Teresa Carreño

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Teresa Carreño (before 1900)

María Teresa Carreño García de Sena (born December 22, 1853 in Caracas , † June 12, 1917 in New York ) was a Venezuelan pianist and composer .

life and work

Teresa Carreño was world famous in her day and was considered the most important pianist of our time. She was often referred to as the "Empress of the Piano" and "Valkyrie of the Piano".

Teresa Carreño at the age of eight at the piano
Manuel Carreño (around 1863)

Her father Manuel Antonio Carreño Muñoz (1812–1874) was a Venezuelan diplomat, educator, publisher and cultural intellectual. As the son of the eminent Venezuelan composer José Cayetano Carreño , he grew up in a very musical environment and was a gifted amateur pianist; also the author of the widely known in the Spanish-speaking and often placed etiquette book Manual de urbanidad y buenas maneras (1852), a kind of Spanish etiquette . With his more politically active brothers José Bautista Carreño and José de la Cruz Carreño, who were also musicians and were politically close to José Antonio Páez , Manuel Carreño participated in the opposition to the authoritarian-liberal regime of the Monagas brothers in the 1850s . Teresa's mother Clorinda García de Sena y Rodríguez del Toro (1816–1866), whose father was also a musician, was with María Teresa del Toro (1781–1803), the legendary wife of Simón Bolívar and Teresa Carreños namesake, and with the Venezuelan Revolutionary General Francisco Related to Rodríguez del Toro (1761-1851).

Teresa received piano lessons from her father, who wrote more than 500 teaching pieces for her and presented them in 1862 in chamber music circles and at house concerts of the capital elite of Caracas, where her performances received a lot of attention, especially because of her virtuosity, which was unusual for her age, and her astonishingly creative improvisations . Observers described the “ child prodigy ” as “successor and worthy likeness of Mozart” and celebrated her as an icon of future progress in Venezuela. Immediately before her emigration, the German-Venezuelan pianist Julio Hohené, who had been working in Caracas since 1842, was her teacher for a few months.

Because of the political unrest in Venezuela since 1858 , which went hand in hand with the decline in cultural life in the capital, the family decided to emigrate in 1862 after their father's political difficulties. Manuel Carreño served as head of the national bank in 1861 and 1862 and briefly as foreign and finance minister of his country and then turned away from politics. Financially secured by the sale of her maternal grandmother's goods, Teresa's family, with a total of thirteen people and accompanying service personnel, left for the United States via Cuba on July 23, 1862 . Only her 15-year-old sister Emilia refused to come because she wanted to stay in Venezuela and marry a cousin.

Teresa received lessons from Louis Moreau Gottschalk in New York until 1865 . On November 28, 1862 she gave her first concert in New York's Irving Hall ; at the age of nine she played in the White House in 1863 for Abraham Lincoln . In the autumn of 1866 her mother died of cholera , which was a severe blow to the child. In the same year she moved to Spain with her father, where she gave concerts in Madrid and Zaragoza. In Paris she received piano lessons from Chopin's student Georges Mathias around 1868/69 and from Anton Rubinstein between 1868 and 1872 . Concert tours all over Europe followed.

From 1873 to 1875 she was married to the composer Émile Sauret , from 1876 to 1885 to the Italian baritone Giovanni Tagliapietra . From this marriage the daughter Teresita Tagliapietra-Carreño emerged on December 24, 1882 , who also became an important pianist. The son Giovanni was born on January 7, 1885.

In 1885 Teresa Carreño returned to Venezuela for the first time since her childhood emigration, where she opened Tagliapietra, an Italian opera in Caracas, in which she also appeared as a singer. Her appearances as a pianist became less frequent for a while, she composed a lot and pursued other projects, such as the opening of a conservatory in her home country.

A few years later she went back to Europe. Her European tour from 1889 to 1890, through which she finally rose to the highest level of celebrity, received great attention. As part of this concert tour, she made her debut in Berlin on November 18, 1889 . In Germany Carreño enjoyed special admiration throughout her life.

In her third marriage, she was married to Eugen d'Albert from September 1892 to October 1895 , with whom she lived in the Villa Teresa named after her in Kötitz , Saxony , today Coswig . With D'Albert she had two more daughters, Eugenia (born Sept. 27, 1892) and Hertha (born Sept. 26, 1894). From 1902 she was married to Arturo Tagliapietra , the brother of her second husband, and when she was not traveling she lived in Berlin on Kurfürstendamm . In addition to her concert tours through Europe, America and Australia , she emerged as a composer of brilliant piano pieces and also composed a string quartet.

Villa Teresa in Coswig

From her school eminent pianists - such as Edward MacDowell (1861-1908) and Télémaque Lambrino (1878-1930) - emerged. Rudolf Maria Breithaupt (1873–1945) dedicated his modern methodical piano work "The natural piano technique of the master Teresa Carreño" to her. Also Gioachino Rossini and Edvard Grieg unpaid their consideration.

Teresa Carreño recorded a total of 18 works for the Welte-Mignon reproduction piano on April 2, 1905 , including a recording of Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata that was then and now fantastically played . Several of the piano rolls she recorded in 1905 for reproduction pianos with works by Schumann , Liszt , Chopin and Beethoven as well as her own compositions are in the possession of the Freiburg University Library and the Augustinermuseum in Freiburg. Her daughter Teresita also made Welte Mignon recordings in 1906.

In April 1983 the music theater Complejo Cultural Teresa Carreño ( Teresa Carreño Cultural Complex ), named after the artist, was opened in Caracas , one of the largest concert halls and theaters in Latin America .

Trivia

The composition of the Venezuelan national anthem Gloria al bravo pueblo is often ascribed to her, but this is not correct. However, she actually composed two choral works with a patriotic-national character: the Himno a Bolívar (1883/1885) and the Himno a El Ilustre Americano (1886).

The Venus crater Carreno with a diameter of 57 kilometers is named after Teresa Carreño.

Works

Teresa Carreño (top right) together with her second husband Giovanni Tagliapietra (top center) on a poster.

Piano works

  • Valse Gottschalk, Op. 1
  • Caprice-Polka, Op. 2
  • Corbeille des fleurs, Valse, Op. 9
  • Polka de Concert, Op. 13
  • Fantaisie sur Norma, Op. 14th
  • Ballad, Op. 15th
  • Plainte, première élégie, Op. 17th
  • Partie, deuxième élégie, Op. 18th
  • Elegies, Op. 20, Plaintes au bord d'une tombe (4th elegy)
  • Elegies, Op. 21, Plaintes au bord d'une tombe (4th elegy)
  • Fantaisie sur L'Africaine, Op. 24
  • Le Printemps, Op. 25th
  • Un Bal en Rêve, Op. 26th
  • Une Revue à Prague, Op. 27
  • Un rêve en mer, Méditation, Op. 28
  • Six Etudes de Concert, Op. 29
  • Mazurka de salon, Op. 30th
  • Scherzo-Caprice, Op. 31
  • Deux Esquisses Italiennes Op. 33
    • Venise, No. 1
    • Florence, No. 2
  • Intermezzo Scherzoso, Op. 34
  • Le Sommeil de l'enfant, Berceuse, Op. 35
  • Scherzino, Op. 36
  • Highland (Souvenir de l'Escosse), Op. 38
  • La fausse note, Fantasy Valse, Op. 39
  • Staccato-Capriccietto Op. 40
  • Marche funebre (1866)
  • Little waltz for pianoforte (Mi Teresita) [Petite Valse (Teresita)], (1898)
  • Saludo a Caracas (1885)
  • Vals Gayo

Works for choir and orchestra

  • Himno a Bolívar (1883 or 1885)
  • Himno a El Ilustre Americano (1886)

Other works

  • String Quartet for 2 violins, viola, cello, B minor (1895)
  • Serenade for string orchestra (1895)

literature

  • Obras de Teresa Carreño . Ediciones del Ministerio de Educación, Caracas 1974 (official catalog raisonné).
  • Rudolf Maria Breithaupt : The natural piano technique of the master Teresa Carreño . Kahnt, Leipzig 1905.
  • Juan Bautista Plaza: Teresa Carreño . Tipografía Americana, Caracas 1938.
  • Marta Milinowski: Teresa Carreño: "By the grace of god" . Da Capo Press, New York 1977, ISBN 0-306-70870-1 (reprint of the New Haven 1940 edition).
  • Rosario Marciano: Teresa Carreño. A life and impact story . Furore-Verlag, Kassel 1990, ISBN 3-927327-04-2 .
  • Mario Milanca Guzmán: Quién fue Teresa Carreño? Alfadil Ed., Caracas 1990, ISBN 980-6273-00-1 .
  • Joseph Banowetz , Brian Mann ( arr .): The art of piano pedaling. Two classic guides. Anton Rubinstein and Teresa Carreño . Dover Publications, Mineola, NY 2003. ISBN 0-486-42782-X (content: Guide to the proper use of the piano forte pedals (Bosworth, Leipzig 1897) and Possibilities of tune color by artistic use of pedals (J. Church, Cincinnati 1919)).
  • Cord Garben : Past luck…. The art and fate of legendary pianists. Noetzel Verlag, Wilhelmshaven 2017 (2nd edition 2018), ISBN 978-3-7959-1013-6 , pp. 15–34.
  • Laura Pita: Teresa Carreño's Early Years in Caracas: Cultural Intersections of Piano Virtuosity, Gender, and Nation-Building in the Nineteenth Century. Dissertation, University of Kentucky , 2019 (online) .
  • Laura Pita: Los conciertos de Teresa Carreño en Caracas en 1862: construcciones de género, virtuosismo y patriotismo. In: Escena. Revista de las artes , ISSN 2215-4906, Vol. 79 (2020), No. 2, pp. 148-173 (online) .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ “the most distinguished female piano artist of the day”, cf. Press comment from 1901, in: Reminiscences about Abraham Lincoln (press archive of the Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection ), p. 62/72.
  2. ↑ a b Ragna Schirmer , concert announcement for the 160th birthday of Teresa Carreño in the Coswig Stock Exchange on December 22, 2013, accessed on May 4, 2017.
  3. ^ Robert Stevenson: Teresa Carreño (1853-1917). Remembered on Her 150th Anniversary. In: Latin American Music Review / Revista de Música Latinoamericana , Vol. 25 (2004), No. 2, pp. 163-179 (here: p. 163).
  4. ↑ You can listen to it here ( YouTube channel).
  5. ^ Jean-Pierre Thiollet , 88 notes pour piano solo , "Solo nec plus ultra", Neva Editions, 2015, p.51. ISBN 978 2 3505 5192 0 .
  6. ↑ The catalog raisonné represents the state of research from July 2007, exhausting the works given in the literature section at that time.

Web links

Commons : Teresa Carreño  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Carreño, Teresa
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Carreño, Maria Teresa; Carreño García de Sena, Maria Teresa
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Venezuelan composer
DATE OF BIRTH December 22, 1853
PLACE OF BIRTH Caracas
DATE OF DEATH June 12, 1917
Place of death New York City