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Leopold Godowski - Chopin's Nocturne F-sharp Major, 1929

1,335 views · Published 31 October 2017 · 3:31 · Indexed 20 September 2026

Channel: 240252 · 2017 · Music

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Leopoldo Godowsky, Pianoforte – Notturno in Fa diesis maggiore (F-sharp Major) F.Chopin, Op. 15 No 2, Columbia 1929 (Italian)

NOTE: Leopold GODOWSKI born 1870 in Żośle in Poland (now in Lithuanian Republic)  died 1938 in New York City. Polish pianist, composer and pedagogue. He was born to family of a medical doctor, who died 1 year after his son’s birth and Leopold’s mother moved out to the appartment of her friend who was a violinist and who gave young Leopold first lessons in violin and piano. Godowski had his piano debut in Wilno at the age of 9 causing artistic sensation followed by his tournee around  Poland and Russia. In age of 13 he undertook studies at the famous Berlin  Hochschule für Musik in the class of renowned pedagogue Ernst Rudorff and between 1887-1890 in Paris with the world famous composer Camille Saint-Saëns. This opened for him way to the United States, where he started teaching in New York College of Music, then in Conservatory in Philadelphia and in 1893-1900 in Conservatory in Chicago. Successful in teaching, Godowski received rather cautious reviews as virtuose, what made him return to Europe, where between 1900-1914 he taught in the Viennese Akademie der Tonkunst (one of his students was later world-famous Polish piano virtuoso Henryk Neuhaus). In Dec 1900, after concerts Godowski gave in  Berlin, he was at last was enthusiastically acclaimed by European critics who named him one of the greatest living piano masters and a successor to List. In 1911 Godowski returned to Warsaw where he gave series of recitals and in 1914 he again left Europe for the United States. He successfully performed throughout Northern and Southern Americas and recorded for Brunswick and Columbia until he arrived back in Poland in 1926 and toured in Asia thereafter to travel back to the US, where in 1930 he suffered a stroke, which ended his career. He died in 1938 in New York.

Godowski’s career went underdeveloped compared to possibilities of his enormous talent. The inhibiting factor for him could have been his not very happy private life (his wife a soprano Fieda Saxe took care on her own career and their daghter Dagmar left for Hollywood to start acting in the silent movies). Poor technical level of the handful of Godowski’s  recordings show only a part of his abilities. Legends circultaed about his breathtaking performances in the comfort of his studio,  he used to give for group of his friends (among which were Albert Einstein, George Gershwin, Charlie Chaplin or Arnold Schoenberg). He was a famous colorist, especially appreciated for his versatility, the vibrancy and absolute naturalness of the game, as well as the phenomenal technical prowess of his relatively small hand. Special mastery achieved in the operation of the left hand - testifies to the difficulty of his works and transcription to his left hand. He had a very extensive repertoire, performing most of the flagship piano works of Romanticism and Classicism (also works by J.S. Bach).  The unique place in the not too expansive Godowski’s discography must be given to a set of Chopin nocturnes, which he recorded for Columbia shortly before his death in 1929-30.

This rare gem from my archive of the Polish pianoforte masters illustrates today’s holiday – which is All Souils Day – a very special day for Poles, when loveliness of the late autumnal aura and last rays of the tired sun are blended with the memorys and rememberings of those dear ones, who overtook us in our common way across the Mare Tenebrarum of our lives and on whose graves we gather to light candles for them and to thank God for the faith and light He gives us, for that difficult journey.

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