- Felicja Blumental
Felicja Blumental (
28 December ,1908 -31 December ,1991 ) was a pianist born inWarsaw ,Poland .Felicja Blumental was born into a musical family, daughter of a violinist. She began piano lessons at the age of five, and made her debut at the age of ten. She studied at the National Conservatory in Warsaw, taking piano lessons from
Zbigniew Drzewiecki (who founded theInternational Frederick Chopin Piano Competition ) and composition lessons from the composerKarol Szymanowski . She later studied privately inSwitzerland withJózef Turczyński , a noted Chopin interpreter and scholar.In 1938, she and her husband
Markus Mizne moved first toNice , then toBrazil to escape the growinganti-semitism in Europe. She became a Brazilian citizen, and for the rest of her life championed the music and composers of her adopted country. Her subsequent career saw her settling inMilan in 1962, then in 1973 inLondon .Blumental's repertoire was wide and adventurous, ranging from the Portuguese baroque to South American contemporary works. Her numerous recordings also included many forgotten concertos by composers such as
Carl Czerny ,Ferdinand Ries andJohn Field .Heitor Villa-Lobos wrote his fifth piano concerto for her, andKrzysztof Penderecki dedicated his "Partita for harpsichord and orchestra" to her. Her recording of this work won a Grand Prix du Disque of the Charles Cros Academy of France in 1975.It is, however, her Chopin playing for which she will be most remembered. A pianist of considerable power, despite her diminutive size, her recordings of the Chopin
mazurkas , in particular, are considered landmark interpretations.She died in 1991 in
Israel , on one of her many concert tours of the country. She is buried in Tel Aviv's Kiryat Shaul Cemetery. Her daughter, the singer Annette Celine, is one of the organizers of the Felicja Blumental International Music festival, held annually.External links
* [http://www.blumental-festival.org/?lang=en-US The Felicja Blumental International Music festival]
* [http://www.claudiorecords.com/blumenthal_1.html Portuguese Piano Music - Review]
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