Marguerite Melville Liszniewska

Marguerite Melville Liszniewska (April 17, 1879 – March 7, 1935) was an American pianist, teacher, and composer. Early life and education Melville was born in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Charles W. Melville and Mary Theresa Hughes Melville. Her parents were both musical; her father, an organist, was born in Scotland, and her mother, a singer, was born in Canada. Her parents were also both opera singers, and her father was also a well known theatrical composer who later in life was an “advance man” for other well known opera performers. Her paternal grandfather Francis Melville was a pianoforte maker in Glasgow, Scotland. Her brother Frederick (b. 1864 d. 1944) was also an accomplished musician and multi instrumentalist who could play “any instrument he could pick up.” Frederick built his own violin, and family lore has it that he used to play organ concerts at St Patrick’s Cathedral for a dollar admission. She went to study piano and composition in Berlin at age 15, with Ernst Jedliczka and O. B. Boise, and later in Vienna with Theodor Leschetizky. “It is such a beautiful thing to study music,” she said in an interview, “Artistic things get so easily crowded to the wall or