Paderewski, Pianist and Patriot


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Biographical account of the life of Ignancy Paderewski, including his musical training and piano performance, meeting Andrew Carnegie and American Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Herbert Hoover, and his constant political efforts in World War II and before to help Poland.




The Mentor


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An Index to Articles Published in The Etude Magazine, 1883-1957, Part 2


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Annotation: The Index is published in two physical volumes and sold as a set for $250.00. As America's geography and societal demands expanded, the topics in The Etude magazine (first published in 1883) took on such important issues as women in music; immigration; transportation; Native American and African American composers and their music; World War I and II; public schools; new technologies (sound recordings, radio, and television); and modern music (jazz, gospel, blues, early 20th century composers) in addition to regular book reviews, teaching advice, interviews, biographies, and advertisements. Though a valued source particularly for private music teachers, with the de-emphasis on the professional elite and the decline in salon music, the magazine ceased publication in 1957. This Index to the articles in The Etude serves as a companion to E. Douglas Bomberger's 2004 publication on the music in The Etude. Published a little over fifty years after the final issue reached the public, this Index chronicles vocal and instrumental technique, composer biographies, position openings, department store orchestras, the design of a successful music studio, how to play an accordion, recital programs in music schools, and much more. The Index is a valuable tool for research, particularly in the music culture of American in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. With titles of these articles available, the doors are now open for further research in the years to come.




Ignacy Jan Paderewski


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A biography of the Polish piano virtuoso who became the first prime minister of a united Poland after World War I.




Starring Madame Modjeska


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The “important . . . meticulously researched” prize-winning biography of the pre-eminent Polish star of the nineteenth century global stage (CosmopolinReview.com). In reintroducing “a little-remembered actress to a new American audience” biographer Beth Holgram delivers a revelatory portrait of Helena Modjeska—from unparalleled European success to her reign as the most acclaimed, and most recognized female celebrity in the late nineteenth-century United States. In 1876, Poland’s leading actress, Helena Modrzejewska, accompanied by her husband, the self-stylized Count Bozente, emigrated to southern California to give up her career and establish a utopian commune. In light of its failings, it hardly fulfilled the real dreams of Madame Helena. Within a year, she changed her surname to Modjeska, and made her American debut at San Francisco’s California Theatre. Godmother to Ethel Barrymore, and sharing the Shakespearian stage with such luminaries as Otis Skinner, Edwin Booth, and Maurice Barrymore, Helena Modjeska became the leading star in the United States, where she reigned for the next thirty years. In this “Impressive . . . achievement,” Holmgren traces Modjeska’s fabulous life and career from her illegitimate birth in Krakow, to her successive reinventions of herself as a trans-continental diva, and finally to her enduring legacy (Women’s Review of Books). All in all, Starring Madame Modjeska “makes for great drama” (NewPages.com).




A Romantic Century in Polish Music


Book Description

This volume brings together a series of essays on some of the less known aspects of music culture in Poland in the 19th century. Eight studies are presented chronologically, including such topics as: careers of women composers, Karol Lipinski's concert tours and violins, Henryk Wieniawski, Polish reception of Wagner, images of composers by Polish music critics, Ignacy Jan Paderewski, and Feliks Nowowiejski. Authors, based in Poland, Germany and the U.S. include eminent scholars specializing in Polish music of the 19th and 20th centuries: Magdalena Dziadek, Maria Zduniak, Martina Homma, Krzysztof Rottermund, Krzysztof Szatrawski, and Maja Trochimczyk.







Ignaz Jan Paderewski


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