GOLDBERG THROUGH THE FEMININE PRISM

Text topic: Women's Expertise Potential in Cultural Activities

Text author: Смиљка Исаковић

Harpsichord, a baroque key instrument, was forgotten at the end of the eighteenth century and completely suppressed, first by early pianoforte, then by modern piano. In the twentieth century two women of Slav (Polish and Czech) and Jewish religion, Wanda Landowska and Zuzana Ružičkova, revived the interest for early music and managed to return harpsichord to the European and world concert stages. This paper is dedicated to the memory of the Wanda Landowska’s pioneer activities in saving the rich and forgotten baroque music world from oblivion, so it can stand on the contemporary musical scene with equal rights among other music periods. One of the many debts of gratitude we owe also  to Wanda Landowska, is having viewed music as a continuum rather than a progressing art ever perfecting itself. Due to this approach she understood that great work is achieved in any period and embodies a synthesis of preceding scores as well as a reflection of its own age, if not that of a vision beyond its own present. Therefore in order to recreate the spirit behind the music, Landowska immersed herself into a lifelong study of baroque performance practice and the historical periods in other artistic disciplines surrounding musical works. This paper is also dedicated to the big role of another female harpsichordist Zuzana Ružičkova in accepting Madame Landowska’ s legacy, applying it and developing it further on. The most interesting fact is that both harpsichordists in their repertoires preferred J. S. Bach and his Goldberg Variations, often regarded as the most serious and ambitious composition ever written for harpsichord. Without their love, passion and perservance in fulfilling their obsession with harpsichord and early music, contemporary musical world could have lost a part of its heritage and thus could be so much more barren place.