In July 1886, Godowsky set sail for France with his new 'uncle', Leon Saxe, who would spend most of the next four years with him in Europe. (Mrs. Saxe was eventually sent for, leaving her six children behind her!) Liszt, alas, died on 31 July, within days of Godowsky's arrival in France. Saxe and his young charge instead made for Paris - and Camille Saint-Sa‘ns. Saint-Sa‘ns did no regular teaching but, once again, Godowsky's phenomenal ability won him special consideration. Having played for the great man, it was agreed that Godowsky would come and play for him whenever he wanted. For a time, the two met up every Sunday. Saint-Sa‘ns seemed to believe that Godowsky had been sent by Providence to replace the son he had lost so tragically.
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As early as 1892 Godowsky taught weight, relaxation, and economy of motion as the foundation stones of technique of interpretation and mechanism in piano playing. Together with Teresa Carre–o, who developed similar theories by watching Anton Rubinstein practice, Godowsky was the first great concert pianist to consciously adopt and then teach the principle of weight release, rather than muscular impetus, as the most efficient method of playing.
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It was during the 1890s that Godowsky began to make arrangements of other composers' music - transcribing not orchestral works for the keyboard, but already extant piano music. The earliest of these are Frˇdˇric Chopin's Rondo Op. 16 and Grande Valse Brillante in E-flat, Op.18, and Adolf von Henselt's Etude Op.2 No.6 Si oiseau j'ˇtais. His approach was one he pursued throughout his creative life: an absorption with polyphony, the simultaneous interweaving of many different themes. A set of 54 pieces in this style, reworking 26 of the 27 Chopin etudes, was produced between 1893 and 1914 and formed the basis of his reputation as an important composer for the piano.
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Godowsky now left his elegant home in Vienna for the Plaza Hotel in New York. He was 44, a small man - only five feet three - with a high domed forehead, a round, cherubic face with twinkling eyes and a face that aged into Buddha-like placidity. From his thirties he acquired a figure that made him, while never less than sartorially elegant, compactly plump and the owner of that most important of pianistic attributes, a large and wide seat.
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One of his pupils, Clarence Adler, watched him playing and noted that: "his hands were very small, but wonderfully well developed and exceedingly expressive. They were rubbery and he trained them so marvellously he could master wide stretches and dangerous skips with the greatest of ease..." Another pupil, Heinrich Neuhaus, observed: "those small hands... seemed chiselled out of marble and were incredibly beautiful... the main impression was that everything is terribly simple, natural, beautiful and completely effortless."
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"Once anyone entered Godowsky's door, he became a disciple... Everyone and anyone was welcome. There seemed to be a perpetual party going on. The table was always set and loaded with food and drink. Godowsky was a born host. His sons and daughters came naturally by their linguistic virtuosity and easy sociability. Popsy [Godowsky's nickname] loved people and loved to be surrounded by them. If he invited you to come over 'just for a little quiet talk and music', you might arrive to find twenty people who had just dropped in, among them not only musicians but also, likely as not, Popsy's music-loving tailor or butcher, a man he had met the day before who said he liked music. Everyone was treated with equal informality and graciousness. Popsy's old-world courtesy and sparkling humor pervaded every word and action as he waddled between the living-room and adjacent dining-room filling plates and glasses, emptying ashtrays, scattering remarks and vicious jibes. - Abram Chasins
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He began writing more and, following his return to America in 1927, produced a number of transcriptions (including his well-known elaboration of Saint-Sa‘ns' The Swan), three of his four Poems, and his last major work Passacaglia, composed as a tribute to Schubert on the centenary of his death. It is a large-scale conception based on the opening eight bars of Schubert's Unfinished Symphony, comprising 44 variations, cadenza and fugue.
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"I worked honestly with the highest ideals for my chosen art and beloved instrument. I have accomplished in my field more and greater things than all my contemporary colleagues. Yet real recognition and material benefits were not given to me; but crediting me sparingly and grudgingly, my life ebbed, and now I find myself ill and poor. A few know the importance of my having lived. When I am but a memory my works and my influence will begin to live." - Leopold Godowsky
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Bon Mots
Apropos of wrong notes, a subject rich for musical anecdotes, when a young man made a point of mentioning the wrong notes he had heard Hofmann play in a recital, Godowsky merely commented: "Why look for spots on the sun?"
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Godowsky was not an admirer of Eugen d'Albert - "I haven't one pupil in Vienna who plays as badly as him" - but when one of Godowsky's students made a similar observation on the number of d'Albert's mistakes, Godowsky smartly slapped him down with: "I'd rather listen to all d'Albert's wrong notes than to any of your right ones."
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Like many pianists, Godowsky was frequently importuned by proud parents to hear their children and pronounce on their abilities. After hearing the offspring of one such doting father, Godowsky wrote: "Your daughter is not without talent; she manages to play the simplest pieces with the greatest of difficulty."
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Once Godowsky was listening to Raoul Pugno perform one of his own compositions. When asked afterwards how he liked the piece, Godowsky replied: "It seems to me that Pugno first wrote the fingering of that work and then fitted the notes to it."
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Leopold Junior, so often the victim of his father's gibes, recalled a favourite Godowskyism. There was that famous saying of Franz Liszt that when he didn't practice for a day, he noticed it; and if he didn't practice for two days, his friends noticed it; and if he didn't practice for three days, his audience noticed it. And Godowsky said, "I have had the same experience, and when I don't practice for four days, the critics notice it."
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As for his fellow pianists, here was endless scope for indulging his caustic wit. Once Mark Hambourg's name arose in conversation. He had suffered many painful memory lapses during his recital the previous week which Godowsky and several others present had attended. "Wasn't it frightful, this forgetting?" exclaimed one. "It wasn't what he forgot that was so frightful," said Godowsky. "It was what he remembered!"
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Violinist Mischa Elman called round after an exceptionally successful tour and asked Godowsky excitedly to guess how much money he had made. "Half," replied Godowsky laconically, "Half."
