Felicja Blumental facts for kids
Felicja Blumental (born December 28, 1908 – died December 31, 1991) was a talented Polish pianist and composer. She was one of the few women from her time who became a very important concert pianist.
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Early Life and Musical Start
Felicja Blumental was born in Warsaw, Poland. She came from a Jewish family that loved music. Her father was a violin player. She started taking piano lessons when she was just five years old. She performed for the first time when she was ten.
She studied at the National Conservatory in Warsaw. She learned piano from Zbigniew Drzewiecki, who started the famous International Frederick Chopin Piano Competition. She also learned how to compose music from the composer Karol Szymanowski. Later, she studied privately in Switzerland with Józef Turczyński. He was a well-known expert on Chopin's music.
A New Home: Life in Brazil
In 1938, Felicja and her husband, Markus Mizne, moved away from Europe. They first went to Nice, then to Brazil. They moved to escape the growing unfair treatment of Jewish people in Europe.
Felicja became a Brazilian citizen. For the rest of her life, she loved and promoted the music of her new home country. Later in her career, she settled in Milan, Italy, in 1962. Then, in 1973, she moved to London, England.
Her Amazing Music Career
Blumental played a very wide range of music. Her performances included old Portuguese baroque music and new South American pieces. She also recorded many concertos that had been forgotten. These were by composers like Carl Czerny and John Field.
A famous composer named Heitor Villa-Lobos wrote his Piano Concerto No. 5 just for her. She played it for the first time on May 8, 1955, in London. She also recorded the concerto in Paris with Villa-Lobos himself leading the orchestra.
Another composer, Krzysztof Penderecki, dedicated his Partita for harpsichord and orchestra to her. Her recording of this work won a big award in France in 1975.
She recorded all of Beethoven's works for solo piano and orchestra. But many people remember her most for her Chopin playing. Even though she was small, she played with great power. Her recordings of Chopin's mazurkas are considered very important performances.
Later Life and Legacy
Felicja Blumental passed away in 1991 in Israel. She was on one of her many concert tours there. She is buried in Tel Aviv's Kiryat Shaul Cemetery. Her daughter, Annette Céline, was a singer. She helped organize the yearly Felicja Blumental International Music Festival until her own death in 2017.
Many of Blumental's recordings have been brought back to life by Brana Records. All of the CD covers feature art prints made by her husband, Markus Mizne.
