Wilhelmine Neruda

Wilhelmine Maria Franziska "Wilma" Neruda (born March 29, 1839 in Brno , Austria-Hungary , † April 15, 1911 in Berlin ) was an important Moravian violinist .

Neruda siblings: Wilhelmine; Victor; Amalie. Lithograph by August Prinzhofer , 1850

Portrait of George Frederick Watts (1817-1904)

Life

Wilma Neruda was the daughter of the Brno cathedral organist Josef Neruda (born January 16, 1807 in Mohelno , Trebitsch district, † February 18, 1875 in Brno). She and her siblings received music lessons from their father. After the family moved to Vienna , they studied with Leopold Jansa . Already at the age of six she performed successfully in public in 1845, playing a sonata by Johann Sebastian Bach . Later she went on long concert tours through European cities with her sister Maria (born 1844), a pianist, and her brother Franz Xaver Neruda (1843–1915), a cellist. She was often accompanied on the piano by her sister Maria , a pianist and piano teacher who later became known under her married name Wickenhauser. Since 1864 she was married to the royal Swedish court conductor Ludvig Norman . The wedding took place in their home town of Brno. From this marriage the son, Ludwig Norman-Neruda (1864–1898), a later known alpinist, emerged. From 1870 onwards she lived mostly in London, where she was held in high esteem together with the London pianist Sir Charles Hallé both as a solo and as a quartet player and enjoyed worldwide success. Her special patrons included the kings of England, Denmark and Sweden. After Ludvig Norman's death in 1885, she married Sir Charles Hallé in 1888. She was considered the most famous violinist of her time. After 1900 she worked as a violin teacher at the Berlin Conservatory. After Hallé's death, she moved with her son to Asolo in northern Italy, where she lived until his death in 1898. Wilma Neruda died in Berlin in 1911.

Honors

• In 1862 she was appointed court violinist by the Swedish royal family.
• In 1901 she was awarded the title of Queen's Violinist by Queen Alexandra of Denmark .
• In 1991 the Venus crater Halle was named after her.

• Henri Vieuxtemps dedicated his adaptation of the Faust Fantasy based on Gounod's opera to her.

• Niels Gade dedicated his Sonata (No. 3) for violin and pianoforte, op.59 , to her.
• August Winding dedicated his Sonata for Violin and Pianoforte, op.5 , to her.
• The Chilean Nobel Prize Laureate in Literature Pablo Neruda is said to use his pseudonym Neruda in her honor.

World premieres

• Violin Concerto op.11 by August Winding on March 2, 1867 in Copenhagen, with the Orchestra of the Musicians Foreningen

literature

• Constantin von Wurzbach : Neruda, Wilhelmine (in her family's article) . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 20th part. Imperial and Royal Court and State Printing Office, Vienna 1869, p. 190 f. ( Digitized version ).
• U. Harten:  Neruda Wilma. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 7, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1978, ISBN 3-7001-0187-2 , p. 70.
• Biographical lexicon on the history of the Bohemian countries , published on behalf of the Collegium Carolinum , Volume III, page 25, R. Oldenbourg Verlag Munich 2000, ISBN 3 486 55973 7
• Robert W. Eshbach: Wilhelmine Maria Franziska Norman-Neruda, Lady Hallé . From Die Tonkunst, April 2011, No. 2, vol. 5 (2011), ISSN  1863-3536 , pp. 191-195.
• Jutta Heise: The violin virtuoso Wilma Neruda (1838-1911): biography and repertoire , Hildesheim; Zurich [u. a.]: Olms, 2013, ISBN 978-3-487-14871-7
• Signals for the musical world, Leipzig, Ed. B. Senff

Web links

Commons : Wilma Neruda  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• New York Times report of April 17, 1910 on her 71st birthday
• Wilma Neruda at MUGI (Music and Gender on the Internet)
• The estate is in the Bavarian State Library