Józef Śliwiński (15 December 1865, in

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

– 1930) was a

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

classical

pianist A pianist ( , ) is a musician who plays the piano. A pianist's repertoire may include music from a diverse variety of styles, such as traditional classical music, jazz piano, jazz, blues piano, blues, and popular music, including rock music, ...

, 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; ; 22 June 1830 – 14 November 1915) was a Polish pianist, professor, and composer active in Austria-Hungary. He was born in Landshut in the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, then a crown land ...

and

Anton Rubinstein Anton Grigoryevich Rubinstein (; ) was a Russian pianist, composer and conductor who founded the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. He was the elder brother of Nikolai Rubinstein, who founded the Moscow Conservatory. As a pianist, Rubinstein ran ...

. For many years he was professor of piano at the Riga Conservatory. 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, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601, ...

. 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 Rubins ...

, Stanislas Niedzielski and Julian Clifford.

References

External links

* 1865 births 1930 deaths Polish classical pianists Musicians from Warsaw Polish male classical pianists Academic staff of Saratov Conservatory People from Congress Poland Pianists from the Russian Empire {{classical-pianist-stub