Harpsichordist
A Polish-born harpsichordist who initiated the revival of the harpsichord in the 20th century. She was born on July 5, 1879 in Warsaw and died on August 16, 1959 in Lakeville, Connecticut. She studied composition in Berlin in 1896, and in 1900 went to Paris where, influenced by her husband, Henry Lew, an authority on folklore, she made researches into old music and keyboard instruments. She taught at the Schola Cantorum, first played the harpsichord in public in 1903, and in 1909 published, with her husband, Musique ancienne, a study of 17th– and 18th-century music. She remained until the beginning of World War II the principal exponent of 17th– and 18th-century harpsichord music, particularly that of Bach and Couperin, on whose works she wrote several studies. In 1925 she founded a school for the study of old music at Saint-Leu-La-Forêt, near Paris, and in 1941 settled in the United States. Among the modern works she inspired were the harpsichord concerti of Manuel de Falla and Francis Poulenc. Early in the 20th century her theories of technique were the basis of contemporary harpsichord playing.
Reference: The New Encyclopedia Britannica (Micropaedia)
