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Phone: 212-860-5541 * Fax: 917-677-8247
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Price: $150.00 |
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MINT CONDITION |
BERTHA TAPPER - PIANIST |
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Autographed three page letter by the Norwegian-American pianist and pedagogue, Blue Hill, Maine, June 28th, no year to New York concert and Broadway producer Jennie Kimball. Dear Miss Kimball: I have just seen Mr. Kneisel, who tells me that as his Boston dates are not yet decided upon, he must ask you to wait with the decision of the date for the concert. He must combine one of his Boston concerts Tuesday and another concert in the vicinity Wednesday with the McDowell Club Thursday. He expects to make his winters programs in July, and as Tom’s here and his next neighbor, I shall be able to inform you immediately. I am sorry not to be able to send you more definite accounts, but Mr. Kneisel’s residing in New York changes everything. Cordially yours, Bertha Tapper Blue Hills Maine June 28th
Bertha Feiring Tapper (1859-1915) was born in Christiana Norway. She studied initially with Johann Vendsen and Agathe Backer-Gröndahl there. She moved on to the Leipzig Conservatory where she studied with Carl Reinecke and Louis Maas, who she married after her graduation in 1878. She divorced Maas and emigrated to the United States in 1881. Initially she was a concert pianist and took private pupils. Her success was such that the New England Conservatory offered her a position teaching their graduate piano pupils. (1889-189) She married another New England Conservatory professor, the musicologist, Thomas Tapper. Tapper was a musicologist. She then left the Conservatory to receive further instruction in Vienna from Theodor Leschetizky. After a year, she moved back to the United States as the Professor of advanced pupils at the College of Musical Arts, the precursor of Juilliard. Through her time in Boston, her home in Blue Hills Maine and later New York, she was a close friend with Boston Symphony Orchestra concertmaster, Franz Kneisel and she was often their pianist in performance. As one can see here she was handling Kneisel’s correspondence. Her most famous pupils were Leo Orenstein, Kay Swift, Claire Raphael and Pauline Mallet-Provost. Orenstein claimed she was the most important influence in his life. Swift wrote about her at length in her autobiography and recalled having to hold corks between her fingers for two hours at a time as an exercise given by Tapper. She also mentioned that Tapper taught her to swim and dive as well. Mallet-Provost later married Ornstein and Raphael became an exponent of new music, something Tapper encouraged. Tapper following the style of Leschetizky would run group lessons in her apartment on Riverside Drive. Apparently, like Liszt, only the most talented pianists were allowed to play. Also, a close friend of Edvard Grieg and at his insistence, she edited two volumes of his solo piano works, which are still in print today. First we have seen. |
