Zofia Rabcewicz

She resumed performing around the end of World War I and settled permanently in Warsaw in 1918, later appearing frequently on Polish Radio. She taught at the Warsaw Conservatory beginning in 1922, and she served as a juror at the first three editions of the International Chopin Piano Competition. She was a noted interpreter of Frédéric Chopin, whose 1932 recordings have attracted scholarly analysis. During the Nazi occupation of Poland she gave more than 60 clandestine concerts. Once called the "doyenne of Polish pianists", she was posthumously awarded the Commander's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta.

• Name — Zofia Rabcewicz • Birth Name — Zofia Maria Poznańska • Born — 25 September 1870 • Birthplace — Vilnius, Russian Empire • Died — 3 September 1947 • Place of death — Milanówek, Poland • Education — Saint Petersburg Conservatory • Instrument — piano • Years Active — 1891–1947 • Awards — Order of Polonia Restituta

Rabcewicz was born in Vilnius, then part of the Vilna Governorate of the Russian Empire, on 7 October 1870 to Amilia and Kazimierz Poznański. The family moved to Saint Petersburg when she was three years old. She began studying music at the Conservatory of the Imperial Music Society in St Petersburg in 1877 with Iosif Borovka. In 1884, she gained a scholarship to study piano under Anton Rubinstein, a distinction considered "very unusual" for a non-Russian. She graduated on 31 May 1890, playing Rubinstein's Concerto in D minor at her graduation concert, for which she received a distinction. She was also awarded two pianos, one by the Russian manufacturer C. M. Schröder, and another by J. Becker.

Rabcewicz began touring Russia, Germany, and Austria in 1891 to critical acclaim. The Russian leg took her to Moscow, Kyiv, Odessa, Riga, and Vilnius, and she reached Berlin, Dresden, Leipzig, Budapest, Vienna, and Prague that autumn. At a performance in Berlin, one critic wrote that "without a doubt, a new piano genius has been born." She performed in Berlin again the following year under the baton of Hans von Bülow. After a performance in Dresden, the music critic Bernhard Vogel announced that "with her performance of the Concerto in F minor... she surpassed all the female pianists who had performed this work during the previous six years." She made her debut in Warsaw on 29 March 1892 to great acclaim. After marrying the following year, Rabcewicz largely withdrew from the public eye to raise children and manage her household. Her husband objected to her performing in public, and their children later recalled the domestic quarrels this caused. In 1896, she taught a piano class at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, succeeding the late Anton Rubinstein. She gave up the post after a few months, citing family reasons. She performed only sporadically until the end of World War I, during which she delivered charity concerts for Polish families.

During the occupation of Poland, she gave more than 60 underground concerts. She held them between November 1940 and June 1944 in the Warsaw apartment of her daughter Maria Reklewska, playing to audiences of 100 to 120 people who paid what they wished for tickets. Listeners refrained from applauding for fear of drawing the attention of the Germans, who prohibited such gatherings. Her own apartment on Marszałkowska Street burned in August 1944 after the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising, destroying the two grand pianos she had won on graduating from the conservatory. • Illustration — Grave at Powązki Cemetery in Warsaw In September 1945 she gave an acclaimed performance of Chopin's Concerto in F minor, and on 25 August 1946 she inaugurated the International Chopin Festival in Duszniki-Zdrój. She appeared there alongside Henryk Sztompka. She gave her last performance, a recital of Chopin for the Polish Radio, on 2 July 1947. Rabcewicz died on 3 September 1947 in Milanówek, aged 76. Three days later, on the motion of the Minister of Culture and Art, she was posthumously awarded the Commander's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta for outstanding and long-standing artistic activity. She is buried with her husband at the Powązki Cemetery in Warsaw.

In early 1893, she married Jerzy Rabcewicz, an engineer six years her senior who after 1918 served as an officer in the Polish Army. Their children included Eugeniusz, born later that year, along with Maria, Zofia, and Jerzy. Eugeniusz died of a congenital heart condition in 1927 at the age of 33, and her husband died three years after that. Her son-in-law Aleksander Leszczyński was shot dead in September 1939, and her daughter Zofia died of a stroke half a year later. She had five grandchildren, several of whom she taught to play the piano. She was the great-aunt of Polish actress Alina Janowska. She was also the great-grandmother of Polish writer Krzysztof Logan Tomaszewski.