It's pretty startling to see Chopin's Mazurka in C major, Op. 56/2, in a list of harpsichord pieces, but what's even more startling is that in this context, it works on the harpsichord. This collectors' release combines two albums by Polish-born harpsichord pioneer Wanda Landowska. The first, Dances of Poland, was recorded in 1951 but not released until 1965, after Landowska's death. The second LP, A Treasury of Harpsichord Music, consists of recordings made in 1946, originally collected on LP in 1957; it includes what are ...
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It's pretty startling to see Chopin's Mazurka in C major, Op. 56/2, in a list of harpsichord pieces, but what's even more startling is that in this context, it works on the harpsichord. This collectors' release combines two albums by Polish-born harpsichord pioneer Wanda Landowska. The first, Dances of Poland, was recorded in 1951 but not released until 1965, after Landowska's death. The second LP, A Treasury of Harpsichord Music, consists of recordings made in 1946, originally collected on LP in 1957; it includes what are now Baroque standards by Rameau, Handel, Domenico Scarlatti, François Couperin, and J.S. Bach (a keyboard arrangement of a Vivaldi concerto), along with a few Mozart movements. Of course, they weren't "standards" at the time; the world has Landowska to thank for the fact that this music is heard on the harpsichord at all -- she was ridiculed by one of her contemporaries, who asked why she wanted anything to do with such a "cage of flies."Landowska's custom made harpsichord was a...
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