Elly Ney
Elly Ney (27 September 1882 – 31 March 1968, Tutzing) was a German romantic pianist who specialized in Beethoven, and was especially popular in Germany.
She was born in Düsseldorf, where her mother was a music instructor and her father was a registrar.[1] Her grandmother introduced her to the works of Beethoven, and supported her piano playing. She studied at Cologne with Isidore Seiss and K. Bötcher.[1] After winning the Mendelssohn Scholarship in 1901, she studied in Vienna with Theodor Leschetizky and Emil von Sauer.[2] She taught at the Cologne Conservatory for three years, then became a touring virtuoso. In 1927 she was given the honorary freedom of Beethoven's birth place Bonn. In 1932 she founded the Elly Ney Trio with Wilhelm Stross (violin) and Ludwig Hoelscher (cello): in quintets the group recorded with Florizel von Reuter (violin) and Walter Trampler (viola). She traveled to the USA, playing in Carnegie Hall, and many other parts of the world.
She was married twice; first, in 1911, to the conductor Willem van Hoogstraten. They divorced in 1927 and she married an American, Paul Allais (a Chicago coal dealer). Ney died in Tutzing in 1968.
During the Third Reich she joined the Nazi Party in 1937,[3] participated in "cultural education" camps, and became an honorary member of the League of German Girls.[4] She held anti-Semite views.[3] After the war, the city of Bonn imposed a stage ban on her. In 1952 a request for lifting the ban was rejected, stating that Ney was a "pronounced National Socialist".[5]
[edit] References
- ^ a b Finscher, Ludwig; Blume, Friedrich (1994). Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart. ISBN 978-3476410221.
- ^ Elly Ney entry at Deutsche Biographie (German)
- ^ a b Vor 125 wurde die große Beethoven-Interpretin Elly Ney geboren. In: Leipziger Volkszeitung. 9/28/2007. p. 10
- ^ Romantikerin am Klavier. Deutschlandfunk 09/27/2007
- ^ Internatonales Biographisches Archiv. No. 21 (5/13/1986). ISSN 00209457.
