” and an “epochal exception.”1 Such epithets legend of Wanda Landowska has become firmly
recognize her as a singularly influential musician enshrined in the histories and mythologies of the
and, at the same time, mythologize her into a early music movement. This image stems from
modern revolutionary who almost single-hand- her successful and sustained international solo
edly initiated the worldwide harpsichord revival career—flourishing to her death in 1959—and
from the worldwide impact of her midcareer re-
1. See the pbs production Uncommon Visionary: A
cordings of the 1930s.2 Wanda Landowska’s sto-
Documentary on the Life and Art of Wanda Landowska ry is one of struggle, controversy, and triumph in
(1997), by Barbara Attie, Janet Goldwater, and Diane
Pontius (Video Artists International dvd 4246). For her
being an “epochale Ausnahmeerscheinung” see Martin 1982), 153; Alice Hudnall Cash, “Wanda Landowska and
Elste, Meilensteine der Bach-Interpretation 1750–2000: the Revival of the Harpsichord,” in Music in the Theater,
Eine Werkgeschichte im Wandel (Stuttgart: Metzler; Church, and Villa: Essays in Honor of Robert Lamar
Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2000), 337. For other castings of Weaver and Norma Wright Weaver, ed. Susan Parisi
Landowska as the key figure in the twentieth-century (Harmonie Park Press, 2000), 277–84.
harpsichord revival see, for example, Norbert Dufourcq, 2. In particular, her 1933 recording of Bach’s Goldberg
Le clavecin (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, Variations as well as her versions of the Chromatic Fantasy
1949), 118–22; Howard Schott, “Wanda Landowska: and Fugue (1935) and several suites (1936–37) were the
A Centenary Appraisal,” Early Music 7 (1979): 467–72; first recordings of these works on the harpsichord. See
Harvey Sachs, Virtuoso (New York: Thames and Hudson, Elste, Meilensteine der Bach-Interpretation, 362–88.

Fauser, Creating Madame Landowska 

1 which personal sacrifice engenders musical great- her own unique artistic identity. Landowska’s
2 ness while the performer becomes anointed as the claim for artistic uniqueness, her increasing
3 true voice of the composer. Her visual and artistic musical specialization as a harpsichordist, her
4 self-representation and the aura of aristocratic (self‑)representation as “musical daughter” of
5 mystique and inspiration turned her concerts Bach, her emphasis on a special musical call-
6 into ritualized celebrations during which she ap- ing, the relentless rhetoric of exceptionality
7 peared as a high priestess of the cult of Bach. and artistic struggle not only characterize her
8 From her clothing to her hairstyle, every element (auto)biography since the 1940s but also reflect
9 of her public appearances was deliberate and key elements of women’s professional strategies
10 choreographed.3 Landowska “would not have in the Parisian musical world around 1900.6
11 dreamt of beginning a recital without first estab- Her correspondence and other documents from
12 lishing the proper atmosphere: the lighting on these early years reveal that she was an active
13 stage had to be very dim before she would glide, agent in the creation of her public persona while
14 wraith-like, onto the platform, hands clasped as drawing on a support network that included her
15 if in prayer and eyes cast heavenward.”4 husband, Henri Lew, her impresario, Gabriel
16 The roots of Landowska’s self-representa- Astruc, and a host of wise if not always old men
17 tion as the “goddess of the harpsichord” and such as Charles Bordes and Leo Tolstoy.
18 the myths associated with it reach back to the
19 beginnings of her career in prewar Paris at the Paris, Women, and Harpsichord Music
20 turn of the twentieth century.5 The French capi- Women musicians in particular were attracted
21 tal provided the cultural context within which to fin de siècle Paris because it offered career op-
22T Landowska’s career as performer, composer, and portunities that were scarce in other cities such
23 scholar was molded. As a young woman in her as Vienna, Berlin, and London.7 Paris had a cos-
24 twenties she could draw on models of gendered mopolitan and financially well heeled audience,
25T performance tested by other female musicians dozens of concert series, hundreds of salons and
26 in the French capital. Indeed, the strategies that concert societies, many schools and conservato-
27 she and her entourage developed in these early ries—all spaces within which a young, ambitious
28T years created “Madame Landowska,” as she musician could carve out a place for herself.
29 was known, by instrumentalizing successful fe- What Walter Benjamin so famously called the
30 male career tactics in prewar Paris so as to forge capital of the nineteenth century represented not
31 only a place full of career opportunities but also
32 the cultural and musical center of a Europe that
33 3. Her companion Denise Restout discusses Landowska’s needed to be conquered for any major interna-
concert preparation in Uncommon Visionary.
34 4. Sachs, Virtuoso, 154. tional career to flourish.8 Paris presented thus an
35 5. Bernard Gavoty, Wanda Landowska, trans. F. E. ideal milieu for the ambitious young pianist and
36 Richardson, with illustrations by Roger Hauert (Geneva:
René Kister, 1957), 6.
37 6. “[E]lle nous apparaît comme une fille musicale de 7. Sophie Fuller, “A Mount Everest in Music? Ethel Smyth
38 ce Jean-Sébastien Bach” (Robert Brussel, “Wanda and the Other Women Composers,” paper given at the
39 Landowska ou la renaissance du clavecin,” Musica 4 Symposium of the International Musicological Society,
[1905]: 7–8, 8). On women’s career strategies in fin de Melbourne, July 14, 2004. For women’s career opportu-
40 siècle Paris see, for example, Annegret Fauser, “La nities in late-nineteenth-century Britain see Paula Gillett,
41 Guerre en dentelles: Women and the Prix de Rome Musical Women in England, 1870–1914: “Encroaching
42 in French Cultural Politics,” Journal of the American on All Man’s Privileges” (New York: St. Martin’s Press,
Musicological Society 51 (1998): 83–129, and “Zwischen 2000).
43 Professionalismus und Salon: Französische Musikerinnen 8. That Paris was perceived as “the capital of the world”
44 des Fin de siècle,” in Professionalismus in der Musik, ed. was not a new phenomenon around 1900; the myth of
45 Christian Kaden and Volker Kalisch (Essen: Blaue Eule, Paris reaches back to the ancien régime. See Patrice
1998), 261–74; Florence Launay, Les compositrices fran- Higonnet, Paris: Capital of the World, trans. Arthur
46 çaises de 1789 à 1914, Ph.D. dissertation, Université de Goldhammer (Cambridge ma: Harvard University Press,
47 Rennes II, 2004. 2002).
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fledgling composer Wanda Landowska, who in order to legitimize the claim of an exception-
moved to the French capital in 1900 at the age ality that set her apart from her contemporaries.
of twenty-one to fulfill her “mad desire to be That Landowska, from an early age, hoped to
famous.”9 play works by the composers whose music she
What follows presents the story usually told: loved is not in question.13 Contrary to common
Landowska and her new husband, Henri Lew, belief, however, Landowska was not the only
arrived in Paris as unknown, impoverished woman harpsichordist in early-twentieth-cen-
Polish immigrants who struggled to survive. tury France. Nor was her choice of repertoire
Rather than pursuing a lucrative career as a piano uncommon or particularly visionary when seen
virtuoso, Landowska instead began her battle in the context of fin de siècle Paris. What set her
for the revival of the harpsichord as the true apart, however, was the brilliant use she and her
instrument of early keyboard music. Driven by supporters made of the cultural field of Parisian
her love for the music of Bach, she followed this musical life to establish her highly successful ca-
dream even against the advice of her close friends. reer within less than a decade.
An oft-quoted letter dated July 31, 1903, from The harpsichord was never entirely absent
Landowska’s friend Charles Bordes serves as ev- from French music making, but it regained wid-
idence, since in it he suggested that Landowska er interest during the Second Empire, especially
should play early music “but not on the harp- within musicians’ and salon circles, following
sichord.”10 Landowska persisted, however, and the imperial court’s interest in all things rococo.
introduced unsuspecting Parisian audiences to Thus in 1856 the Parisian piano maker Charles
the harpsichord in baby steps by programming Fleury restored a Taskin harpsichord that was
one or two works played on the instrument in played by a Joséphine Martin in a concert on
concerts otherwise performed on the piano.11 April 5, 1857, during which “the instrument,
“Imagine how I had to fight,” she said in a 1953 which has become quite rare, . . . produced a
interview, identifying pianists as the “enemy . . . lively sensation and the success that it shared
against me.”12 But by 1908 she had arrived. She with the performer was complete.”14 Both the
was, in her own words, “the most popular in- well-known pianist Amédée Méreaux and his
strumentalist of this time.” even better-known female student, Charlotte de
As is the case with most such myths of artistic Malleville, performed Baroque repertoire spo-
beginnings, Landowska’s story is revealing par- radically on the harpsichord.15 The highlight
ticularly in what she and her entourage omitted of an evening in April 1861 at the Rothschild

9. Wanda Landowska, diaries, cited in Uncommon concert see “Nouvelles,” Revue et Gazette Musicale de
Visionary. Paris, April 5, 1857, 118: “A l’une des dernières réunions
10. Letter given in English translation in Denise Restout, musicales de M. et Mlle Martin, cette dernière a fait enten-
ed., Landowska on Music (New York: Stein and Day, dre un clavecin construit en 1770 par Pascal Taskin. Cet
1964), 10. instrument, devenu fort rare, a produit une vive sensation,
11. Restout, Landowska on Music, 12. That Bordes’ ad- et le succès tout nouveau qu’il a partagé avec l’exécutante
monition may have had more impact than Landowska a été complet.”
later admitted may be reflected in the fact that she per- 15. Katharine Ellis, Interpreting the Musical Past:
formed harpsichord music on the piano later in 1903. Early Music in Nineteenth-Century France (New York:
12. This and the following remark come from the 1953 Oxford University Press, 2005), 40, 50–52. I am grate-
interview shown in Uncommon Visionary. ful to Katharine Ellis for sharing the information about
13. Not only do the documents reproduced in the docu- Mlle de Malleville. Already by April 28, 1844, Amédée
mentary Uncommon Visionary corroborate this part of Méreaux had organized a grand concert historique at the
her story, but an early article published in Musica in 1905 Salle Pleyel, where he performed on both the harpsichord
also claims that her interest in Baroque music began be- and the piano (Malou Haine, “Concerts historiques dans
fore she came to Paris. la seconde moitié du 19e siècle,” in Musique et société:
14. For information on the harpsichord see Edward L. Hommages à Robert Wangermée, ed. Henri Vanhulst
Kottick, A History of the Harpsichord (Bloomington: and Malou Haine [Brussels: Editions de l’Université de
Indiana University Press, 2003), 296. For a review of the Bruxelles, 1988], 121–42, 124).

Fauser, Creating Madame Landowska 

1 salon was Georges Pfeiffer’s harpsichord per- This growing interest in the instrument led,
2 formance of works by Rameau, Grétry, Mozart, in the mid-1880s, to the development of newly
3 and Haydn; in the 1860s the Parisian piano vir- constructed harpsichords by three Paris piano
4 tuoso Louis Diémer started to include one or manufacturers, Pleyel, Erard, and Tomasini.20
5 two pieces on the harpsichord in his piano recit- They were presented to the public for the first
6 als; and later, in the 1870s, Camille Saint-Saëns time at the 1889 Exposition universelle in the
7 gave several lecture-recitals on the harpsichord Galerie Desaix, together with new pianos and
8 for the Société des Compositeurs.16 Though the harps. Marie-Antoinette’s harpsichord, on the
9 harpsichord remained an antiquarian curiosity, other hand, fascinated visitors in the retro-
10 it also held fascination as a sound object from spective of historical musical instruments, and
11 the ancien régime. Indeed, by the 1860s the eigh- Diémer’s performances on his Taskin harp-
12 teenth century had been transformed into a time sichord charmed listeners at the Trocadéro,
13 of past French glory, with Marie-Antoinette’s while visitors to the art exhibition could admire
14 harpsichord the most fetishized musical instru- Horace de Callias’ rendering of a salon con-
15 ment from this past.17 Even though harpsichords cert with Diémer at the harpsichord.21 Pleyel’s,
16 continued to be criticized for their tone quality Erard’s, and Tomasini’s new harpsichords were
17 and limited expressive range (in Bordes’ later celebrated as improved music machines, useful
18 formulation reducing “superb and often large- in particular for the revival of the glorious past
19 scale works to the size of its tiny, spindly legs”), of French music and to provide enjoyment for
20 the growing fascination with “all things past” society women. Indeed, the discourse on the
21 opened the path for the harpsichord revival of instrument was ambiguous, veering between
22T the fin de siècle.18 In the Third Republic the nationalist fascination, on the one hand, and
23 harpsichord and its repertoire soon became gendered mistrust, on the other. Thus in 1889
24 musical signifiers of an aristocratic France that Saint-Saëns praised the “delicious” nature of the
25T embodied national taste, grace, elegance, and new Pleyel instruments but insisted that harpsi-
26 finesse, celebrating courtly refinement in the chords were instruments of women’s boudoirs,
27 performance especially of works by the French best suited to accompanying delicate song.22 But
28T clavecinistes.19
29
18. For Bordes see Restout, Landowska on Music, 10.
30 16. On Diémer see Kottick, A History of the Harpsichord, Discussing the modern harpsichord in 1889, Julien Tiersot
31 400. I am grateful to Katharine Ellis for sharing the in- attributed its development to the immense “engouement
32 formation about Camille Saint-Saëns. Pfeiffer’s concert is actuel pour tout ce qui touche aux choses du temps passé”
reviewed in “Nouvelles,” Revue et Gazette Musicale de (“Promenades à l’Exposition,” Le Ménestrel 55 [1889]:
33 Paris, April 7, 1861, 109. 180).
34 19. Ellis, Interpreting the Musical Past, 90–96.
Une séance curieuse au point de vue de l’art musical,
35 a eu lieu la semaine dernière dans les salons du baron de
20. For an excellent discussion of these instruments see
Martin Elste, “Nostalgische Musikmaschinen: Cembali
36 Rothschild. M. Georges Pfeiffer y avait été appelé par
im 20. Jahrhundert,” in Kielklaviere: Cembali, Spinette,
37 le célèbre financier pour faire apprécier les qualités du
Virginale, ed. John Henry van der Meer, Martin Elste,
fameux clavecin du XVIe siècle dont il s’est rendu acqué-
38 reur, et que possédait M. Pigeory, architecte de la ville de
and Günther Wagner (Berlin: Staatliches Institut für
Musikforschung Preußischer Kulturbesitz, 1991), 239–
39 Paris, et fondateur de la Revue des beaux-arts. Le jeune
77, esp. 245–47.
40 artiste a fort intéressé l’auditoire, en faisant redire à cet
21. On the presence of harpsichords at the 1889 Paris
instrument les airs de Rameau, Grétry, Mozart et Haydn,
41 dont il avait mainte fois retenti sans doute à l’époque où
World’s Fair see Annegret Fauser, Musical Encounters
at the 1889 Paris World’s Fair (Rochester: Rochester
42 florissaient les célèbres compositeurs.
University Press, 2005), 27–34.
43 17. Anecdotes about and references to the harpsichord of 22. “Et c’est délicieux! c’est bien l’instrument du bou-
44 Marie-Antoinette abound in the press from the 1830s on- doir, de la femme nerveuse et délicate, sur lequel on peut
ward; see, for example, “Variétés: Le clavecin de Marie- accompagner un chant discret, une mélodie murmurée dans
45
Antoinette,” Le Pianiste, July 1834, 132–35; its attribu- l’oreille entre deux propos d’amour” (Camille Saint-Saëns,
46 tion to Taskin in “Nouvelles diverses,” Revue et Gazette “Le ‘Rappel’ à l’Exposition: Les instruments de musique,”
47 Musicale de Paris, July 7, 1867, 219. Le Rappel, October 5, 1889/14 vendémiaire an 98, 1–2, 2).
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in particular through Diémer and other pianists cated.26 Baroque keyboard works associated
concertizing on the harpsichord the instrument with the harpsichord had become a staple of
was reintroduced into the salon circuits and elite concert programs by female performers, and in
concerts of Paris, keeping the repertoire alive in 1898 and 1900, for example, Bach was assigned
the circles of nobility and upper bourgeoisie.23 in the end-of-year competitions for female pi-
Furthermore, concerts by ensembles such as the ano students at the Paris Conservatoire.27 This
Société des Instruments Anciens—founded in contrasts with the far more masculine image
1895 by Louis van Waefelghem (viola d’amore) associated with both Handel’s and Bach’s organ
with Jules Delsart (viola da gamba), Laurent works as championed by Saint-Saëns, Charles-
Grillet (hurdy-gurdy), and Louis Diémer (harp- Marie Widor, and Alexandre Guilmant, among
sichord)—started to bring into the more main- others.28 Around 1900, however, we see shifts
stream worlds of Parisian music a repertoire in repertoire, with more and more male pianists
played on “authentic instruments,” as they were integrating Bach, Handel, and the French harp-
called then and now.24 The harpsichord also sichord composers into their concert programs,
began to attract composers, including Francis albeit mostly still on the piano.29 Indeed, play-
Thomé (who wrote a rigadon for harpsichord ing the works of the French clavecinistes became
in 1889), Armande de Polignac, and Marie a form of local legitimization, as in the case of
Prestat.25 Joaquín Nin, whose 1904 debut concert in Paris
As Katharine Ellis has recently shown in her included pieces by Chambonnières, Couperin,
magisterial monograph on the revival of early and Rameau.30
music in nineteenth-century France, music from But Bach and his contemporaries also re-
the past played an increasingly significant role mained firmly in the domain of female pianists
in nineteenth-century Parisian concert life. By and harpsichordists. Most prominent among
1900 early music formed an unquestioned part these was the young pianist Blanche Selva.
of the repertoire, but not all early music carried Barely twenty years old, Selva presented Bach’s
the same weight. The gendered connotations complete keyboard works in 1904 in seventeen
of keyboard music had become rather compli- piano recitals at the Schola Cantorum, a feat that
she then repeated in subsequent years. A review
23. On the class-specific consumption of early music see in 1906 designated her as “without doubt Bach’s
Catrina Flint de Medicis, “Nationalism and Early Music at most worthy priestess.”31 Selva also played Bach
the French fin de siècle: Three Case Studies,” Nineteenth-
Century Music Review 1 (2004): 43–66. For example,
the performance of Rameau’s Dardanus at the Polignac approaches to musical repertoire and performance. See
salon featured a harpsichord that had belonged to the fa- Annegret Fauser, “Gendering the Nations: The Ideologies
ther of Prince Edmond de Polignac (Sylvia Kahan, Music’s of French Discourse on Music (1870–1914),” in Musical
Modern Muse: A Life of Winnaretta Singer Princesse Constructions of Nationalism: Essays on the History and
de Polignac [Rochester ny: Rochester University Press, Ideology of European Musical Culture, 1800–1945, ed.
2003], 92). Prince Edmond de Polignac often “greeted Michael Murphy and Harry White (Cork: Cork University
visitors to his Parisian salon by playing his harpsichord” Press, 2001), 72–103.
(Kottick, A History of the Harpsichord, 396). 27. Katharine Ellis, “Female Pianists and Their Male
24. The Société des Instruments Anciens started its public Critics in Nineteenth-Century Paris,” Journal of the
concert series in 1895 with a sequence of three concerts at American Musicological Society 50 (1997): 353–85, esp.
the Salle Pleyel (Haine, “Concerts historiques,” 134–35). 363. As Ellis has shown, from 1897 through 1900 male
The Société’s repertoire consisted mainly of French early pianists were assigned works by Beethoven, a composer
music. never once given to women in the nineteenth century.
25. On Thomé see Kottick, A History of the Harpsichord, 28. Ellis, Interpreting the Musical Past, 55, 85–87.
400, which gives a later date of 1892 for the piece. 29. Ellis, Interpreting the Musical Past, 88.
Armande de Polignac’s unpublished “Petite suite pour 30. Carola Hess, “Nin, Joaquín,” in Grove Music Online
clavecin” and Marie Prestat’s three Pièces dans le style (Oxford University Press), <http://www.grovemusic.com>.
ancien (Menuet Louis XIV, Passepied, La reine au petit 31. “Le 16 janvier, Mlle Blanche Selva reprenait la série
lever) are mentioned in Launay, Les compositrices fran- coutumière de ses hommages à Jean-Sébastien Bach, dont
çaises, 338. Neither piece is dated. elle est sans contredit la plus digne prêtresse” (“Revue de
26. Critical discourse in France teemed with gendered la quinzaine,” s.i.m. 2, no. 1 [1906]: 117).

Fauser, Creating Madame Landowska 

1 on the harpsichord, albeit more rarely and with Landowska herself performed another one of her
2 less success. Other female harpsichordists who own pieces, Rapsodie orientale for piano, in a
3 performed in Paris during these years were concert in November 1901, during an evening
4 Pauline Auclert, Marguerite Delcourt, Elodie concert at which fifteen performers presented
5 Lelong, Régina Patorni-Casadesus, and Juliette works published by Enoch. A second concert
6 Toutain.32 Male harpsichord players included that season, organized by the journal Femina on
7 not just Louis Diémer but also a younger gen- March 14, 1902, featured her playing three of her
8 eration such as Alfred Casella, Jules Jemain, piano pieces and her variations for two pianos as
9 Joaquín Nin, and Ricardo Viñes. None of these well as accompanying four of her songs.35
10 female and male musicians was exclusively dedi- Through Enoch, Landowska also seems
11 cated to the harpsichord, but they all counted to have gained links with the publisher Pierre
12 among the growing circle of Paris’s early music Lafitte & Cie, which brought out two presti-
13 keyboard players. Their performances were gious illustrated journals, Femina and Musica,
14 complemented by their musical anthologies, both of which presented Landowska as a com-
15 lectures, and publications.33 It is this Parisian poser-pianist in those early years.36 In 1902 she
16 context that shaped and enabled the career of was featured alongside highly respected women
17 Wanda Landowska. composers such as Augusta Holmès and Cécile
18 Chaminade in an article about women’s admis-
19 The Parisian Beginnings of a sion to the Prix de Rome.37 Landowska claimed,
20 Polish Composer-Pianist “I don’t understand the puerile objections to this
21 After the young musician arrived in Paris she project, I see only the fear of competition among
22T soon started to emerge in public as both a com- the men, and that is not a pretty sentiment.”38
23 poser and a pianist. Indeed, within a year of her Less than a year later, in February 1903, the
move Enoch & Cie, one of the major Parisian same elegant but resolutely plain photograph
24
music publishers, had brought out several of her that had accompanied the Femina write-up ap-
25T
piano compositions, including the étude carac- peared as a full-page portrait in Musica, with a
26
téristique, En route, op. 4; Lied, op. 5; Rêverie brief text that presented her as a charming pia-
27
d’automne, op. 6; and Danse polonaise, op. nist and a composer of brilliant piano music:
28T
7.34 The latter was dedicated to Clothilde de
29
Kleeberg, one of the star pianists of the period. The subscribers of the Concerts Lamoureux
30
are still under the spell of the highly individual
31
32 32. Indeed, while Marguerite Delcourt was the main
33 harpsichordist of the Société de Concerts d’Instruments 34. Copies of these scores, stamped with the date of the
Anciens in its early years, Régina Casadesus prepared “dépôt legal” (copyright deposit), are at the Bibliothèque
34 herself to take over this role by studying the harpsichord nationale de France, Département de Musique.
35 with Louis Diémer (Régina Patorni-Casadesus, Souvenirs 35. Restout, Landowska on Music, 8–9. See also Max
36 d’une claveciniste: Ma famille Casadesus [Paris: La Ruche Rivière, “Nos musiciennes et le Prix de Rome,” Femina,
Ouvrière, 1962], 54–55). April 15, 1902, 115–16: “Mme Wanda Landowska est
37 33. When Van Waefelghem’s Société des Instruments une physionomie curieuse et séduisante qu’ont pu ap-
38 Anciens gave its first concert series in March and April précier les spectatrices du concert de Femina le 14 mars
39 1895 in the Salle Pleyel, the programs were introduced dernier” (116).
by conference-causéries (introductory remarks) (Haine, 36. Around 1900 Enoch had close business links with
40 “Concerts historiques,” 134–35). Lectures accompany- Lafitte. See the documents in the private archives of
41 ing concerts became a regular, if not unexpected, feature Gabriel Astruc preserved in the Archives nationales,
42 in concerts of early music. Marie Mockel organized a Papiers Astruc, 409ap/1.
series of five concerts featuring “une exposition complète 37. On female self-representation and strategies and male
43 du chant monodique,” with lectures by Julien Tiersot (Le resistance in the early years of women’s competition for
44 Ménestrel 71 [1905]: 157), while Magda le Goff’s 1907 the Prix de Rome see Fauser, “La Guerre en dentelles.”
45 concerts, “Musique de XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles,” were ac- 38. “[J]e ne comprends pas les objections puériles faites à
companied by a lecture by Henri Expert (s.i.m. 3 [1907]: ce projet, je ne vois guère chez les hommes que la crainte
46 167–68). In 1906 Joaquín Nin presented a series of twelve de la concurrence et ce n’est pas un sentiment bien joli”
47 lecture-recitals on musical form (s.i.m. 2 [1906]: 318–19). (Rivière, “Nos musiciennes et le Prix de Rome,” 116).
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 ly made her appearance in France, is a compa-
triot of Chopin, and she too [is] a pianist and
composer.”40 As a Polish composer in the good
company of the Romanian Georges Enesco and
the Russian Vladimir Dyck, Landowska was
celebrated as a prizewinner in Musica’s 1903–4
composition “tournament,” where she shared
first prize for an unspecified piano composition
and won second prize for a song.41 Thus her na-
tionality added a special flavor of cosmopolitan-
ism and artistic lineage to her artistic persona as
a composer-pianist.
Her debut as a pianist in a major Parisian
concert took place on February 16, 1902, at
the Concerts Lamoureux, where she performed
Mozart’s Piano Concerto in E-flat Major, K.
271. In a lukewarm review the critic for Le
Ménestrel attested to a “certain elegance” in
her rendering of this “charming concerto.”42
Her first appearance in a concert associated
Fig. 1. “Wanda Landowska,” Musica 2 (1903), 73 (Biblio-
with the Schola Cantorum occurred two months
thèque nationale de France)
later, on April 26, 1902, in the context of a
Bach cantata evening during which she played
talent with which she played a delicate Mozart
a prelude and fugue in F major by Bach and his
concerto last year, and the worshipers at the
second partita, both on the piano.43 Most of
Schola Cantorum consider her the dream in-
her documented performances between April
terpreter of Bach. She is the author of brilliant
1902 and June 1903 were connected with the
piano compositions and of a number of songs
Schola Cantorum, usually in the guise of a short
that are animated by the powerful spirit of her
Polish fatherland. Is she more composer than
virtuoso or more virtuoso than composer? The peut-être est-elle les deux avec un égal talent” (“Wanda
Landowska,” Musica 2 [1903]: 73).
future will pronounce: perhaps she is equally
40. “Mme Wanda Landowska qui n’a fait que depuis
talented as either.39 peu de temps, si je ne me trompe, son apparition en France,
est une compatriote de Chopin, pianiste et compositeur
elle aussi” (review signed P.L., in Le Courrier Musical,
In this short promotional text the comparison
December 15, 1902, 299). I am grateful to Catrina Flint
with Chopin, the great Polish composer-pianist, de Medicis for sharing this review with me.
is all too obvious. Indeed, two months earlier a 41. “La Russie est représentée par M. Vladimir Dyck,
la Pologne par Mme Wanda Landowska, la Roumanie par
reviewer had already made the link explicitly by
M. Georges Enesco” (Bretigny, “Les lauréats du tournoi,”
explaining to his readers that “Madame Wanda Musica 3 [1904]: 244–48, 247).
Landowska, who, if I am right, has only recent- 42. “Il s’agit d’une séance agréable sans rien de préci-
sément captivant. Mme Wanda Landowska s’est assurée
un joli succès auprès d’une assistance sympathique; elle
39. “Les abonnés des Concerts Lamoureux sont encore a joué avec une certaine élégance le charmant concerto
sous le charme du talent si personnel avec lequel elle joua pour piano en mi bémol de Mozart” (Alice Hudnall Cash,
l’an dernier un délicat concerto de Mozart et les fervents “Wanda Landowska and the Revival of the Harpsichord:
de la Schola Cantorum la considèrent comme l’interprète A Reassessment,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of
rêvée de Bach. Auteur de brillantes compositions pour Kentucky, 1990, 53 n. 18).
piano et de quelques lieder qu’anime le souffle puissant 43. I am grateful to Catrina Flint de Medicis for shar-
de la patrie polonaise. Est-elle plus compositeur que vir- ing with me the program for the second concert in the
tuose ou plus virtuose que compositeur? L’avenir le dira: second series of sacred Bach cantatas on April 26, 1902.

Fauser, Creating Madame Landowska 

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21 Fig. 2: Wanda Landowska, “Une leçon de piano,” Femina, 15 February 1904, 54 (Collection of the Author)
22T
23 appearance within the concert series dedicated was featured in Femina in an article in which
24 to either Bach or Mozart. Save for her per- she promoted herself as such to the daughters
25T formance of an unspecified piano concerto by of the journal’s readership.45 This not only gave
26 Mozart on November 27, 1902, she appeared her some economic stability but also played on
27 not as a soloist but as a chamber music player in the trope of female nurturing that pervaded dis-
28T Mozart evenings.44 course on teaching in Third Republic France.46
29 The years immediately after Landowska’s ar- The article in Femina is illustrated by pictures
30 rival in Paris thus brought her moderate success that emphasize the motherly quality of music
31 as a Polish composer-pianist whose achieve- teaching, while her text reproduces the by then
32 ments were compared to those of Chopin and, familiar clichés of femininity in performance
33 to a lesser extent, Paderewski. While Landowska by contrasting male virtuosity with female el-
34 clearly tried to explore where this path might egance, especially by stressing the need for “the
35 lead her, she tried other career tactics typical finest and most delicate hand” in order to play
36 of women musicians in Paris. She established
37 herself as a sought-after piano teacher and
38 perpetuated the ideal of “Republican motherhood.” See,
39 in particular, Françoise Mayeur, L’éducation des filles en
44. During the 1902–3 season Landowska appeared France au XIXe siècle (Paris: Hachette, 1979); Linda L.
40 as a chamber music player in all three concerts of the Clark, Schooling the Daughters of Marianne: Textbooks
41 Mozart cycle on December 8, 1902, January 15, 1903, and the Socialization of Girls in Modern French Primary
42 and February 13, 1903. I am grateful to Catrina Flint de Schools (Albany: State University of New York Press,
Medicis for the information on these concerts. 1984); Jo Burr Margadant, Madame le Professeur:
43 45. Wanda Landowska, “Une leçon de piano,” Femina, Women Educators in the Third Republic (Princeton:
44 February 15, 1904, 54. Princeton University Press, 1990); Anne T. Quartararo,
45 46. Teaching as a female profession was strongly encour- Women Teachers and Popular Education in Nineteenth-
aged by successive governments in Third Republic France. Century France: Social Values and Corporate Identity at
46 Discourse focused not only on women’s pseudomaternal the Normal School Institution (Newark: University of
47 roles as teachers but also on gender-specific teachings that Delaware Press, 1995).
48
49
50
 Women & Music Volume 10
51
52
the feminine repertoire of Bach, Haydn, and ters from the past. Bordes’ letter to Landowska
Mozart.47 from July 1903, which is normally used to prove
But while Landowska tapped into the career that he discouraged her from playing the harpsi-
opportunities and rhetoric of teaching, she also chord, offers insight into this strategy of special-
sought out allies and supporters, whether in ization. After his sideswipe against the instru-
the context of Parisian journalism or through ment, Bordes suggested that she should create
the institutions of the French capital. This was a “splendid specialty” by playing the works of
clearly her strategy in terms of her affiliation Bach, Couperin, Chambonnières, and Rameau,
from 1902 onward with the Schola Cantorum and he offered “to give a whole series of con-
(founded in 1894), which was known as a place certs with you this winter, at the Schola, to build
hospitable to women and foreigners, in contrast up your name in this repertoire.”50 It seems that
to the Conservatoire, which was closed to for- only one concert happened and that the rest of
eigners and dominated by men.48 Landowska’s the series that Bordes planned for Landowska
link to the institution seems to have been mainly was cancelled after Bordes’ stroke in the same
through Charles Bordes, a composer trained by month.
César Franck who, in the 1890s, became best The first of these concerts, the “Concert of
known for his work on early music through the French Music of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth
performances in particular of Renaissance po- Centuries,” took place at the Schola Cantorum
lyphony with his chapel choir, the Chanteurs on November 12, 1903. Masterminded by Bordes
de Saint-Gervais. Bordes was the driving force to celebrate the national heritage of France, the
behind the foundation of the Schola Cantorum concert opened the winter season at the Schola
and dominated its concert activities for the first with “the flowers of Rameau, Clérambault, du
decade.49 Mont, etc. . . . nothing but French.”51 This mul-
As a soloist Landowska’s specialization in tiartist concert featured Landowska playing,
Baroque and Classical keyboard music not only for the first time, French Baroque repertoire,
associated her with a newly canonic repertoire with three dances each by Chambonnières,
traditionally associated with female perform- Louis Couperin, and François Couperin as
ers but also enabled her, like numerous other well as Rameau’s Les tricotets, La poule, and
female performers of the period, to style herself L’Egyptienne. It is clear that Landowska’s
as a specialist, serving the music of great mas- choice of repertoire at this point relied on wide-
ly accessible editions, in particular by Diémer.52
47. “S’il est vrai qu’une certaine musique de pure virtu- Although announced in the program as a harpsi-
osité exige des mains de chef de claque, celle de Bach, de chordist, Landowska performed her selection of
Haydn, de Mozart peut et même doit être jouée avec la
main la plus fine et la plus délicate” (Landowska, “Une
leçon de piano,” 54). For the gendering of piano reper- 50. Restout, Landowska on Music, 10.
toire since the early nineteenth century see Ellis, “Female 51. Charles Bordes to Maurice Emmanuel, September 4,
Pianists.” 1903, cited in Bernard Molla, “Charles Bordes: Pionnier
48. For substantive research on the Schola Cantorum and du renouveau musical français entre 1890 et 1909,”
the complex economic and artistic shifts relating to the Ph.D. dissertation, Université de Lyon II, 1986, 3:289. In
roles of Charles Bordes and Vincent d’Indy see Catrina an earlier letter of August 1, 1903, to Emmanuel Bordes
Flint de Medicis, “The Schola Cantorum, Early Music, emphasized that his preoccupation “maintenant c’est le
and French Cultural Politics,” Ph.D. dissertation, McGill triomphe de la musique française et le culte qu’on doit en
University, 2006. avoir” (288).
49. Landowska credited Bordes as the key figure of the 52. Several of the pieces (such as Rameau’s La poule
French early music revival in her 1909 book Musique and L’Egyptienne) were published in the first edition
ancienne. “En France, nous voyons à la tête du mouve- of Diémer’s Les clavecinistes français du XVIIIe siècle.
ment tous les plus grands musiciens: Saint-Saëns, D’Indy, Couperin—Daquin—Rameau. 20 pièces choisies et tran-
Debussy, Dukas, et cet infatigable Bordes, auquel nous scrites par Louis Diémer (Paris: Durand & Schœnewerk,
devons tant” (Wanda Landowska, avec la collaboration 1887). It is unclear how much autonomy Landowska
de M. Henri Lew-Landowski, Musique ancienne [repr., had in this concert as far as the choice of repertoire is
Paris: Editions Ivrea, 1996], 232). concerned.

Fauser, Creating Madame Landowska 

1 works on the piano, a decision that the reviewer of the Schola of representing the monumental
2 of Le Courrier Musical criticized as stylistically work, Selva started her first Bach cycle (on the
3 problematic because “the abundant ornamenta- piano), establishing her reputation as the unri-
4 tion, meant to compensate for the dryness of the valled interpreter of Bach, a composer who had
5 harpsichord and to bring into relief the accents two Parisian societies dedicated to spreading his
6 of the melodic line, becomes useless overfilling gospel: the Société des Concerts J. S. Bach and
7 on the piano.”53 What this and other reviews the Fondation J. S. Bach. Indeed, Selva was to
8 indicate is an awareness in musical circles of dominate Bach performance at the Schola for
9 performance issues regarding late-seventeenth- years to come. “A star of the first order,” she
10 and early-eighteenth-century harpsichord music. was praised as a commanding performer “who
11 These reviews also encourage rather than dis- better than anyone else . . . knows how to trace
12 courage attempts at historically informed per- the form of the god in powerful lines.”55 While
13 formance practice on “authentic” instruments. Landowska began to establish herself in Paris as
14 This is a far cry from Landowska’s later claims both a composer-pianist and a competent per-
15 to being a pioneer, especially given that the re- former of early music, she could not rival the
16 view in Le Courrier Musical actually chastised Schola-sanctioned reputation of Selva as Bach
17 her for playing on the piano. player during those years.
18 When Bordes’ stroke brought about his mar- Consequently, in 1904 Landowska seemed
19 ginalization within the Schola and aided the rise no more visible in the Paris concert circuit than
20 of his colleague, the composer, teacher, and con- in 1902–3. After winning the Musica tourna-
21 ductor Vincent d’Indy, Landowska lost this in- ment in January 1904 she played in the salon of
22T stitution as a performance environment. Almost Madame Maurice Gallet in February.56 Also in
23 immediately after taking over d’Indy shifted the February 1904 Landowska seems to have given
24 aesthetic priorities of the Schola Cantorum to- her first major solo recital, an all-Bach evening,
25T ward a more monumental conception of history, in the Salle Erard. It included mostly Bach’s
26 a change reflected in the concert programming so-called pianistic works—those on a smaller
27 of the school, where large-scale performanc- scale written for harpsichord and performed
28T es—starting with Monteverdi’s Orfeo—took the by female musicians for decades rather than
29 place of the more eclectic approach of Bordes. his organ compositions—and some of his more
30 D’Indy also clearly began to push his protégée, “commanding” works, such as the Chromatic
31 the young Bach interpreter Blanche Selva, at the Fantasy and Fugue. This was the first occasion
32 expense of Landowska, who had been aligned when Landowska played several pieces publicly
33 with Bordes.54 In January 1904, in the new spirit on the harpsichord, following the concert model
34 that Diémer had launched almost half a century
35 before, when he began to include performances
36 53. See the review in Le Courrier Musical, December 1, on the harpsichord in his piano recitals. An un-
1903, 329:
37
Mme Wanda Landowska nous a fait entendre un très
38 beau choix de pièces de clavecin, les unes un peu frêles, de
54. The extent to which Landowska was absent from
39 d’Indy’s musical world can be seen in his published cor-
Chambonnières, d’autres, au contraire, d’une beauté sin-
respondence, in which Landowska is not mentioned once.
40 gulièrement hardie et expressive, comme la “Passacaille”
See Vincent d’Indy, Ma vie: Journal de jeunesse—cor-
de François Couperin. Nous fûmes un peu surpris de les
41 entendre au piano. L’ornementation très abondante, des-
respondance familiale et intime, 1851–1931, ed. Marie
42 d’Indy (Paris: Editions Séguier, 2001).
tinée à suppléer à la sécheresse du clavecin et à mettre
55. “Revue de la quinzaine,” s.i.m. 2 (1906): 117 (“une
43 en reliefs les accents de la phrase mélodique, devient au
étoile de première grandeur”), 519 (“mieux que tout autre
piano une surcharge inutile. . . . Mais louons sans réserve
44 la compréhension et les qualités techniques fort remar-
elle sait dessiner en lignes puissantes la figure du dieu”).
45 56. On her performance in Gallet’s salon see Myriam
quables dont Mme Landowska a fait preuve.
Chimènes, Mécènes et musiciens: Du salon au concert
46 I am grateful to Catrina Flint de Medicis for communi- à Paris sous la IIIe République (Paris: Fayard, 2004),
47 cating the program and the review to me. 184–85.
48
49
50
10 Women & Music Volume 10
51
52
identified reviewer praised her as an “excellent established by the impresario and editor Gabriel
interpreter” of Bach and lauded in particular her Astruc.59 In Astruc, Landowska found—at least
“very beautiful performance” of the Chromatic at the outset—an experienced manager who be-
Fantasy and Fugue on the piano and her “ex- lieved in her and who helped her channel her
traordinarily colorful” rendition of the gigue desire for fame and fortune into a clear and high-
from the Partita No. 1 in B-flat Major on a mod- ly successful strategy. A five-year contract guar-
ern Erard harpsichord.57 As a result, an article anteed Landowska a minimum annual income
on eighteenth-century female harpsichord play- of 6,000 francs. While its conditions were rather
ers, published in Musica in April 1904, refers in restrictive compared to those of Astruc with, for
its introduction to Landowska, “the remarkable example, the opera stars Lucienne Bréval and
Bach interpreter who played various pieces by Lina Cavalieri, it nevertheless seemed to boost
her favorite master on the harpsichord,” while Landowska’s enthusiasm for and commitment
a sister harpsichordist, Elodie Lelong, had just to a career as an early music specialist.60 After
ravished the musical world with a harpsichord signing the contract Landowska must have felt
recital on her own historic instruments.58 But that she was on her way to becoming for early
compared to other musicians such as Selva, music keyboard playing what Cavalieri was for
Landowska made little headway in Parisian con- opera: a glorious and glamorous star.61 As he did
cert life during these months. with other musicians, Astruc saw success as a
multistep campaign: an international tour came
Career Shifts and Identity Slippages first, followed by the great presentation in Paris.
Things changed dramatically, however, in From November 1904 to January 1905 Astruc
September 1904, when Landowska signed up sent Landowska on a European tour to Brussels,
with the Société Musicale, the new concert agency Berlin, Vienna, Budapest, Venice, and Brescia,
about which she and her husband reported in
almost daily telegrams, celebrating success after
57. Cash wrongly cites a review for this concert, which
she dates February 7, 1904, as published in Le Ménestrel
success.62
on February 15, 1903:
sède une superbe collection de vieux instruments et de
Mme Wanda Landowska s’est montrée excellente
manuscrits musicaux des VXIIe et XVIIIe siècles et à qui
interprète des œuvres de Sébastien Bach dans un récital
nous devons plusieurs indications précieuses, a passionné
qu’elle a donné mercredi dernier, salle Erard. Son pro-
le monde musical par l’audition de clavecin qu’elle vient
gramme comprenait en majorité les compositions de
de donner au Figaro” (Robert Brussel, “Les femmes clave-
caractère “pianistique”; exception faite toutefois pour la
cinistes,” Musica 3 [1904]: 288–99, 289).
Fantaisie chromatique, œuvre d’une puissance extraordi-
59. On the contract see Chimènes, Mécènes et musiciens,
naire, souveraine, dont l’exécution a été fort belle. Mme
396. The contract is preserved at the Archives nationales,
Landowska n’a pas commis la faute de séparer les deux
Papiers Astruc, 409ap/23.
parties; mais elle produit en quittant une à une toutes les
60. The contract apportioned Landowska between 50
notes de l’accord en ré mineur, pour commencer la fugue
and 60 percent of any honorarium, depending upon
[sic]. Certaines œuvres ont été jouées sur le piano, d’autres
whether it was a private or public concert, and 40 per-
sur un beau clavecin construit par la maison Erard. Parmi
cent of the gross income of any concert organized by
ces dernières, la Gigue, qui fait partie de la partita no.
Astruc. Lucienne Bréval, in contrast, kept 95 percent of
1, en si bémol, a été bissée d’acclamation. Cette mu-
her honoraria. See the contract of December 3, 1908, be-
sique, grâce à la variété des jeux de pédales du clavecin,
tween Raoul Gunsbourg and Lucienne Bréval, preserved
prend un coloris extraordinaire, éblouissant. (“Wanda
in her dossier d’artiste at the Bibliothèque de l’Opéra. See
Landowska,” 57 n. 26)
Lina Cavalieri’s dossier in the Archives nationales, Papiers
This (clearly misquoted) review does not seem to have Astruc, 409ap/18.
been published in Le Ménestrel either in 1903 or in 1904; 61. In a bitter letter of December 30, 1905, Landowska
nevertheless, it refers clearly to the concert mentioned in reproached Astruc that while she was short-changed and
Musica in April 1904. badly treated, never being accompanied on travels in the
58. “Dans un récent concert donné dans la salle Erard, way other artists were, she had kept to her side of the con-
Mme Wanda Landowska, la remarquable interprète de tract by going from success to success in the concert hall
Bach, a exécuté diverses pièces de son maître préféré sur (Archives nationales, Papiers Astruc, 409ap/23).
le clavecin. Elle a trouvé auprès du public l’accueil le plus 62. The telegrams are preserved in Landowska’s file,
enthousiaste. D’autre part, Mme Elodie Lelong, qui pos- Archives nationales, Papiers Astruc, 409ap/23.

Fauser, Creating Madame Landowska 11

1
table 1.
2
3 Landowska’s Concerts, November 1904 to May 1906
4
1904 11 November Brussels, Cercle Artistique
5
19 November Berlin
6
23 November Vienna
7
26 November Berlin: Voltes & Valses
8
3 December Vienna
9
16 December Budapest
10
11 1905 6 January Venice
12 7 January Brescia
13 31 January Paris (Société Philharmonique)
14 10 February Paris (Salle Pleyel): Voltes & Valses
15 17 February Paris (La Trompette)
16 18 February Paris (Ecole Normale de Musique)
17 20 February Paris (Salle Pleyel): Voltes & Valses
18 25 February Paris (Bouffes Parisiens)
19 26 February Paris (Arts & Métiers)
20 27 February Paris (salon Mme Gallet)
21 10 March Paris (salon Mr. de Monier)
22T 11 March Paris: inaugural concert of Société J. S. Bach
23 12 March Paris (Concert Polonais)
24 3 April Paris (Cours Européen—Matinée)
25T 11 & 15 April London (Queen’s Hall)
26 24 May London
27 5 June London (Bechstein Hall)
28T 15 November Edinburgh: Bach & ses contemporains
29 22 & 24 November Madrid (Sociedad Filarmonica Madrileña)
30 28 November Berlin
31 1 December Vienna
32 4 December Leipzig
33 6 December Vienna (concert Spalding)
34 18 December Vienna (Secession)
35 1906 15 February Paris (Ecole des Hautes Etudes Sociales)
36 18 February Paris (Concerts Colonne)
37 23 February Paris (Reinach)
38 25 February Paris (Princesse de Polignac): Voltes & Valses
39 15 March Paris (Ecole des Hautes Etudes Sociales)
40 21 March Paris (Société J. S. Bach)
41 30 March Paris (Salle Pleyel): Musique pastorale
42 9 April Florence: Mozart Piano Concerto
43 18 & 19 May Paris (Bibliothèque nationale): French Miniatures
44 22 May Paris (Ecole des Hautes Etudes Sociales)
45
46 Source: The table is based on information found at the Archives nationales, Papiers Astruc, 409ap/2 and 409ap/23, as
well as Parisian periodicals. The list also incorporates notes in Landowska’s calendars for these years, preserved at the
47 Library of Congress.
48
49
50
51
52
 In Berlin Landowska performed on both a as a performer of exquisite musical rarities on
“beautiful, sonorous” Pleyel grand piano and one unusual instruments. Thus in February 1905,
of Pleyel’s modern harpsichords. In addition to on her return to Paris, she presented two solo
unspecified works by Bach, her program includ- recitals at the Salle Pleyel that were advertised as
ed Couperin’s Les folies françaises, a sarabande “a piano, fortepiano, and harpsichord recital in
by Mattheson, and the Grobschmiedvariationen which she invokes Bach and his contemporaries”
by Handel.63 Her Parisian debut as a dedicated and that presented a history of the waltz from
early music keyboard soloist with a new pro- Byrd’s La volta to Chopin’s valses.65 She intro-
gramming strategy was scheduled for February duced the instruments to her audience through
1905 and prepared via a press campaign, includ- a short verbal commentary before playing the
ing a feature article in Musica (see below). various pieces on their appropriate instruments:
As we may infer from later letters, Astruc and voltas by Byrd, Chambonnières, and Morley on
Landowska seem in September and October the harpsichord, followed by Schubert’s Valses
1904 to have carved out her new image as that nobles and Valses sentimentales on the fortepia-
of a passionate performer of early keyboard mu- no, and the Valse des sylphes (Berlioz/Liszt) and
sic on authentic instruments and their modern an unspecified waltz by Chopin on the piano.66
siblings, foregrounding the performance practice The chronological organization of the program
over the repertoire. Through dress, performance, aligned several hundred years of keyboard
and rhetoric Landowska and her manager start- music with the developments of the various in-
ed to emphasize her femininity and elegance in struments, crafting a symbiotic relationship be-
ways customary for press campaigns for divas. tween musical and technical shifts that allowed
No longer promoting her professionalism as a the audience to enjoy aurally and visually what
Polish composer-pianist and piano teacher, her Landowska four years later called “the jouis-
revamped artistic identity played on a gendered sance of the sense of history.”67
trope of female self-representation that was The program contained a novelty, an 1830
probably familiar to Astruc, whose emphasis as Pleyel forte-piano that was Landowska’s dis-
impresario rested on opera and who represented covery and at first hers to perform on. While
some of the best-known singers of the time.64 other musicians rivaled her on the harpsichord
Landowska’s earlier concerts had focused on (in 1905, most notably, Marguerite Delcourt),
repertoire, as in her 1904 Bach evening or the Landowska was the one to introduce the fort-
Bordes concert of French keyboard music in epiano to Parisian audiences. But someone else
November 1903. Now her programming strat- soon threatened her exclusive use of the instru-
egy, in addition to highlighting her femininity ment. Marked “very urgent,” a letter to Astruc
and aristocratic mystique, shifted dramatically revealed the danger in a cry for help that reflects
to emphasize her exceptionality and specificity
invoque J. S. Bach et ses contemporains” (Je Sais Tout:
63. “Die Pianistin bot nur Bach und seine Zeitgenossen Magasin Encyclopédique Illustré, February 15, 1905,
und zwar zur Hälfte auf einem schönen, klangvollen 186). The recitals took place on February 10 and 20, 1905.
Pleyelschen Flügel, zur Hälfte auf einem in derselben For the program see Jean Marnold, “Musique,” Mercure
Fabrik hergestellten Clavecin” (M.St., “Konzerte,” de France, March 1, 1905, 133–38, 137. According to this
Signale für die musikalische Welt 62 [1904]: 1170). review, the program contained numerous pieces that were
64. Lyric artists represented the vast majority of his con- also given on February 25, 1906, at the Polignac salon
cert agency business. The artists’ dossiers are part of the (Kahan, Music’s Modern Muse, 380).
Astruc papers preserved at the Archives nationales, with 66. A draft of her notes on the fortepiano, with corrections
those of singers filling seven boxes alone (409ap/16–22), in red ink in the hand of Astruc, can be found in Archives
compared to a single box (409ap/23) for all the pianists, nationales, Papiers Astruc, 409ap/23. Landowska incor-
organists, and harpists he represented, including Ferruccio porated some of her notes on the fortepiano into the chap-
Busoni, Alfred Cortot, Raoul Pugno, Arthur Rubinstein, ter “Le clavecin” in Musique ancienne, 177–91.
and Ricardo Viñes. 67. “[L]a jouissance du sens historique” (Landowska,
65. “[U]n récital de piano, piano-forte et clavecin, où elle Musique ancienne, 119).

Fauser, Creating Madame Landowska 13

1 the importance she invested in the instruments
2 themselves for her new artistic identity:
3
4 Yvette Guilbert wants to steal the fortepiano in
5 order to plug it into her sessions (at the same
6 time as the harpsichord). I need continuous use
7 of it for concerts & for sessions that I give at
8 home for the press. Y. Guilbert can very well do
9 without it given that until now she only used the
10 piano and harpsichord. It is I who have found
11 this old box at Pleyel; nobody cared about it
12 before my concert. Mademoiselle Delcourt
13 has never studied this instrument. One cannot
14 permit it to be vulgarized in a maladroit man-
15 ner, especially since once it is in the hands of
16 Schiller he will stuff it in all his sessions, and I
17 will never have it again.
18 I hope, dear friend, that you will explain
19 this all to Lyon, who promised at the begin-
Fig. 3. Yvette Guilbert in eighteenth-century costume,
20 ning that he would not let the harpsichords be
March 1905. Photograph in “Yvette Guilbert, par Yvette
21 dragged around everywhere, remember? As far Guilbert,” Musica 7 (1 November 1908), 171 (Music
22T as the fortepiano is concerned, before I have had Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
23 enough time to impose it on the press and the
24 public, someone who does not know how to play ent her new artistic persona. Formerly a caba-
25T it will compromise it! will steal it from me.68 ret star of Montmartre, the famous singer had
26 transformed herself into an early music per-
27 But Landowska pleaded in vain. The fortepiano former who celebrated the French chansons
28T was to enter the new show of Yvette Guilbert, an anciennes in concerts. She wore eighteenth-
29 unsuspected and at first glance unlikely rival in century costumes in a series of semistaged works at
30 the Parisian world of early music. the Bouffes parisiens between March 23 and
31 After a long and successful tour through April 14, 1905.69
32 the United States and parts of Europe Yvette Accompanied in her concerts by Casadesus’
33 Guilbert had returned in 1905 to Paris to pres- Société de Concerts d’Instruments Anciens, Guilbert
34 presented herself to the public as a specialist in
35 the repertoire and an informed, “hardworking
68. Gustave Lyon was then director of Pleyel; Maxime
36 Schiller was Guilbert’s husband and manager. Undated let-
37 ter (probably end of March 1905) from Wanda Landowska
to Gabriel Astruc, Archives nationales, 409ap/23: J’espère, cher ami, que vous expliquerez tout cela à
38 Lyon, qui au commencement a promis qu’il ne laissera pas
39 Yvette Guilbert veut nous enlever de piano-forte pour trop traîner les clavecins, vous en rappelez vous? Quant au
le fourrer dans ses séances (en même temps que le clave- pianoforte avant que j’ai eu assez de temps pour l’imposer
40 cin). J’en ai besoin sans cesse pour des soirées & pour des à la Presse et au public, quelqu’un qui ne sait pas jouer
41 séances que je donne chez moi pour la presse. Y. Guilbert dessus va le compromettre! va me l’enlever.
42 pourrait très bien s’en passer puisque jusqu’à maintenant
elle se servait du piano & clavec. seulement. C’est moi 69. Noëlle Giret, ed., Yvette Guilbert: Diseuse fin de siècle
43 qui a trouvé cette vieille boîte chez Pleyel; tout le monde (Paris: Bibliothèque nationale de France, 1995), 77. While
44 s’en moquait avant mon concert. Mlle Delcourt n’a jamais Guilbert performed chansons anciennes already in 1901,
étudié cet instrument. Il ne faut pas permettre à ce qu’on she herself saw this concert series in historic costume
45
le vulgarise maladroitement, surtout qu’une fois dans les as a marker in establishing her “second” career (Yvette
46 mains de Schiller il va le fourrer dans toutes ses séances et Guilbert, La chanson de ma vie [Paris: Bernard Castel,
47 je ne l’aurai plus. 1927], 191–200).
48
49
50
14 Women & Music Volume 10
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scholar.”70 The show had already competed with while in May Reynaldo Hahn organized two
Landowska’s Concerts in Berlin in November concerts, one dedicated to Lully, the other to
and December 1904, where Guilbert and the Rameau. Not only did the Société de Concerts
Société de Concerts d’Instruments Anciens per- d’Instruments Anciens perform at these occa-
formed to both a sold-out Bechsteinsaal and, the sions, but Diémer played three Rameau pieces
week after, a full Beethovensaal.71 In Paris jour- on the harpsichord in between operatic numbers
nalists credited her with bringing to life this old by the same composer.75
repertoire: “the harpsichord, made fashionable Competition for Landowska the harpsichord-
again by the chansons of Yvette Guilbert and also ist and early keyboard specialist was therefore
thanks to the agile fingers and impeccable and quite strong in 1905 Paris, and she needed to
charming technique of Mademoiselle Delcourt.” distinguish herself even more sharply from other
Delcourt was hailed as the Parisian “queen of musicians than in previous years. Her public
the harpsichord” in 1905.72 But to add insult to persona differed from that of Delcourt, who per-
injury for Landowska, Delcourt not only per- formed in an ensemble under the paternal guid-
formed solo harpsichord music of Couperin and ance of the venerable French composer Camille
Lully in Guilbert’s shows at the Bouffes Parisiens Saint-Saëns, the cofounder and president of
but also—as they evolved over the weeks—ac- the Société de Concerts d’Instruments Anciens;
companied her on the 1830 fortepiano, supplied Delcourt’s subservient place was far more fit-
by Pleyel, in a series of four songs grouped under ting to traditional female roles. In the concerts
the title “chanson ‘1830.’”73 The self-conscious with the Société de Concerts d’Instruments
illusion of historical authenticity could not have Anciens Delcourt played some solo repertoire,
been pushed further.74 such as Couperin’s Carillon de Cythère, but
But in the spring of 1905 Guilbert and the she mainly performed as a continuo player and
Société de Concerts d’Instruments Anciens accompanist, as she had already previously in
were not the only performers to contend with several concerts with Bordes’ Chanteurs de
Landowska for preeminence in the vibrant Saint-Gervais.76
Parisian concert life dedicated to early music. In contrast, Landowska worked unremitting-
On March 27 Ricardo Viñes presented a “his- ly on becoming a star performer and recognized
toric concert” on an “authentic harpsichord,” soloist by throwing herself into the battle with,

70. “Chercheuse, travailleuse, elle est par conséquent ren- 1904–5 at the Bouffes Parisiens, Bibliothèque nationale
seignée” (G. Davenay, “Yvette Guilbert XVIIIe siècle: La de France, Arts du Spectacle, Fonds Rondel, Ro.16.087:
Guimard de la chanson,” Le Figaro, March 23, 1905, 4). “chanson ‘1830’ / a. Les Husards de la Garde / b. La Rue
“Depuis plusieurs années déjà, l’intelligente artiste s’était d’Anjou et de Poitou / c. La Lisette / d. Tirez le Rideau /
faite collectionneuse d’antiquailles inédites; il était juste Mme Yvette Guilbert accompagnée au Pianoforte (1830)
qu’elle nous invitât à goûter les fruits de ses patientes et par Mlle Delcourt.”
laborieuses recherches” (Les Annales du Théâtre et de la 74. On nineteenth-century discussions about authentic-
Musique 1906:418). ity in performance of early music see Fauser, Musical
71. “Yvette Guilbert führte in dem bis zum letzten Platz Encounters, 39–42.
besetzten Bechstein-Saal die Pariser Société des Concerts 75. Hahn’s concerts were advertised and reviewed in
d’instruments in Deutschland ein”; “in dem bis auf den great detail and with comments about issues such as
letzten Platz belegten Beethovensaal” (“Konzerte,” Signale authenticity and performing practice in Le Ménestrel 71
für die musikalische Welt 62 [1904]: 1202, 1234). (1905): 142, 159, 164, 173. On Viñes see “Théâtres et
72. “Voilà le clavecin remis en vogue par les chansons concerts,” La Revue Musicale 5 (1905): 215: “Premier
d’Yvette Guilbert et aussi grâce aux doigts agiles et à la concert historique de M. R. Viñes. C’est sur un clave-
technique impeccable et charmante de Mlle Delcourt” cin authentique que sont exécutées les œuvres anci-
(Davenay, “Yvette Guilbert,” 4). See also Les Annales du ennes.” The program included, among others, Purcell,
Théâtre et de la Musique, 1906:419: “Mlle Marguerite Chambonnières, Couperin, Rameau, and Bach.
Delcourt, reine du clavecin.” 76. See the programs at the Bibliothèque nationale de
73. Program of the “Représentation de Yvette Guilbert France, Arts du Spectacle, Fonds Rondel, Ro.16.087. For
dans les Chansons anciennes avec le concours de la Delcourt’s performances with the Chanteurs de Saint-
Société de Concerts d’Instruments Anciens” for the season Gervais see Flint de Medicis, “The Schola Cantorum.”

Fauser, Creating Madame Landowska 15

1 as she wrote later, “all the energy of her youth the readers of the article encounter her as a sales
2 . . . sustained by the inner self-confidence of her advertisement for Pleyel’s instruments, an eco-
3 God-given genius.”77 While her fledgling spe- nomic role often given to female performers.81
4 cialization was that of the scholarly yet delicate What makes this article so intriguing is the fact
5 virtuoso keyboard player, the composer to that its text presents the tactical cornerstones of
6 whom she turned for validation was Johann Landowska’s newly launched career: her physi-
7 Sebastian Bach. Although her choice was not cal self-presentation, her musical specialization,
8 unusual for the time, it raised the stakes signifi- her anointing as “noble servant” to the great
9 cantly. Her declared aim was to secure her place master(s), and her programming strategies.82
10 as the foremost keyboard player of her time
11 who performed Bach in the most authentic way.
12 More striking still and in an interesting twist,
13 she instrumentalized her gender and her cosmo-
14 politanism in the service of this cause.
15 In preparation for her “launch” in Paris,
16 as Landowska’s husband, Henri Lew, put it
17 in January 1905, Musica—whose editor was
18 now Astruc—published an article entitled
19 “Wanda Landowska, or the Renaissance of the
20 Harpsichord.”78 Lavishly illustrated with photo-
21 graphs that show Landowska at a modern Pleyel
22T harpsichord, the two-page article served as a fas-
23 cinating advertisement for “Wanda,” Astruc’s Fig. 4. Wanda Landowska at the harpsichord. Robert
Brussel, “Wanda Landowska ou la renaissance du clave-
24 pet claveciniste.79 The opening sentence revealed
cin,” Musica 4 (1905): 7–8, at p. 7 (Bibliothèque nationale
25T to the Parisian readership that Landowska had de France)
26 been on tour for those last months, triumph-
27 ing as a harpsichordist in Brussels, Berlin, and After an introduction on the illustrious his-
28T Vienna by performing masterfully on modern tory of the harpsichord, especially in France, the
29 Pleyel instruments, “harpsichords of such per- author, Robert Brussel, began by representing
30 fection that the instrument museum in Berlin ac- Landowska as the modern reincarnation of the
31 quired an example for its famous collection.”80 “grandes dames clavecinistes” of the fifteenth to
32 Thus before finding out about Landowska’s role the eighteenth centuries. He had already made
33 in the musical renaissance of the harpsichord, that connection a year earlier in the same journal
34
35 77. Restout, Landowska on Music, 11. d’une perfection telle que le Musée de Musique à Berlin
36 78. Brussel, “Wanda Landowska.” For Landowska’s vient d’en acquérir un modèle pour ses célèbres collec-
“launch” see Henri Lew to Gabriel Astruc, Brescia, tions” (Brussel, “Wanda Landowska,” 7).
37 January 11, 1905, Archives nationales, Papiers Astruc, 81. While male performers from Liszt to Paderewski could
38 409ap/23: “Les concerts de Paris sont au point de vue de appear in a similar guise, endorsing specific piano manu-
39 lancement d’une importance capitale.” facturers in their performances, the blatant foregrounding
79. In the first year or so the staff at the Société Musicale of Landowska as an advertisement “model” echoes the
40 as well as Astruc himself referred to her as Wanda rather ubiquitous use of women for selling commercial products,
41 than Wanda Landowska or Madame Landowska. See the including musical ones. See Katharine Ellis, “The Fair
42 notes on the correspondence preserved at the Archives na- Sax: Women, Brass-Playing and the Instrument Trade in
tionales, Papiers Astruc, 409ap/23, and in the notebook 1860s Paris,” Journal of the Royal Musical Association
43 about letters, “Départ télégrammes; liste d’adresses, 2 124 (1999): 221–54.
44 août 1905–sept 1907” (409ap/2). 82. The trope of the “noble servant” and high priest-
45 80. “Le succès triomphal que vient remporter, à Bruxelles, ess has been explored for fin de siècle Paris by Jeanice
à Berlin, à Vienne, Mme Wanda Landowska remet en Brooks in her article “Noble et grande servante de la mu-
46 honneur le clavecin. . . . Déjà, un maître dans la facture sique: Telling the Story of Nadia Boulanger’s Conducting
47 instrumentale, M. Gustave Lyon, a produit des clavecins Career,” Journal of Musicology 14 (1996): 92–116.
48
49
50
16 Women & Music Volume 10
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in his richly illustrated article on female harpsi- and ability.86 For Brussel, Landowska’s body as
chordists that associated the praise of the mod- much as her playing turned her into the “mu-
ern harpsichordists Landowska and Lelong with sical daughter of Johann Sebastian Bach,” the
reproductions of engravings and paintings that “ideal interpreter of this music.”87 Indeed, he
showed women in historic costume seated at the summed up her achievement by claiming that
harpsichord as well as a photograph of, once “Wanda Landowska is one of the rare women
more, the harpsichord of Marie-Antoinette.83 virtuosos who do not attempt to imitate the
Aristocratic female musicianship at the harpsi- performance of men,” thus fully embodying her
chord—which he described as appropriate for gender in performance.88 Her fragile and elegant
the “fine,” “delicate,” and “subtle” aspects of femininity thus turned into a significant asset,
the instruments—was contrasted there with the one on which Landowska played throughout
musicological scholarship on early music by the her career.89 Just how quickly the popular trope
“savants musicographes,” on the one hand, and entered critical discourse can be seen in a review
with the compositional response by male French of Landowska’s February concerts (which took
musicians, on the other.84 In this context of a place just a month after this article appeared) in
journal sponsoring Landowska, the harpsichord which Jean Marnold lauded “the entirely femi-
and its ideal performer were unequivocally gen- nine grace” of her performance.90
dered feminine. But Brussel’s article contains more clues: he
After setting this feminized ancien régime showed Landowska as a diligent researcher
context for Landowska, Brussel then described who went beyond the presentation of easily ac-
her beauty as reminiscent of the fragile hero- cessible scores by unearthing hidden treasures.
ines of Maeterlinck and the Pre-Raphaelite Her “piety” as a performer and servant to great
virgins of Burne-Jones, her hands “the finest masters was thus as much proven by her assidu-
and most spiritual that could be dreamt of.”85 ous preparation—to the point of studying the
By locating Landowska’s artistic persona in her dance steps appropriate for the pieces—as it was
physiognomy Brussel played on popular imagi- audible in her tasteful playing. Her programs,
nation: through countless artifacts—whether in so Brussel claimed, were special and atmo-
popular novels or paintings—physical traits had spheric, re-creating the period from which they
become trivialized markers of human character emanated. Contrary to those of other musicians

83. Brussel, “Les femmes clavecinistes.” Figure and Flesh in Fin de Siècle Paris (London: Thames
84. “Il est naturel que le clavecin avec ses delicates ran- and Hudson, 1998), especially her chapter “Powder and
gées de sautereaux, ses fines plumes, ses cordes ténues, ses Paint: Framing the Feminine in Georges Seurat’s Young
pédales sensibles, ses registres subtils, ait répondu plus Woman Powdering Herself” (115–43).
profondément peut-être à des mains moins vigoureuses”; 87. Brussel, “Wanda Landowska,” 8. On the body as
“Si cette renaissance est due principalement à des femmes locus for critical discourse see Lena Hammergren,
qui ont su retrouver le fil mystérieux qui les lie à leurs “Different Personas: A History of One’s Own?” in
devancières du XVIIIe siècle, elle a été préparée par les Choreographing History, ed. Susan Leigh Foster
travaux de savants musicographes” (Brussel, “Les femmes (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), 185–92. 
clavecinistes,” 298, 299–300). 88. “[L]a tradition des grandes dames clavecinistes du
85. Brussel, “Wanda Landowska,” 8. Fragility had be- XVe au XVIIIe siècles”; “les mains les plus fines et les
come one of the celebrated assets of female beauty in a plus spirituelles qui se puissent rêver”; “fille musicale de
performer and artist, starting with iconic divas such as ce Jean-Sébastien Bach”; “interprète idéale de cette mu-
Maria Malibran. Like Landowska, the composer Lili sique”; “Wanda Landowska est une des rares femmes vir-
Boulanger was repeatedly compared to the fragile hero- tuoses qui ne cherchent point à imiter le jeu des hommes”
ines of Maeterlinck; see Annegret Fauser, “Lili Boulanger’s (Brussel, “Wanda Landowska,” 8).
La Princesse Maleine: A Composer and Her Heroine as 89. Restout comments on the self-conscious presentation
Literary Icons,” Journal of the Royal Musical Association of Landowska and her relentless and often quite per-
122 (1997): 68–108. sonal comments on performers’ physical appearance in
86. Anne-Marie Thiesse, Le roman du quotidien: Lecteurs Uncommon Visionary.
et lectures populaires à la Belle Epoque (Paris: Le Chemin 90. “[L]a grâce toute féminine” (Marnold, “Musique,”
Vert, 1984). See also Tamar Garb, Bodies of Modernity: 137).

Fauser, Creating Madame Landowska 17

1 who were satisfied with old routines (a barely
2 disguised barb aimed at Diémer), “each of her
3 programs has a unity, and a general idea governs
4 its composition.”91
5 Once femininity, elegance, and grace be-
6 came the overarching point of reference for
7 Landowska’s artistic persona, her aspirations
8 to stardom seemed less threatening.92 Not only
9 could such quality be put to the service of her
10 artistic cause, especially in the context of the
11 still broadly feminized music of the clavecin-
12 istes, but it allowed Landowska and her entou-
13 rage to focus on the traditional feminine roles of
14 muse (even after the fact) and servant, following
15 a familiar and well-tried story line in women’s
16 artistic biographies in which the artwork takes
17 the place of either a man or God/Christ, who is
18 usually put at the center of a woman’s life.93 The
19 religious imagery in the article—Landowska’s
20 piety and her resemblance to Pre-Raphaelite
21 virgins—represented her more in the role of the
22T beautiful vestal, however, than in that of the
23 conquered lover. A few years later she reinforced
24 this image of the vestal artist by posing with Fig. 5. “Tolstoï musicien.” Title page of Musica, June 1908
(Bibliothèque nationale de France)
25T bearded old men of great renown, such as Leo
26 Tolstoy (in 1907) and Auguste Rodin (in 1908).
27 Landowska used these clichés for postcards and name. And just as absent as Henri’s patronymic
28T to illustrate articles, as, for example, on the title “Lew” was the man himself. While Musica
29 page of Musica in which she published her ar- and other illustrated journals such as La Vie
30 ticle “Tolstoï musicien.”94 Heureuse ran numerous articles on the family
31 Landowska created this vestal image not only life of artists such as Ernestine Schumann-Heink
32 through her physical appearance and public be- and Madame Colonne, Landowska had no pri-
33 havior but also through the complete elimina- vate side to her artistic identity.95 As with her
34 tion of her husband from any public discourse. emphasis on mystique and charm, her image
35 While the designation “Madame” gave her a here seems to have been modeled more on that
36 certain timeless authority, she kept her maiden of French opera stars such as Lucienne Bréval
37 and Rose Caron than on fellow instrumentalists.
38 91. “Chacun de ses programmes a une unité, et une That this was probably a conscious strategy ap-
39 idée générale en régit la composition” (Brussel, “Wanda
Landowska,” 8).
40 92. On image and self-representation of women artists in 94. Wanda Landowska, “Tolstoï musicien,” Musica 7
41 fin de siècle France see Fauser, “La Guerre en dentelles”; (1908): 95. Postcards can be found among the Astruc pa-
42 visual and rhetorical tropes of femininity in early-twenti- pers (Archives nationales, Papiers Astruc, 409ap/23) and
eth-century France are discussed in broader terms in Anne in the archives of the Musée Rodin, Paris, where Olivia
43 Martin-Fugier, La bourgeoise: Femme au temps de Paul Mattis has discovered a cache of Landowska letters and
44 Bourget (Paris: Grasset, 1983); Thiesse, Le roman du photographs dating from 1908 to 1910.
45 quotidien; and Michelle Perrot, Femmes publiques (Paris: 95. On Madame Colonne see “Un ménage de musiciens:
Editions Textuels, 1997). Monsieur et Madame Colonne,” La Vie Heureuse,
46 93. Carolyn G. Heilbrun, Writing a Woman’s Life (New 1904:34–35. On Schumann-Heink see Thomas Salignac,
47 York: Ballentine Books, 1988), 25. “Musique et maternité,” Musica 6 (1907): 14–15.
48
49
50
18 Women & Music Volume 10
51
52
pears in a letter in which Henri Lew explained
to Astruc that even though the Spanish crown
princess had invited both of them to a soirée,
“of course Wanda went alone.”96

Madame Landowska, or Performing

Bach as a Woman
On her way to early music stardom Landowska
had to set herself apart from one other young
female soloist in particular: Blanche Selva, with
whom she competed in terms of both reper-
toire and audience. If the 1905 article in Musica
was written for her by a writer in the pay of
Astruc and advertised her femininity, grace, and
uniqueness in preparation for her Parisian solo
concerts, Landowska’s own battle cry, her ar-
ticle on the interpretation of Bach in Mercure de
France, followed in November of the same year. Fig. 6. “Mademoiselle Blanche Selva,” caricature de Dalliès,
In it she distanced herself from the musical prac- 1908 (Bibliothèque nationale de France)

tices of the post-Bordes Schola in general and

took direct aim at her greatest rival of the mo- published foray into the debates about per-
ment in particular. While never mentioning Selva forming Bach, and in it she played on tropes
by name, her target was obvious as a “femme of femininity already established for her own
virile” whose Bach performances on the piano performance style and persona by emphasizing
“stuffed” her audience with all that is “bulky, the grace, elegance, and even, at times, frivolity
fat, big, strong, and powerful, all that collection of Bach’s harpsichord music by characterizing
of monsters and wild beasts.”97 This was not Bach as an “author of gallant pieces, of almost
even barely veiled, given that Selva’s Bach per- frivolous music.”99 With this rereading of Bach
formances on the piano were widely celebrated against the grain of the more prevalent mascu-
for their virility, while her full figure found its linist views of the fin de siècle she reaffirmed the
way easily into caricature. Thus Landowska dis- femininity that Brussel had associated with her
associated both her own performance and her artistic identity eight months previously. Her
new core repertoire—the music of Bach—from argument introduced gender as a key category
the controversial figure of the professional “new in understanding and evaluating music and its
woman” aspiring to enter male realms.98 performance. Thus Landowska argued that we
The article in Mercure was Landowska’s first should allow ourselves to be seduced by this
feminized Bach; when we do, we encounter “a
past so admirably distant, so marvelously differ-
96. “L’infante Isabelle nous a invité pour ce soir tous les
deux par le Marquis de Meza de Asta. Wanda est évidem-
ment allée toute seule” (Henri Lew to Gabriel Astruc, 98. See Debora Silverman, “The ‘New Woman,’ Feminism,
Madrid, November 24, 1905, Archives nationales, Papiers and the Decorative Arts in Fin-de-Siècle France,” in
Astruc, 409ap/23). Eroticism and the Body Politic, ed. Lynn Hunt (Baltimore:
97. Wanda Landowska, “Bach et ses interprètes: Sur Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991), 144–63. On the
l’interprétation des œuvres de clavecin de J.-S. Bach,” trope of the “new women” applied to female musicians in
Mercure de France, November 15, 1905, 214–30, 222, 230: fin de siècle Paris see Fauser, “La Guerre en dentelles” and
“On nous a trop rengorgés de tout ce qui est gros, gras, Musical Encounters, 129–38.
grand, fort et puissant, de tout ce musée de monstres et de 99. “[L]eurs grandes qualités de grâce et d’élégance . . .
bêtes fauves.” Landowska included sections of this article in Bach, auteur de pièces galantes, de la musique presque
her Musique ancienne, mainly in the chapter “Le style.” frivole” (Landowska, “Bach et ses interprètes,” 226).

Fauser, Creating Madame Landowska 19

1 ent from all that surrounds us.”100 Landowska’s Astruc, with whom she had collaborated to put
2 emphasis on historical distance and the ben- her career on such a stellar course a year earlier,
3 efits of “authenticity” was not unusual for the had lost interest in her amid his large-scale proj-
4 time.101 Far more radical, however, was the way ects, which encompassed the Beethoven-Berlioz
5 in which she inverted earlier negative tropes of Festival at the Châtelet and the Opéra in 1906,
6 the harpsichord’s femininity, turning them to the the Concerts Historiques Russes (with, among
7 positive not only as performance but also as an others, Chaliapin) and French premiere of
8 aesthetic category. For Landowska, Bach was Salomé in 1907, and the seasons of Diaghilev’s
9 neither a Romantic nor a Classical composer Ballets russes from 1908 onward. Landowska’s
10 avant la lettre, and he most definitely was not concerts—while successful in artistic terms—
11 that “modernized Bach, arranged according created a financial loss of almost 3,000 francs
12 to today’s fashion.” Rather, Bach took listen- for Astruc, and he saw little prospect of improv-
13 ers back to a time when women set the stan- ing the situation in 1906. Landowska herself
14 dards of artistic beauty to the point that men was disheartened both by Astruc’s accounting
15 underwent “painful sacrifices so that they could methods and his attitude toward her.104 It is clear
16 obtain the sweetness, clarity, and charm of a from her letters that she had expected better.
17 woman’s voice.”102 For Landowska, the world After a serious discussion in early January
18 of early music was one in which feminine grace 1906 Astruc made a renewed effort to place
19 triumphed over brutal masculine strength, hark- Landowska in Parisian concerts.105 She played
20 ing back to a world of nobility and aristocracy. on February 18, 1906, at the Concerts Colonne,
21 This difference was symbolized by the sonic and again performing Mozart’s Piano Concerto in
22T visual contrasts between the grand piano and E-flat Major, K. 271, with which she had ap-
23 the harpsichord—or, when transferred to the peared first at the Concerts Lamoureux in
24 two Parisian female Bach performers (as implied 1902.106 Astruc also became involved in casting
25T by the rhetoric of the article), between Blanche the performers for the Société des Concerts J.
26 Selva and Wanda Landowska.103 S. Bach. He placed Landowska in a concert on
27 By the time the article appeared Landowska March 21, 1906, in which she performed Bach’s
28T was back on tour, gaining triumph upon triumph Italian Concerto on the harpsichord and two of
29 in Spain, Austria, and Germany. Before that, his suites on the piano. The spring of 1906 also
30 in April 1905, she had conquered London. All brought a prestigious appearance in the salons
31 seemed to be working out to perfection, although of the princesse de Polignac, whose concerts
32 it became clear after her return in December that Astruc managed during these years. At the re-
33
34 100. “[C]e contact vivifiant avec un passé si admirable- semble particulièrement chez elle quand on la confie au
35 ment lointain, si merveilleusement différent de tout ce qui clavecin de M. Tomasini.”
36 nous entoure” (Landowska, “Bach et ses interprètes,” 104. The accounts for 1904–5 are in Landowska’s file
229). (Archives nationales, Papiers Astruc, 409ap/23). Astruc’s
37 101. Fauser, Musical Encounters, 41. exact loss consisted of 2,933.85 francs. Furthermore,
38 102. “On nous donne un Bach modernisé, arrangé à la the accounts reveal that he paid out 1,237.85 francs too
39 mode d’aujourd’hui”; “Il n’y a pas longtemps encore much in 1905, a sum that he planned to subtract from the
qu’on avait l’habitude, à la cour papale, de faire subir aux 6,000 francs guaranteed for 1906. In a passionate letter
40 hommes des sacrifices douloureux pour leur faire obtenir dated December 30, 1905, Landowska characterizes his
41 la douceur, la clarté et le charme d’une voix de femme.” accounting as “très injuste.”
42 See also “Les romantiques voient en Bach un volcan tout 105. This is reflected in his “Départ télégrammes.”
en feu et flammes; les classiques nous offrent un Bach en 106. Landowska was not playing in the German city of
43 congélation” (Landowska, “Bach et ses interprètes,” 217, Cologne, as Cash (“Wanda Landowska,” 58) reads the
44 222, 228). note in Le Ménestrel, but at the Concerts Colonne, where
45 103. While Landowska made her case for performing she performed at the same concert as the Romanian vio-
Bach on the harpsichord the subject of an entire article, linist Georges Enesco, who captivated the audience with
46 the argument is not new. See, for example, Saint-Saëns, his rendering of Bach’s chaconne for solo violin; see s.i.m.
47 “Le ‘Rappel’ à l’Exposition,” 2: “La musique de Bach 2, no. 1 (1906): 213.
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quest of the princess, Landowska adapted her dience, while her contribution certainly added
waltz program for the occasion: “In my Voltas visual and musical appeal to the lectures.110
& Waltzes program I do not play Bach. This is By the summer of 1906 Landowska had
what I propose: I will begin each grouping with unequivocally “arrived.” No longer second to
a work by Bach.”107 By framing her revised waltz Marguerite Delcourt, the 1905 “queen of the
program with a Bach suite on the harpsichord at harpsichord,” or to Blanche Selva, Bach’s “most
the beginning and a Chopin waltz on the piano worthy priestess,” she had established herself as
at the end, Landowska created a trajectory that one of a kind, a musician with a mission rec-
led straight from the German master of the key- ognized for her own special brand of musical
board to the Polish one. She also put the musi- interpretation characterized by feminine beauty
cal aesthetics of the earlier years of the Schola and historical depth. Even though Landowska
Cantorum into practice by emphasizing, accord- played Mozart, Schubert, and Chopin in her
ing to Vincent d’Indy’s memorable formulation, 1906 concerts, both her own and her review-
a “spiral” of historical development rather than ers’ emphasis lay on the exquisite and unusual
the linear models of progress often associated nature of the repertoire selections in her early
with nineteenth-century aesthetics.108 music performances. And in contrast to Selva,
This salon appearance was followed by a who also premiered new music, Landowska ex-
series of four high-profile concerts with works clusively played repertoire composed before the
by Bach and the French clavecinistes, reported 1850s. Indeed, her selection of repertoire seems
in some detail in the musical press. Each of those to avoid any pieces that French critics associated
concerts emphasized the solo keyboard player. with masculine qualities, including the music of
Landowska also became one of the artists par- Beethoven.111
ticipating in the musicological events of the Ecole Reviews teem with descriptions that could
des Hautes Études Sociales, illustrating lectures equally well be used to describe music and cul-
for the music historians Henri Quittard, known ture of the ancien régime, conflating repertoire
for his research on French lute music, and Jules and performer in a world of the past: a “delicious
Ecorcheville, whose research in those years fo- harpsichordist who reveals to us the aristocratic
cused on Lully and Rameau.109 To perform in beauty of lute music” in Ecorcheville’s lecture at
these venues exposed Landowska to an elite au- the Ecole des Hautes Études Sociales; an “exqui-
site” and “ideal interpreter” of the clavecinistes
107. “Dans mon programme Voltes & Valses je ne at a concert of pastoral music; playing “delight-
joue pas de Bach; voilà ce que je vous propose: Je com-
mencerai chaque numéro par une pièce de Bach” (Wanda
Landowska to Gabriel Astruc, n.d., Archives nationales, 109. On the musical lectures see Jane F. Fulcher, French
Papiers Astruc, 409ap/23). Cultural Politics & Music: From the Dreyfus Affair to
108. Jann Pasler discusses d’Indy’s spiral concept of his- the First World War (New York: Oxford University Press,
tory in her essay “Paris: Conflicting Notions of Progress,” 1999), 59–63.
in Man and Music: The Late Romantic Era from the Mid- 110. A letter by Charles Bordes to Maurice Emmanuel from
19th Century to World War I, ed. Jim Samson (London: August 1, 1903 (cited in Molla, “Charles Bordes,” 288),
Macmillan, 1991), 389–416. Landowska’s programming shows that the presence of female performers counted as
reflected one of the prevalent strategies of construct- an asset in these lectures: “Je vous donnerai pour appuyer
ing music history, most prominently outlined in Vincent votre conférence ce demoiselles Louise et Blanche Mante et
d’Indy’s Cours de composition musicale, by focusing on moi-même pour les musiques; on n’a jamais vu 2 femmes
interconnections across historical periods rather than es- pour un conférencier, meme sarrazin, croiriez-vous.”
pousing progress. With the withdrawal of Bordes from the 111. On gendering repertoire in nineteenth-century France
Schola after his stroke, the Schola moved toward differ- see Ellis, “Female Pianists”; Marcia Citron, Gender and
ent aesthetic ideals. On Bordes’ and d’Indy’s competing the Musical Canon (Cambridge: Cambridge University
views of early music see Flint de Medicis, “The Schola Press, 1993); Katharine Ellis, “Berlioz, the Sublime, and
Cantorum.” See also Annegret Fauser, “Archéologue the Broderie Problem,” in Hector Berlioz: Miscellaneous
malgré lui: Vincent d’Indy et les usages de l’histoire,” Studies, ed. Fulvia Morabito and Michela Niccolai, Ad
in Vincent d’Indy et son temps, ed. Manuela Schwartz Parnassum Monographs 1 (Bologna: Ut Orpheus Edizioni,
(Liège: Mardaga, 2006), 122–33. 2005), 29–59.

Fauser, Creating Madame Landowska 21

1 fully . . . and with excellent style” and “leav- female performers in terms of repertoire, self-
2 ing the audience with an exquisite impression” representation, and performance style. Indeed,
3 after the concert that opened the exhibition of both her own rhetoric—starting with the 1906
4 miniatures at the Bibliothèque nationale.112 By Bach article—and the texts written about her
5 crafting programs that called attention to her openly play on gendered interpretations of rep-
6 scholarly preparation, however, Landowska ertoire and performance practice. Landowska’s
7 not only managed to escape the danger of being awareness of discursive tropes reasserted itself
8 marginalized as beautiful frivolity, but she also throughout her career. Thus when her presenta-
9 continued to play on the trope of the female ed- tion in concerts might have led to the danger of
10 ucator, a strategy appreciated by her critics and becoming inconsequential because she and her
11 audience: “Composed with impeccable taste, music could have appeared too delicate and de-
12 her programs always contain a very important lightful, she started to maintain a sustained pub-
13 lesson in musical aesthetics. How many virtuo- lic presence as a Bach scholar in publications
14 sos can be praised in such a manner?”113 such as Musica, s.i.m., Mercure de France, Le
15 Such specialization was a strategy adopted Monde Musical, and the Bach Jahrbuch; and her
16 mostly by Parisian women musicians, nota- book Musique ancienne (1909) gave her schol-
17 bly Clothilde de Kleeberg, who was celebrated arship even greater prominence.115
18 first and foremost as a Beethoven interpreter. From the 1906–7 season onward Landowska
19 In contrast, more often than not male musi- also took increasingly greater control over her
20 cians such as, for example, Diémer, Risler, and career. While she was still bound to Astruc
21 Viñes seemed to emphasize an all-encompassing through her five-year contract (and she ap-
22T repertoire with some specialization as a mark peared in his 1907 publicity as one of the pia-
23 of distinction, whether early music for Diémer, nists on his roster), she also seemed to gain a
24 Beethoven for Risler, or contemporary music for certain autonomy. Although it is highly likely
25T Viñes.114 But Landowska pushed this envelope that Astruc, with his strong ties to Russian mu-
26 farther than most other soloists by aligning rep- sic, was involved in setting up the Russian tour
27 ertoire, aesthetics, and musical interpretation in 1907, it was Landowska who decided on its
28T with a celebration of aristocratic femininity that length and itinerary.116 It is not clear when the
29 was staged to perfection. Her strategies reveal to contract between Astruc and Landowska was
30 what extent she was attuned both to the musical dissolved, but from a later advertisement of the
Société Musicale it is obvious that they canceled
31 world of Paris and to its construction of gender.
the contract in mutual agreement well before it
32 Her actions to this point and later on in her career
expired.117 Landowska and Astruc remained on
33 show a seismographic sensitivity to her environ-
good terms, sharing Christmas cakes and vis-
34 ment that reflects significant awareness for often
iting each other; but while her former mentor
35 unformulated horizons of expectation toward
36
37 115. A list of Landowska’s writings compiled by Denise
112. “[D]élicieuse claveciniste nous révélait l’aristocratique Restout is reproduced in Cash, “Wanda Landowska,”
38 beauté de la musique du luth” (Louis Laloy, “Revue de la 331–36.
quinzaine,” s.i.m. 2 [1906]: 167); “interprète idéale d’une
39 116. The 1907 publicity is at the Archives nationales,
pareille musique” (C.C., “Revue de la quinzaine,” s.i.m. Papiers Astruc, 409ap/2. A letter to Astruc by J. P[aul]
40 2 [1906]: 370); “délicieusement jouées et dans un style ex- Landowski (409ap/23) informed him that Landowska “se
41 cellent,” “laissait aux auditeurs une impression exquise” trouve depuis 3 mois en Russie et la tournée, qui devrait
(“Soirées et concerts,” Le Ménestrel, May 27, 1906, cited terminer en décembre, se prolonge au moins jusqu’à fin
42
in Cash, “Wanda Landowska,” 61 n. 32). janvier par suite de très nombreux engagements dans la
43 113. “Composés avec un goût impeccable, ses programmes province Russe. Ma sœur ne sera donc de retour à Paris
44 comportent toujours un très grand enseignement d’esthétique que dans les premiers jours de février prochain.”
musicale. A combien de virtuoses peut-on décerner un tel 117. A note in Landowska’s file related to the contract
45
éloge?” (C.C., “Revue de la quinzaine,” 370). leads me to suspect that it was dissolved on August 26,
46 114. On Kleeberg see, for example, Charles Joly, “Les in- 1907. The later advertisement is at the Archives nation-
47 terprètes de Beethoven,” Femina 5 (1905): 208. ales, Papiers Astruc, 409ap/2.
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directed his energies toward the foundation of bers of the Société de Concerts d’Instruments
the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, his protégée Anciens. Nor could exceptionality admit a
and her invisible husband put into practice what long lineage of predecessors, whether women
they had learned about career management, tour harpsichordists such as Joséphine Martin or
organization, press releases, public image, and Charlotte de Malleville or women scholars such
program strategies during the two years when as Henriette Fuchs and Michel Brenet. This ex-
they worked with one of the most astute music clusion of her predecessors remains today in
managers of the twentieth century.118 the various Landowska myths about her single-
The creation of “Madame Landowska” in the handed championing of the harpsichord and
years between 1904 and 1906 by the performer her pioneering role in the early music revival.
and her entourage therefore took place within She was indeed an exceptional woman who
and reflects the cultural field of Paris in which made brilliant use of the cultural field of Paris
women were able to forge careers by conform- to establish her career. But she did so within a
ing to two tropes: the “noble servant” to male context that needs careful analysis to show just
genius and the exceptional woman defined by how she became the “uncrowned queen of the
difference.119 Landowska also redefined a rep- harpsichord.”120
ertoire whose femininity, once a cause of mar-
ginalization, could be turned to far more posi- Note
tive ends. But the discourse of exceptionality I am grateful to Tim Carter, Katharine Ellis, Catrina
demanded the removing from the record of all Flint de Medicis, Brent Wissick, and my two anony-
who might show Landowska to be just one of mous readers for their insightful and helpful comments
many, whether fellow harpsichordists such as and suggestions on earlier versions of this article. A
Marguerite Delcourt, fellow musician-scholars shorter text was presented at the annual meeting of the
such as Yvette Guilbert and Blanche Selva, or American Musicological Society in Washington dc,
fellow early music performers such as the mem- October 26–30, 2005.

vous prie de me foutre la paix, nom de dieu!” (Archives

118. In a letter to his collaborator at the head of Musica, nationales, Papiers Astruc, 409/ap1).
Georges Pioch, Astruc pointed out that art was also cre- 119. For the rhetoric of the “exceptional woman” see in
ated by those who enabled it: “Dites-donc, avez-vous fini particular the introductory chapter in Mary Sheriff, The
de m’engueuler? Vous êtes tout le temps à me faire sentir Exceptional Woman: Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun and the
votre supériorité de poète. Vous ne savez donc pas, mal- Cultural Politics of Art (Chicago: University of Chicago
heureux, que les poètes les plus superbes, les plus exaltés, Press, 1996). Landowska’s rival, Yvette Guilbert, used
les plus fulgurants sont les gens d’affaires qui créent des the same strategy when she presented her so-called sec-
usines formidables d’art ou d’industrie, font vivre des mil- ond career in her autobiography, La chanson de ma vie
lions d’êtres et se font récompenser les 3/4 du temps par (191–200).
une déraison précoce. Je suis aussi poëte que vous et je 120. Elste, Meilensteine der Bach Interpretation, 337.

Fauser, Creating Madame Landowska 23