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ETHEL LEGINSKA (1886-1970) The Complete Columbia Masters (1926-1928) Franz SCHUBERT: Four Impromptus, Opus 142 (D.935) Issued in 1928 as Columbia Masterworks Set No.93 1 Impromptu No.1 in F minor (Allegro moderato) 8:10 Columbia 9476 (Side 1 - 98483, Take 2) and (Side 2 - 98484, Take 1) Recorded on March 9, 1928 2 Impromptu No.2 in A flat Major (Allegretto) 4:00 Columbia 9478 (98468, Take 2) Recorded on February 20, 1928 3 Impromptu No.3 in B flat Major (Andante) 6:52 Columbia 9477 (Side 1 - 98469, Take 1) and (Side 2 - 98470, Take 1) Recorded on February 20, 1928 4 Impromptu No.4 in F minor (Allegro scherzando) 3:50 Columbia 9478 (98514, Take 3) Recorded on April 5, 1928 Franz SCHUBERT: Six Moments Musicaux, Opus 94 (D.780) Issued in 1928 as Columbia Masterworks Set No.94 5 Moments Musicaux No.1 in C Major (Moderato) 3:17 Columbia 17013-D (145657, Take 1-B-3) Recorded on March 8, 1928 6 Moments Musicaux No.2 in A flat Major (Andantino) 5:20 Columbia 17013-D (145734, Take 2-A-1) and 17014-D (145735, Take 2-B-1) Recorded on March 8, 1928 7 Moments Musicaux No.3 in F minor (Allegretto moderato) 1:37 Columbia 17015-D (145659, Take 2-A-5) Recorded on March 8, 1928 8 Moments Musicaux No.4 in C sharp minor (Moderato) 3:58 Columbia 17014-D (145658, Take 2-B-1) and 17015-D (145659, Take 2-A-5) Recorded on March 8, 1928 9 Moments Musicaux No.5 in F minor (Allegro vivace) 2:42 Columbia 17015-D (145736, Take 2-B-3) Recorded on March 8, 1928 10 Moments Musicaux No.6 in A flat Major (Allegretto) 5:25 Columbia 17016-D (145737, Take 2-B-3) and (145738, Take 2-B-2) Recorded on March 8, 1928 – 2 – Franz SCHUBERT/Carl TAUSIG: Marche Militaire in D Major, Opus 51, No.1 (D.773) 11 Allegro vivace 6:19 Columbia 5086-M (98512, Take 3-A-1) and (98513, Take 3-B-7) Recorded on April 5, 1928 Fryderyk CHOPIN: Polonaise in A Major, Opus 40, No.1 12 Allegro con brio 3:53 Columbia 5074-M (98360, Take 1-B-1) Recorded on June 3, 1927 Fryderyk CHOPIN: Prelude in D flat Major, Opus 28, No.15 13 Sostenuto 4:01 Columbia 5074-M (98361, Take 1-A-1) Recorded on June 3, 1927 Sergei RACHMANINOV: Prelude in G minor, Opus 23, No.5 14 Alla marcia – Un poco meno mosso – Tempo I 3:59 Columbia 5068-M (98304, Take 3-A-2) Recorded on December 21, 1926 Sergei RACHMANINOV: Prelude in C sharp minor, Opus 3, No.2 15 Lento – Agitato – Tempo I 3:42 Columbia 5068-M (98303, Take 3-C-8) Recorded on December 21, 1926 Franz LISZT: Hungarian Rhapsody No.8 in F sharp minor (S244/R106) 16 Lento a capriccio – Sempre lento malinconico assai – 5:37 Allegretto con grazia – Presto giocoso assai Columbia 5072-M (98285, Take 5-A-2) and (98286, Take 2-C-2) Recorded on June 19, 1926 Total Playing Time: 72:44 – 3 – ETHEL LEGINSKA Ethel Leginska was an extraordinary musical personality. She was a pianist of great distinction, dubbed by the New York Herald Tribune “The Paderewski of women pianists,” a pioneering con- ductor who broke down gender barriers in concert halls around the world, a composer of origi- nality and power, and also a formidable teacher who inspired in her Los Angeles studio a new gen- eration of pianists. Ethel Leginska was born on April 13th 1886 at Hull, Yorkshire, England to Thomas and Annie (Peck) Liggins. Having appeared as a child prodigy pianist at the age of six, she attracted the attention of a Hull shipping magnate and his wife, who sponsored Leginska’s education at the Hoch Conservatory of Music in Frankfurt, Germany, graduating in 1896. Lady Maud Warender, under the illusion that a Polish-looking name might help Ethel’s career, suggested that she change her last name from Liggins to Leginska. She kept that name for the rest of her life. Her prodigious pianis- tic talents did not go unnoticed by the eminent pedagogue, Theodor Leschetizky in Vienna, and she studied with him for three years. In an interview with Harriette Brower, Leginska remembered her early years: “Yes, I have played a great deal in public – all my life, in fact – ever since I was six. I began my musical studies at Hull, where we lived; my first teacher was a pupil of McFarren. Later I was taken to London, where some rich people did a great deal for me. Afterward I went to Leschetizky, and was with him several years, until I was sixteen; I also studied in Berlin. Then I began my career, and concertized all over Europe.” The reviews she garnered at the turn of the century in Europe propelled her career. London papers included her “among the poets of the piano” and German publications extolled her “profound and individual musicianship.” Sir Henry J. Wood, who conducted the sixteen year old Leginska in the Henselt concerto, remembered her in his memoirs, My Life of Music (1938), as “a pianist of considerable power,” and “an artistic person and undoubtedly talented.” In August of 1907 in London she married Emerson Whithorne, the American composer, from whom she was divorced in 1916. Leginska’s notoriety at that time in New York, prompted much attention in the press on the divorce and the custody of her son, Frederick Whithorne. The press hounded Leginska and Whithorne for explanations and details, eventually forcing Leginska to provide the following statement published on August 11, 1915: “It is true that I am attempting to obtain a divorce from my husband, Emerson Whithorne... I was married seven years ago, when I was nineteen years old and my husband was twenty-one. I had met him in Vienna and Berlin and London. He was a student and was doing splendid work. Later I played some of his songs, and he has composed quartets and orchestral music. You see, we were both very young, and being – 4 – musicians I presume each of us pos- sessed an extra share of what is called temperament. But temperament does not excuse everything, you know. Well, the baby came, and – oh, well, you see how difficult it is to tell of dis- agreements. Let me say briefly that in the action for a divorce I am charging him with desertion and non-support. The truth is that while we were living together I supported him. Now, a woman is not supposed to be the mainstay of the family, and yet I was. And I stopped it, and we separated – that was three years ago, and we have remained apart.” During that period of her life, a somewhat sensational and bizarre set of newspaper reports were printed in New York Times surrounding Leginska’s peculiar disappearance prior to her Carnegie Hall recital on January 26th 1925. The general details were as follows: “Ethel Leginska is still missing after she dis- appeared on her way to give a concert at Carnegie Hall two days earlier... Various friends insist that she did not Ethel Leginska (in the 1920s) disappear for the sake of publicity.” [January 28th] and “Reports indicate that Ethel Leginska has been found... The pianist and her friends are keeping all details secret. A statement from the Bureau of Missing Persons attributes Leginska’s disappearance to a ‘nervous breakdown caused by overwork.’ ”[February 2nd] By 1912, Leginska was in the United States, studying music theory with Rubin Goldmark in New York City. On January 20th 1913 she made her debut in New York. Returning to New York’s Aeolian Hall and Carnegie Hall several times a year for the next four seasons, Leginska – 5 – quickly became a favorite with the public. Her demanding programs and her innovations, such as playing an entire Chopin program without an intermission, drew raves from critics: “Leginska played like the master she is and won an ovation from a crowd- ed audience (The Evening World (New York City)), “Few men have the power to move audiences as she does. Yesterday she took her hearers by storm (New York Herald), and “Technical and tonal splendor, poetic fire, romantic exaltation and stroke upon stroke of beauty or of power... as for the plaudits, none such have been heard except when Paderewski played.” (Horatio T. Parker, Boston Transcript). In 1914 Leginska began to com- pose. She studied composition with Ernest Bloch at New York City in 1918. Most of her significant works date from the period of her lessons with Bloch in the 1920s, although her three operas (Gale, The Rose and the Ring, and Joan of Arc) date from Ethel Leginska (circa 1925) the 1930s. In 1920 she won a prize in the Berkshire Chamber Music Festival Competition for her Four Poems for String Quartet After Tagore. Other works from the 1920s included From a Life (1922, for chamber ensemble), Two Short Pieces for orchestra (1924, first performed by Pierre Monteux and the Boston Symphony), and Quatres Sujets Barbares (1924), an orchestral suite inspired by the paintings of Gauguin. According to biographer Carol Neuls- Bates, “It is to her credit that Leginska was able to secure performances of her larger works at a time when women’s compositions were rarely heard in public.” – 6 – In the midst of her career as pianist, Leginska developed a great interest in conducting. She took private lessons from Eugene Goossens in London (1923), studied operatic conducting with Professor Robert Heger in Munich (1922) and also with Maestro Genaro Papi at Chicago (1927).

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