Leopold Godowsky - Reception and Influence

Reception and Influence

Godowsky was one of the most highly regarded pianists of his time, praised by listeners, colleagues, and critics alike. Arthur Rubinstein remarked that it would take him "five hundred years to get a mechanism like ", while Ferruccio Busoni considered himself and Godowsky to be the only composers to have made substantial contributions to keyboard writing and performance since Liszt.

Godowsky's phenomenally difficult transcriptions and impeccable technique prompted some critics to describe him as "a pianist for pianists", as James Huneker has done. Among Godowsky's admirers were such distinguished pianists as Vladimir de Pachmann and Sergei Rachmaninoff, who, according to Godowsky's daughter Dagmar, idolized her father's music and performances.

Even those who disliked Godowsky's interpretations usually acknowledged his tremendous technical gifts: Claudio Arrau, for example, declared Godowsky "one of the greatest technicians", even though he considered his playing "boring" and complained that Godowsky "never played above mezzo-forte."

Godowsky's vast repertoire spanned more than two centuries of music, from contemporary music to that of Rameau and Lully, whose music he transcribed. Although he regularly played public concerts until 1930, Godowsky was plagued by stage fright, and particularly disliked the recording studio, like many performers of his time. On one occasion, he described the recording process thus:

The fear of doing a trifling wrong augmented while playing; the better one succeeded in playing the foregoing, the greater the fear became while playing. It was a dreadful ordeal, increasingly so the more sensitive the artist, I broke down in my health in London in the Spring of 1930, owing to these nerve-killing tortures. How can one think of emotion!

Consequently, it was acknowledged that Godowsky's best work was not in public or in the recording studio, but at home. After leaving Godowsky's home one night, Josef Hofmann told Abram Chasins: "Never forget what you heard tonight; never lose the memory of that sound. There is nothing like it in the world. It is tragic that the world has never heard Popsy as only he can play."

Godowsky's pupils included Paul Wells, Apolinary Szeluto, Jan Smeterlin, Issay Dobrowen and most importantly, Heinrich Neuhaus, who taught Sviatoslav Richter, Emil Gilels, and Radu Lupu, among others.