Landowska’s fascination with historical instruments and performance practices led her to study original scores and treatises by composers such as Bach, Couperin, and Rameau. She was a pioneer in reconstructing how this music might have sounded in its own time including having instruments custom made by Pleyel and others. Her approach was not strictly antiquarian; she believed in combining historical accuracy with artistic vitality, an approach often taken to historically “informed” performance in the present, but a completely new modality in the early 1900s. In addition to performing, she also had pieces written explicitly for the instrument including Manuel de Falla’s El retablo de maese Pedro and Francis Poulenc’s Concert champêtre. She also published her philosophy of early music in a 1903 volume titled Musique ancienne which further emphasized the use of historic instruments including the Harpsichord. By the 1920s, Landowska was firmly established as a central figure in early music revival and the revival of Bach’s keyboard works in historically informed performances. For three years from 1925-1928 she taught at the Curtis Institute of Music before returning to France where she established her own school, the École de Musique Ancienne in Saint-Leu-la-Forêt, France, in 1927. There she taught a generation of musicians and built a unique library of rare scores, early music editions, manuscripts, and instruments.
Landowska's flourishing life in France came to a devastating halt during World War II and the acquiescence of the Vichy government. As a Jewish woman with Polish roots, she was an immediate target under the Nazi regime. In 1940, after the German invasion of France, Landowska fled her home and school in Saint-Leu with her longtime companion Denise Restout, a fellow harpsichordist and student. They fled via a commune in Banyuls-sur-Mer before arriving to Lisbon and finally sailing to the United States in 1941, but not before her home was looted by the Nazis. Much of her invaluable library, including manuscripts, annotated scores, and instruments, was seized. Her library at Saint‑Leu‑la‑Forêt contained over 10,000 annotated scores and books on music practice and theory – a devastating loss to the world of early music research and to Landowska personally. Her collection also contained her custom and rare instruments which were shipped to Germany’s Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR) in Berlin in 1940.[3] Some of these items were later recovered in 1946, but many were lost or scattered, and she arrived in the US with none of her materials.
Her exile marked a profound turning point, and yet her performance in 1942 of the Bach Goldberg Variations in New York was the first time in the 20th century when the piece was performed for the harpsichord for which it was written. Her American concerts were met with enthusiasm, and she became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1949. Through her teaching, she influenced a new wave of American musicians interested in early music and harpsichord performance. Despite the trauma of displacement and loss, Landowska resumed her career in the United where she settled in Lakeville, Connecticut and continued to teach, write, and perform until her death in 1959.
Denise Restout, who became Landowska’s chief archivist and biographer after her death, played a key role in preserving and organizing Landowska’s legacy. Following Landowska’s passing in 1959, Restout ensured that the bulk of Landowska’s manuscripts, letters, and recovered scores were safeguarded. She also translated writings including Musique ancienne and Landowska on Music. Her personal collection of notes, annotated editions of Bach’s works, and correspondence is often referred to as the Landowska Archives, and was eventually donated to the U.S. Library of Congress, where it resides today as a testament to her enduring influence.[4]
Wanda Landowska’s life story is not just that of a virtuoso performer—it is the tale of a cultural guardian who reintroduced the harpsichord to the world stage, preserved the music of Bach for future generations, and carried her art across continents in the face of war and persecution. Her legacy continues to shape the performance of Baroque music and shows the influence of performers and historically informed performance separate from exiled composers.
Alexandra Birch, July 2025
Sources
Library of Congress, Music Division. Wanda Landowska and Denise Restout Collection, finding aid. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, last modified March 2022. hdl.loc.gov/loc.music/eadmus.mu013008.
Library of Congress, Music Division. Wanda Landowska and Denise Restout Collection, finding aid. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, last modified March 2022. hdl.loc.gov/loc.music/eadmus.mu013008.
“Wanda Landowska,” Jewish Museum Berlin: Objekte erzählen, accessed June 16, 2025. www.jmberlin.de/objekte/wanda-landowska.
Wanda Landowska and Denise Restout, Landowska on Music, ed. Denise Restout (New York: Stein and Day, 1964), 3–25.
