Ignaz Friedman
One of the finest mazurka writers after Chopin and a last Romantic pianist
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Who he was
Ignaz Friedman (1882–1948) was born at Podgórze, just outside Kraków, and became a Polish pianist and composer. He studied musicology with Riemann in Leipzig, then piano with Leschetizky in Vienna from 1904, and afterwards toured Europe, the Americas and Australia as a soloist. He moved to Sydney in 1940 and died there in 1948. He left about ninety works, nearly all connected with the piano.
His place
He belongs to the last generation of Romantic pianist-composers, for whom playing and writing were one trade, with Chopin, Schumann and Liszt at the centre of the repertoire. He took no part in modernism and his harmony stays within late Romantic bounds, yet his mazurkas are excellent and count among the most important continuations of the genre after Chopin. His playing was known for free tempo and thick sonority, and those habits are written into his music. His playing survives only on record, where the free tempo is still studied as a lesson.
What to hear
Listen first for the mazurka accent. The stress often falls on the second or third beat, so the step seems to miss its footing; Op.85 makes that irregularity plain. Then the bass as pivot: left-hand chords often arrive early or late rather than on the beat, which gives the phrase breath. Then patience in variation — the Passacaglia builds a whole piece on one repeated bass, adding a layer at each variation. Finally the decisiveness of the preludes, whose endings often stop rather than fade.
Key works
- Piano: Six Mazurkas Op.85, Passacaglia Op.44, Eight Preludes Op.80
- Studies: Studies on a Theme of Paganini, Three Concert Studies
- Other: three volumes of Polnische Lyrik, Wiener Tänze
Influence
Friedman is remembered today mainly as a performer, and his recordings of Chopin and Mendelssohn remain evidence of Romantic performing practice. His composing is the echo of that tradition — not new, but written to the end of a genre, so that later Polish composers approaching a mazurka still have to get past him. Few of his works were published, and he introduced most of them himself in recital. He concertised in South America and Australia before settling in Sydney.
Listen in the library
All tracks from midicn-lib — inline badge is the license tier (C1 commercial / C2 non-commercial / C3 study only).
Sources
- 弗里德曼生平、莱比锡与维也纳学习经历，参 The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians 的 Friedman 条目；本文为原创表述
- 波兰舞曲体裁与弗里德曼钢琴作品的出版情况，参通行二十世纪钢琴演奏史研究；实例说明由本站撰写
Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.