Who was Godowsky?

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Leopold [Leonid] Godowsky, (b. Soshly, nr Vilnius, 13 Feb 1870; d. New York, 21 Nov 1938), was an American pianist and composer of Polish birth.  Following the death of his father, he exhibited a precocious aptitude for music under the guidance of foster-parents in Vilnius.   He gave his first piano recital when he was nine and subsequently toured throughout Lithuania and East Prussia.  From 1887 to 1890 he was a protégé of composer Camille Saint-Saëns in Paris, supporting himself by playing in fashionable salons both there and in London.   Visiting the USA in 1890 he joined the staff of the New York College of Music, and later held teaching posts in Philadelphia and Chicago.  During the 1890s he started to make concert arrangements of other composers' works, including the first of his studies on the études of Chopin, which Jorge Bolet was to champion - there is a recording of a selection of études and waltzes set down in 1977, as JB's first recording in Britain.

Godowsky's appearance at the Beethoven Hall, Berlin, on 6 December 1900 established his reputation as a consummate virtuoso.   He took up residence in Berlin, from where, until 1909, he embarked on annual European tours.  From 1909 until 1914 he was director of the Klaviermeisterschule of the Akademie der Tonkunst in Vienna, in succession to Emil von Sauer and composer/pianist Ferrucio Busoni, returning to the USA for concert tours between 1912 and 1914, as well as making his first gramophone recordings. 

 

Godowsky remained in America until 1922, when he embarked on an extended tour of East Asia, including a visit to Java (Indonesia) which was to provide the inspiration for the Java Suite (Phonoramas) written on his return to the USA; during this tour he also undertook a major series of Bach transcriptions. The years 1926–30 saw the publication of numerous other transcriptions, including 12 Schubert songs, and original compositions, as well as a return to the European concert stage.

In 1928 he began a series of recordings in London, including major works by Beethoven, Schumann, Grieg and Chopin. In 1930, however, while recording Chopin's E major Scherzo (No. 4), Godowsky suffered a stroke which left him partially paralysed; his remaining years were overshadowed by material anxieties, exacerbated by personal tragedy.

 

Godowsky was a perfectionist and the fear of doing a trifling wrong hindered his playing.  Consequently, it was acknowledged that his best work was not in public or in the recording studio, but at home.  After leaving Godowsky's home one night, Josef Hofmann told Abram Chasins: "Never forget what you heard tonight; never lose the memory of that sound.  There is nothing like it in the world.  It is tragic that the world has never heard Popsy as only he can play."

 

Although Godowsky felt that his most mature compositions were the Suite for the left hand and the Passacaglia (on the opening eight bars of Schubert's ‘Unfinished’ Symphony), it was through his intricately polyphonic transcriptions, especially the 53 Studies on the études of Chopin, that he became most widely known as a composer.  

 

[Charles Hopkins]

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The famous (notorious) Etudes

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Godowsky's most famous work in this genre is the 53 Studies on Chopin's Études (1894–1914), in which he varies the (already challenging) original études using various methods: introducing countermelodies, transferring the technically difficult passages from the right hand to the left, transcribing an entire piece for left hand solo, or even interweaving two études, with the left hand playing one and the right hand the other.

The pieces are among the most difficult piano works ever written, and only a few pianists have ventured to perform any of them. Among such pianists are Marc-André Hamelin, who recorded the entire set and garnered a number of prestigious awards.  Other pianists who frequently perform Godowsky are Boris Berezovsky and Konstantin Scherbakov.

Fledermaus paraphrase: a Bolet speciality

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The paraphrase on Die Fledermaus (‘The Bat’)  took its themes from two acts of  Johann Strauss’s comic operetta premiered in Vienna in 1874.   Godowsky obligingly indicates which numbers he is using by placing the appropriate lyrics above or within the stave. Thus the opening bars have ‘Oh je, oh je, wie rührt mich dies’ (the Act I Trio), followed by ‘Brüderlein, Brüderlein und Schwesterlein’ (the ensemble from Act II) and, at varying intervals, snatches of ‘Mein Herr Marquis’ (Adele’s Laughing Song, Act II). In other words, there is no narrative logic to the themes: Godowsky uses them instead to weave his ingenious web at will: ‘Johann Strauss waltzing with Johann Bach’, according to Albert Lockwood (Notes on the Literature of the Piano, 1940).

 

Godowsky’s Die Fledermaus'"metamorphosis' was completed in November 1907. He was evidently pleased with himself, judging from the letter he wrote to Maurice Aronson the day he finished work on it: ‘Aside from what you know of the Valse, I have added several original features. Between the second theme of the first valse and the first theme of the second valse, I introduce a very short parody on Richard Strauss (something like Till Eulenspiegel and a bit of Salomé cacophony). It is rather amusing, not unmusical but queer, stranger than the beginning. The transition between the second theme of the second valse and the first theme of the third valse is perhaps the most delicately impassioned passage I have ever written—it has genuine vitality!"

 

Godowsky’s three Symphonische Metamorphosen Johann Strauss’scher Themen, Drei Walzer-paraphrasen für das Pianoforte zum Concert Vortrag were published by Cranz in 1912. Die Fledermaus is dedicated to Frau Johann Strauss (that is Strauss’s widow, Adele, his third wife).

 

[Jeremy Nicholas]