ETHEL LEGINSKA (ETHEL LIGGINS) (HULL,
YORKSHIRE, ENGLAND, 13 APRIL, 1886 – LOS ANGELES, 26 FEBRUARY, 1970)
Ethel Leginska, born Leggins, was a child prodigy
whose musical education at the Hoch Conservatory in Germany was sponsored by a
local shipping magnate. She graduated at the age of ten and continued her
studies with Theodor Leschetizky for three years, also studying for a while in
Berlin. At the beginning of her career she adopted the name Leginska at a
friend’s suggestion and retained it for the rest of her life. After a
successful London debut Leginska toured Europe. In 1906 she played the Henselt
Piano Concerto in F minor Op. 16 in London with Henry Wood, a performance where
the Queen’s Hall organ was used in the first movement. Two years later she gave
a concert at Aeolian Hall, London playing works by her husband, the American
composer Emerson Whithorne, Brahms’s Piano Sonata in F minor Op. 5 and short
pieces by Cyril Scott and Edward MacDowell. In 1912 Leginska was studying music
theory in New York with Rubin Goldmark and the following year made her debut in
that city. She became popular in the United States, but it was not until the
1916–1917 season, after her divorce from Whithorne, whom she had married at the
age of nineteen, that she had her greatest success in America. The following
year Leginska studied composition with Ernest Bloch in New York and later took
further tuition from Eugene Goossens. Although she composed chamber music,
orchestral music and two operas, her reputation as a composer was not high
during her lifetime and has not survived her. She also took up conducting and
performed her own works.
A review from a 1922 concert in London describes her
compositions thus: ‘The music for the most part is in the present day style of
discordance, short phrases, and broken rhythms. A little time ago, possibly,
one might have felt interested, but nowadays such things are commonplaces, just
as are concords, square tunes, and regular beats, and like these, unless they
are the outcome of some genuine impulse and are employed with evidence of
genuine skill and understanding, are equally dull and unconvincing. We listened
in vain for suggestions of something being said that really counted, some
evocation of atmosphere, of poetic feeling, of humour, of fancy, while
technically Miss Leginska did no more than a quick ear and a certain aptitude
for putting two and two together can accomplish if it is thought worth while.’
Later that same year Leginska gave a concert with Goossens where she played a
piano concerto by Mozart and Liszt’s Hungarian Fantasy. Also on the programme
was a symphonic poem of her own composition. A critic thought she was ‘…au fait
with all the tricks of modern instrumental sound…but we do not find much music
behind it all.’
As well as studying composition with Goossens,
Leginska studied conducting with him and had done the same with Robert Heger in
Munich a year before. In 1924 she conducted the London Symphony Orchestra at
Queen’s Hall in London where the overture to Weber’s Oberon, Beethoven’s
Symphony No. 7 and Bach’s Keyboard Concerto in F minor were on the programme.
‘The conducting was that of an amateur, and we cannot say more than that it was
reasonably good at that…Two orchestral pieces by the conductor, said to be
after poems by Tagore, were also played. The composer has a good deal to learn
before she can attempt such things.’
With reviews such as these it is surprising to read
that Leginska retired as a pianist in 1926 to concentrate on composing and
conducting. She had taught piano in New York and in 1939 she moved to Los
Angeles where she continued to teach the piano and was instrumental in
organising important concerts in the area. Leginska recorded six or so acoustic
sides for Pathé Actuelle around 1920. In a work such as MacDowell’s Witches’
Dance she takes a careful tempo and is short on drama. Leginska’s main series
of recordings was made for Columbia between 1926 and 1928. For the Schubert
centenary year she recorded the four Impromptus D. 935 and the six Moments
Musicaux D. 780, but her playing of Schubert can sound rather straightforward
and restrained. The Impromptu No. 2 and Moment Musical No. 2 seem short on
sensitivity; whilst in her recording of Chopin’s Prélude in D flat Op. 28 No.
15, Leginska unaccountably doubles the tempo for the middle section.
Rachmaninov’s two most famous préludes fare better and Liszt’s Hungarian
Rhapsody No. 8 is delivered with a lot more character.
TRACKLIST
Nocturne op. 9 no 2 in E Flat. (Chopin) Duo-Art 70750
Valse in Ab Op. 34 No 1. (Moszkowski) Duo-Art 6159
Nocturne in C Minor Op. 48 No 1. (Chopin) Artrio 7827
Blue Danube Concert Arabesques (Strauss-Schulz-Evler) Duo-Art 6592
Les Deux Alouettes, Impromptu Op. 2 No 1. (Leschetizky) Duo-Art 6539
Eight Variations on ‘Tändeln und Scherzen’ (Beethoven) Duo-Art 6957
Prelude And Fugue in C# Major. WTK I – 3. (J. S. Bach) Duo-Art 68859
‘Hymn To The Sun’ from Opera Le Coq d’Or (Rimsky-Korsakov) Duo-Art 6549
Gavotte and Variations (Rameau-Leschetizky) Duo-Art 6217
Ballade No. 1 Op. 23 in Gm. (Chopin) Duo-Art 5644
Hungarian Rhapsody No 8 (Liszt) Duo-Art 73960
Oberon Overture (C-M von Weber) Duo-Art 6999
Valse Em Op.posth. (Chopin) Duo-Art 67079
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