Józef Śliwiński (15 December 1865, in

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

– 1930) was a

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken *Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...

classical

pianist A pianist ( , ) is an individual musician who plays the piano. Since most forms of Western music can make use of the piano, pianists have a wide repertoire and a wide variety of styles to choose from, among them traditional classical music, ja ...

, one of the outstanding interpreters of the poetic and romantic repertoire, especially Chopin and Schumann. He was taught by

Theodor Leschetizky Theodor Leschetizky (sometimes spelled Leschetitzky, pl, Teodor Leszetycki; 22 June 1830 – 14 November 1915 was an Austrian-Polish pianist, professor, and composer born in Landshut in the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, then a crown land of ...

and

Anton Rubinstein Anton Grigoryevich Rubinstein ( rus, Антон Григорьевич Рубинштейн, r=Anton Grigor'evič Rubinštejn; ) was a Russian pianist, composer and conductor who became a pivotal figure in Russian culture when he founded the Sai ...

. For many years he was professor of piano at the

Riga Conservatory Riga (; lv, Rīga , liv, Rīgõ) is the capital and largest city of Latvia and is home to 605,802 inhabitants which is a third of Latvia's population. The city lies on the Gulf of Riga at the mouth of the Daugava river where it meets the Bal ...

. He lived in Warsaw from 1918. A man of aristocratic bearing, Śliwiński studied with Leschetizky in Vienna for four years before going on to have lessons from Rubinstein in

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

. He taught in Russia for some time at the Saratov Conservatory, and toured around 1900 with some success. He was a famous proponent of the ''weight'' technique, by which the weight of the arm in the depression of the keys was supposed to produce a more powerful resonance in the note, and indeed he had a deep and affecting tone. He played with great emotional power and expressiveness, and was at his best in the larger-scale works of Chopin and Schumann, though without exploiting the heroic side of Chopin's writing. He also established himself as a conductor. His technique became unreliable in later years, but he was greatly admired as a poet of the keyboard.J. Methuen-Campbell, ''Chopin Playing from the Composer to the Present Day.'' (Gollancz, London 1981), 63-4, 103. Among his pupils were

Juliusz Wertheim Juliusz Edward Wertheim (24 September 1880 – 6 May 1928), sometimes known as Julius or Jules Wertheim, was a Polish pianist, conductor and composer, a member of a prominent family, who had a significant influence on the career of Arthur Rubi ...

, Stanislas Niedzielski and

Julian Clifford Julian Seymour Clifford (London, 28 September 1877 – Hastings, 27 December 1921) was an English conductor, composer and pianist particularly associated with the orchestras at Harrogate and Hastings, which he carried to a high level of accompl ...

References

External links

* 1865 births 1930 deaths Polish classical pianists Musicians from Warsaw Male classical pianists {{classical-pianist-stub