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. 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. 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, 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 Polish male classical pianists Academic staff of Saratov Conservatory People from Congress Poland Pianists from the Russian Empire {{classical-pianist-stub