Eunice Norton was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 pianist

Pianist

A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...

.

Norton was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Minneapolis , nicknamed "City of Lakes" and the "Mill City," is the county seat of Hennepin County, the largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota, and the 48th largest in the United States...

. She studied as a child at the University of Minnesota

University of Minnesota

The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...

 with William Lindsay, who later introduced her to Dame Myra Hess

Myra Hess

Dame Myra Hess DBE was a British pianist.She was born in London as Julia Myra Hess, but was best known by her middle name. At the age of five she began to study the piano and two years later entered the Guildhall School of Music, where she graduated as winner of the Gold Medal...

. Hess was so impressed with the 15-year-old Norton's playing that she arranged for Norton to study in England in 1923 with Hess's own mentor, the famed pedagogue Tobias Matthay

Tobias Matthay

Tobias Augustus Matthay was an English pianist, teacher, and composer.-Biography:Matthaw as born in London in 1858 to parents who had come from northern Germany and were naturalised British subjects...

, with whom Norton would remain in association for 8 years.

Eunice Norton made her first appearance within that same year with the Queen’s Hall Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Sir Henry Wood

Henry Wood (conductor)

Sir Henry Joseph Wood, CH was an English conductor best known for his association with London's annual series of promenade concerts, known as the Proms. He conducted them for nearly half a century, introducing hundreds of new works to British audiences...

, who subsequently took Norton on tour as soloist throughout the provinces. She played many recitals at that time in Wigmore Hall

Wigmore Hall

Wigmore Hall is a leading international recital venue that specialises in hosting performances of chamber music and is best known for classical recitals of piano, song and instrumental music. It is located at 36 Wigmore Street, London, UK and was built to provide London with a venue that was both...

, and was soloist with the Manchester, Birmingham

City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra

The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra is a British orchestra based in Birmingham, England. The Orchestra's current chief executive, appointed in 1999, is Stephen Maddock...

, and B.B.C.

BBC Symphony Orchestra

The BBC Symphony Orchestra is the principal broadcast orchestra of the British Broadcasting Corporation and one of the leading orchestras in Britain.-History:...

 Symphonies under Sirs Hamilton Harty

Hamilton Harty

Sir Hamilton Harty was an Irish and British composer, conductor, pianist and organist. In his capacity as a conductor, he was particularly noted as an interpreter of the music of Berlioz and he was much respected as a piano accompanist of exceptional prowess...

 and Adrian Boult

Adrian Boult

Sir Adrian Cedric Boult CH was an English conductor. Brought up in a prosperous mercantile family he followed musical studies in England and at Leipzig, Germany, with early conducting work in London for the Royal Opera House and Sergei Diaghilev's ballet company. His first prominent post was...

.

After winning the Chappell Gold Medal and the London Bach Prize in 1927, she performed in Vienna, The Hague, Paris, and Leipzig with the famous Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra

Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra

The Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra is one of the the oldest symphony orchestras in the world...

. In Berlin alone, she gave more than twenty concerts to dazzling critical reviews, including a Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...

 concert about which musicologist and critic Alfred Einstein wrote, "Her Bach is played as Bach would have wished to hear it." In Amsterdam, Paderewski said after hearing her Chopin

Frédéric Chopin

Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....

, "You will play in all the great halls of the world."

As if fulfilling this prediction, Norton soon played in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Budapest. In the United States, she made her formal debut at Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....

 and later premiered many new works at frequent concert appearances at Town Hall. She was invited by Koussevitzsky

Serge Koussevitzky

Serge Koussevitzky , was a Russian-born Jewish conductor, composer and double-bassist, known for his long tenure as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1924 to 1949.-Early career:...

 to play with the Boston Symphony Orchestra

Boston Symphony Orchestra

The Boston Symphony Orchestra is an orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1881, the BSO plays most of its concerts at Boston's Symphony Hall and in the summer performs at the Tanglewood Music Center...

, and was heard from coast to coast as recitalist and soloist with the New York Philharmonic

New York Philharmonic

The New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra based in New York City in the United States. It is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five"...

, Philadelphia

Philadelphia Orchestra

The Philadelphia Orchestra is a symphony orchestra based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States. One of the "Big Five" American orchestras, it was founded in 1900...

, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra

The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The orchestra's home is Heinz Hall, located in Pittsburgh's Cultural District.-History:...

, and Chicago

Chicago Symphony Orchestra

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Chicago, Illinois. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1891, the Symphony makes its home at Orchestra Hall in Chicago and plays a summer season at the Ravinia Festival...

 symphonies under Dobrowen

Issay Dobrowen

Issay Alexandrovich Dobrowen was a Russian-Norwegian pianist, composer and conductor.He was born Itschok Zorachovitch Barabeitchik in Nizhny Novgorod, Russian Empire of Jewish parents. He left the Soviet Union in 1922, and became a Norwegian citizen in 1929.He once played Beethoven's Sonata...

, Verbrugghen

Henri Verbrugghen

Henri Verbrugghen was a Belgian musician, who directed orchestras in England, Scotland, Australia and the United States....

, Stokowski

Leopold Stokowski

Leopold Anthony Stokowski was a British-born, naturalised American orchestral conductor, well known for his free-hand performing style that spurned the traditional baton and for obtaining a characteristically sumptuous sound from many of the great orchestras he conducted.In America, Stokowski...

, Ormandy

Eugene Ormandy

Eugene Ormandy was a Hungarian-born conductor and violinist.-Early life:Born Jenő Blau in Budapest, Hungary, Ormandy began studying violin at the Royal National Hungarian Academy of Music at the age of five...

, Stock

Frederick Stock

Frederick Stock was a German conductor and composer.-Biography:...

, Reiner

Fritz Reiner

Frederick Martin “Fritz” Reiner was a prominent conductor of opera and symphonic music in the twentieth century.-Biography:...

, and Steinberg

William Steinberg

William Steinberg was a German-American conductor.- Biography :Steinberg was born Hans Wilhelm Steinberg in Cologne, Germany. He displayed early talent as a violinist, pianist, and composer, conducting his own choral/ orchestral composition at age 13...

. One highlight from this period was her premiere
performance and recording with RCA Victor of Hindemith

Paul Hindemith

Paul Hindemith was a German composer, violist, violinist, teacher, music theorist and conductor.- Biography :Born in Hanau, near Frankfurt, Hindemith was taught the violin as a child...

's Kammermusik No. 2

Kammermusik (Hindemith)

Kammermusik is the name given to a series of eight musical compositions by the German composer Paul Hindemith.Written between 1921 and 1927, the first two works are for small ensembles , and share the opus number 24. Kammermusik No...

, with Stokowski conducting.

An important milestone occurred in Norton's development when she heard Artur Schnabel

Artur Schnabel

Artur Schnabel was an Austrian classical pianist, who also composed and taught. Schnabel was known for his intellectual seriousness as a musician, avoiding pure technical bravura...

's performances of Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...

's piano sonatas in 1932. She spent three successive seasons under his tutelage in Berlin and Italy, and later enjoyed many rewarding years of friendship and association with him.

Yet, possibly the most important factor in Norton's evolution as an artist occurred during the years which she spent away from the concert stage developing her playing through more secluded work. It was then that she founded Pittsburgh’s chapter of the New Friends of Music, which still exists today as the Pittsburgh Chamber Music Society, the city’s premiere chamber music series.
She later founded the Peacham Music Festival in Vermont, where many remarkable live recordings of her maturing performances were produced.

Norton performed with the American Chamber Orchestra, the Juilliard

Juilliard String Quartet

The Juilliard String Quartet is a classical music string quartet founded in 1946 at the Juilliard School in New York. The original members were violinists Robert Mann and Robert Koff, violist Raphael Hillyer, and cellist Arthur Winograd; Current members are Joseph Lin and Ronald Copes violinists,...

, Budapest, Griller, and Curtis String Quartets, at the White House for President Hoover

Herbert Hoover

Herbert Clark Hoover was the 31st President of the United States . Hoover was originally a professional mining engineer and author. As the United States Secretary of Commerce in the 1920s under Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, he promoted partnerships between government and business...

, a Schnabel memorial concert at Lincoln Center, an all Beethoven recital at Rockefeller University

Rockefeller University

The Rockefeller University is a private university offering postgraduate and postdoctoral education. It has a strong concentration in the biological sciences. It is also known for producing numerous Nobel laureates...

, and the first radio broadcast of Bach's Goldberg Variations

Goldberg Variations

The Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, is a work for harpsichord by Johann Sebastian Bach, consisting of an aria and a set of 30 variations. First published in 1741, the work is considered to be one of the most important examples of variation form...

in the USA.

She is well known for her master class

Master class

A master class is a class given to students of a particular discipline by an expert of that discipline—usually music, but also painting, drama, or any of the arts....

es at her studios in Pennsylvania,
Vermont, and at numerous universities throughout the United States, and has
taught at the University of Pittsburgh

University of Pittsburgh

The University of Pittsburgh, commonly referred to as Pitt, is a state-related research university located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded as Pittsburgh Academy in 1787 on what was then the American frontier, Pitt is one of the oldest continuously chartered institutions of...

, the Catholic University of America

The Catholic University of America

The Catholic University of America is a private university located in Washington, D.C. in the United States. It is a pontifical university of the Catholic Church in the United States and the only institution of higher education founded by the U.S. Catholic bishops...

, the University of
Minnesota

University of Minnesota

The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...

, and was Visiting Professor of Piano at Carnegie-Mellon University.
Her series of four lectures on the teaching of Artur Schnabel was documented
at the University of Pittsburgh in 1987, and her lecture on Matthay’s teaching
was filmed in November 1995 at Carnegie-Mellon University.

External links

• Eunice Norton Archive - an online archive of nearly 500 recordings