Marguerite Melville Liszniewska
A white woman with dark hair, in profile, in an oval frame
Margueriet Melville Liszniewska, from a 1915 publication
Born
Marguerite Melville

April 17, 1879
Brooklyn, New York
DiedMarch 7, 1935
Cincinnati, Ohio
Occupation(s)Pianist, composer
Years active1890s to 1935

Marguerite Melville Liszniewska (April 17, 1879 – March 7, 1935) was an American pianist, teacher, and composer.

Early life and education

Melville was born in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Charles W. Melville and Mary Theresa Hughes Melville. Her parents were both musical; her father, an organist, was born in Scotland, and her mother, a singer, was born in Canada.[1][2] She went to study piano and composition in Berlin at age 15, with Ernst Jedliczka and O. B. Boise, and later in Vienna with Theodor Leschetizky.[3][4] "It is such a beautiful thing to study music," she said in an interview, "Artistic things get so easily crowded to the wall or pushed completely out of our lives. Even the least inclination to learn much should be encouraged in all ages."[5]

Career

Musician

Melville gave her public debut in 1897, in Berlin, and made her London debut in 1910. She played several times at Queen's Hall under conductor Sir Henry Wood.[6][7] In 1913 she gave a charity concert in Vienna, sharing the program with Pablo Casals. She gave a benefit show to raise money for the Red Cross in 1914, in New York.[3] IFrom 1915 to 1917, she toured in the United States.[8][9] "She is an artist who critics everywhere have praised for individuality, scholarship, amazing technical proficiency and finished artistry," said The Musical Leader in 1923.[10]

Melville Liszniewska played at the White House for President Calvin Coolidge in 1926. She recorded two pieces for Ampico piano rolls.[3][11]

Composer and teacher

Melville wrote "her most significant surviving composition", Piano Quintet in E minor, Op. 8, in Berlin about 1900 or 1901, when she was in her early twenties.[12] Other compositions for violin and piano included Romanza in F, Sonata in G minor, She and her husband taught at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music in the 1920s, and she taught master classes in several American cities in her later years.[3]

Personal life

In 1908, Marguerite Melville married Polish pianist and lawyer Karol Liszniewski, in Vienna. They had two children, Jan (John) and Elizabeth Josselyn.[13] She died in 1935 at the age of 55, in Cincinnati. Her widower and colleagues established a scholarship fund at the Cincinnati Conservatory in her memory.[14]

References

  1. ↑ "New York Girl Famous Pianist". The San Francisco Examiner. 1913-06-15. p. 50. Retrieved 2022-06-22 – via Newspapers.com.
  2. ↑ "Symphony Concert Soloist". The Cincinnati Enquirer. 1933-03-26. p. 46. Retrieved 2022-06-22 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Ford, Emmett M. "Marguerite Melville Liszniewska" AMICA International (March 1981): 37.
  4. ↑ Brower, Harriette (1917). Piano Mastery: Second Series; Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers, Including Conferences with Hofmann, Godowsky, Grainger, Powell, Novaes, Hutcheson and Others; Also Hints on Macdowell's Teaching by Mrs. Macdowell, and Reminiscences of Joseffy. Frederick A. Stokes Company. pp. 163–178.
  5. ↑ Brower, Harriette (June 24, 1916). "Leschetizky and the Virtuoso". Musical Americ. p. 17. Retrieved 2022-06-22.
  6. ↑ "Liszniewska Re-engaged for Queen's Hall, London". Musical Courier. 67: 53. December 3, 1913.
  7. ↑ "Mme. Melville-Liszniewska". Music News. 8: 14. May 12, 1916.
  8. ↑ "Mme. Melville to Return for Another Tour of America". Musical America. 24: 17. October 21, 1916.
  9. ↑ "Mme. Melville Remains Here" Musical America 22(June 12, 1915): 37.
  10. ↑ "Chorus 'Star' of Twenty-Fifth Festival at Cincinnati". The Musical Leader. 45: 437. May 10, 1923.
  11. ↑ "Two More American Pianists are Engaged to Record their Playing for the Ampico". The Music Trades. 66: 39. 1923.
  12. ↑ Wishkoski, Rachel Colleen Slentz (2011). Marguerite Melville Liszniewska, Piano Quintet in E Minor, Op. 8: A Critical Edition. Whitman College.
  13. ↑ "Pianist Dies; Former Teacher at Conservatory". The Cincinnati Enquirer. 1958-02-23. p. 47. Retrieved 2022-06-22 – via Newspapers.com.
  14. ↑ "Scholarship Fund To Be Benefited By Concert". The Cincinnati Enquirer. 1939-01-15. p. 51. Retrieved 2022-06-22 – via Newspapers.com.
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