POLIN Museum holds personal memorabilia of Felicja Blumental (1908–1991), a world-famous pianist and harpsichordist born in Warsaw. The collection includes photos documenting her rich and long career, family letters, school and student ID cards, and even school notebooks. We can also find there the Diary from the Saddest Period of my Youth from 1931–1932, written during the long months of being away from her fiancé, later husband, Markus Mizne (1908–1994). At the Warsaw Conservatory of Music, Felicja Blumental studied composition under Karol Szymanowski and piano under Józef Goldberg, Zbigniew Drzewiecki and Józef Turczyński. In 1937, she took part in the 3rd International Chopin Piano Competition, the biggest musical event in Poland and one of the most important music competitions in the world. Before the outbreak of World War II, Felicja lived with her husband in Nice, France; after the war began, she and her parents moved to Luxembourg. In 1940, along with her daughter Aneczka (Anette Celine), she left for Brazil to join Markus Mizne. In 1954, the spouses returned to Europe; they lived in Italy, then in London.
The pianist concertised extensively and had works written for her by important 20th-century composers. Heitor Villa-Lobos dedicated the Piano Concerto No. 5 to her, and Krzysztof Penderecki – his Partita for Harpsichord and Chamber Orchestra. It was also specially for Felicja Blumental that Witold Lutosławski wrote his “Variations on a Theme of Paganini” for orchestra and piano, first performed by the pianist in 1978 with the Florida Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Brian Priestmann. Felicja Blumental’s phonographic output is very rich as well.
She died in 1991 in Tel Aviv, during a tour. In 1999, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art named its annual international music festival after Felicja Blumental.
For more information about Felicja Blumental, visit Culture.pl (https://culture.pl/pl/tworca/felicja-blumental, in Polish only, accessed 8 August 2021).
Renata Piątkowska