Rose and Ottilie Sutro
Encyclopedia
Rose Sutro and Ottilie Sutro (4 January 1872 – 12 September 1970) were American sisters who were notable as one of the first recognised duo
-piano
teams. It has been claimed they were the first such team, but Willi and Louis Thern
preceded them by almost 30 years. They had a significant association with the German composer Max Bruch
.
. Their parents were Otto Sutro
(a German-born organist, composer, music publisher, and conductor of the Oratorio Society of Baltimore
); and Arianna née Handy (a pianist, singer, and daughter of a former chief justice of Mississippi). Their uncle was Adolph Sutro
, Mayor of San Francisco and founder of the Sutro Baths
.
They were initially taught the piano by their mother. They studied in Berlin
at the Royal Hochschule für Musik
under Karl Heinrich Barth
, and made their debut in London
in July 1894. Their American debut was with the Seidl Society in Boston
on 13 November of the same year, in a Bach
concerto. They toured in the United States and Europe.
Ottilie injured her hand in 1904, making her unable to perform until 1910. She made an arrangement for two pianos of Frédéric Chopin
's Nocturne No. 2 in E flat
, Op. 9, No. 2, which has been recorded by Anthony Goldstone and Caroline Clemmow. She also arranged Edward MacDowell
's Dirge, and, with William Henry Humiston, MacDowell's Love Song, Op. 48, No. 2.
For Duo-Art
, they recorded the "Entrée de fête" from Charles Gounod
's Suite concertante and Dvořák
's Slavonic Dance No. 1 in C
.
Rose died in Baltimore in 1957, aged 86, and Ottilie in 1970, aged 98.
was so pleased with Rose and Ottilie's playing of his Fantasy in D minor for 2 pianos, Op. 11, in 1911, that he agreed to write a concerto for them. In 1912, he wrote the Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra in A flat minor
, Op. 88a, which was a reworking of music he had written for a planned suite for organ and orchestra. Bruch gave them the sole performing rights to the concerto. Without Bruch's permission, however, they rewrote the work themselves to suit their pianistic abilities, altered the orchestration, copyrighted their version and deposited it with the Library of Congress
in 1916. They performed the premiere of this version with the Philadelphia Orchestra
under Leopold Stokowski
on 29 December 1916. In 1917 they played a further revised version of the work, with the number of movements reduced from four to three, with the New York Philharmonic
under Josef Stránský
. Bruch himself conducted a private rehearsal of the work with the Sutro sisters in Berlin, but gave permission for it to be played only in the United States (it is not clear from the source which version this was; apparently he knew that the Sutros had made revisions, but to what extent is not known). The Sutros withdrew the concerto after the second performance and never played it again; they never played Bruch's original version at all. But they continued to make revisions to their version, amounting to thousands of changes, the last by Ottilie as late as 1961 (Rose having died in 1957). Ottilie died in September 1970, aged 98, only three days before Rose's centenary. Some of her miscellaneous scores, manuscripts and newspaper cuttings were auctioned in January 1971. The pianist Nathan Twining purchased a box of unidentified papers for $11, and it proved to contain the autograph score of Rose and Ottilie's version of Bruch's concerto, a work unknown to him. The orchestral parts for the original version were bought by other people at the same auction, and Twining managed to track them down and buy the parts back from them. He and Martin Berkofsky
then reconstructed Bruch's original version, and they recorded it for the first time in November 1973, with the London Symphony Orchestra
under Antal Doráti
.
Rose and Ottilie Sutro were also heavily involved in the fate of the manuscript of Bruch's best-known work, his Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor
. Bruch had sold the score to the publisher Simrock outright for a small lump sum - but he kept a copy of his own. At the end of World War I, he was destitute, having been unable to enforce the payment of royalties for his other works due to chaotic worldwide economic conditions. He sent the autograph to the Sutros, so that they could sell it in the United States and send him the money. Bruch died in October 1920, without ever receiving any money from the Sutro sisters. They had decided to keep the score themselves, but they claimed to have sold it, and sent Bruch's family some worthless German paper money as the alleged proceeds of the alleged sale. They persistently refused to divulge any details of the purchaser. In 1949, they sold the autograph to Mary Flagler Cary
, whose collection, including the Bruch concerto, now resides at the Pierpont Morgan Public Library in New York
.
Duet (music)
A duet is a musical composition for two performers. In classical music, the term is most often used for a composition for two singers or pianists; with other instruments, the word duo is also often used. A piece performed by two pianists performing together on the same piano is referred to as...
-piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
teams. It has been claimed they were the first such team, but Willi and Louis Thern
Willi and Louis Thern
Vilmos Thern and Lajos Thern were Hungarian pianists and teachers. They were the sons of the composer and conductor Károly Thern....
preceded them by almost 30 years. They had a significant association with the German composer Max Bruch
Max Bruch
Max Christian Friedrich Bruch , also known as Max Karl August Bruch, was a German Romantic composer and conductor who wrote over 200 works, including three violin concertos, the first of which has become a staple of the violin repertoire.-Life:Bruch was born in Cologne, Rhine Province, where he...
.
Biography
Rose Laura Sutro and Ottilie Sutro were both born in BaltimoreBaltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
. Their parents were Otto Sutro
Otto Sutro
Otto Sutro was a German-born American organist, conductor, minor composer, publisher and music store owner, and a leading figure in the musical life of Baltimore, Maryland.Sutro was born in Aachen, Germany...
(a German-born organist, composer, music publisher, and conductor of the Oratorio Society of Baltimore
Oratorio Society of Baltimore
The Oratorio Society of Baltimore was founded by Otto Sutro in 1882, with Fritz Finke as music director. Its first performance came in 1885.In 1892, Finke left the Oratorio Society to return to Germany. Mr. Sutro contacted Joseph Pache, a German conservatory professor in New York, to succeed Finke...
); and Arianna née Handy (a pianist, singer, and daughter of a former chief justice of Mississippi). Their uncle was Adolph Sutro
Adolph Sutro
Adolph Heinrich Joseph Sutro was the 24th mayor of San Francisco, and second Jewish mayor, serving in that office from 1894 until 1896...
, Mayor of San Francisco and founder of the Sutro Baths
Sutro Baths
The Sutro Baths were a large, privately owned swimming pool complex in San Francisco, California, built in the late 19th century. The building housing the baths burned down in 1966 and was abandoned. The ruins may still be visited.- History :...
.
They were initially taught the piano by their mother. They studied in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
at the Royal Hochschule für Musik
Berlin University of the Arts
The Universität der Künste Berlin, UdK is a public art school in Berlin, Germany, one of the four universities in the city...
under Karl Heinrich Barth
Karl Heinrich Barth
Karl Heinrich Barth was a noted German pianist and pedagogue.-Biography:He was born in Pillau, East Prussia . His teachers included Hans von Bülow, Hans von Bronsart and Carl Tausig. All three were leading musicians of the era and had close associations with Franz Liszt...
, and made their debut in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
in July 1894. Their American debut was with the Seidl Society in Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
on 13 November of the same year, in 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...
concerto. They toured in the United States and Europe.
Ottilie injured her hand in 1904, making her unable to perform until 1910. She made an arrangement for two pianos of Frédéric 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"....
's Nocturne No. 2 in E flat
Nocturnes Op. 9 (Chopin)
thumb|400px|The opening bars and main theme of No.1.The Nocturnes, Op. 9 are a set of three nocturnes written by Frédéric Chopin between 1830 and 1832 and dedicated to Madame Camille Pleyel. The work was published in 1833....
, Op. 9, No. 2, which has been recorded by Anthony Goldstone and Caroline Clemmow. She also arranged Edward MacDowell
Edward MacDowell
Edward Alexander MacDowell was an American composer and pianist of the Romantic period. He was best known for his second piano concerto and his piano suites "Woodland Sketches", "Sea Pieces", and "New England Idylls". "Woodland Sketches" includes his most popular short piece, "To a Wild Rose"...
's Dirge, and, with William Henry Humiston, MacDowell's Love Song, Op. 48, No. 2.
For Duo-Art
Duo-Art
Duo-Art was one of the leading reproducing piano technologies of the early 20th century, the others being American Piano Company , introduced in 1913 too, and Welte-Mignon in 1905. These technologies flourished at that time because of the poor quality of the early Phonograph...
, they recorded the "Entrée de fête" from Charles Gounod
Charles Gounod
Charles-François Gounod was a French composer, known for his Ave Maria as well as his operas Faust and Roméo et Juliette.-Biography:...
's Suite concertante and Dvořák
Antonín Dvorák
Antonín Leopold Dvořák was a Czech composer of late Romantic music, who employed the idioms of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia. Dvořák’s own style is sometimes called "romantic-classicist synthesis". His works include symphonic, choral and chamber music, concerti, operas and many...
's Slavonic Dance No. 1 in C
Slavonic Dances
The Slavonic Dances are a series of 16 orchestral pieces composed by Antonín Dvořák in 1878 and 1886 and published in two sets as Opus 46 and Opus 72 respectively. Originally written for piano four hands, the Slavonic Dances were inspired by Johannes Brahms's own Hungarian Dances and were...
.
Rose died in Baltimore in 1957, aged 86, and Ottilie in 1970, aged 98.
The Sutros and Max Bruch
Max BruchMax Bruch
Max Christian Friedrich Bruch , also known as Max Karl August Bruch, was a German Romantic composer and conductor who wrote over 200 works, including three violin concertos, the first of which has become a staple of the violin repertoire.-Life:Bruch was born in Cologne, Rhine Province, where he...
was so pleased with Rose and Ottilie's playing of his Fantasy in D minor for 2 pianos, Op. 11, in 1911, that he agreed to write a concerto for them. In 1912, he wrote the Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra in A flat minor
Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra (Bruch)
The Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra, Op. 88a, was written by Max Bruch in 1912. It is in 4 movements, written in the rarely seen key of A flat minor, and takes about 25 minutes to perform....
, Op. 88a, which was a reworking of music he had written for a planned suite for organ and orchestra. Bruch gave them the sole performing rights to the concerto. Without Bruch's permission, however, they rewrote the work themselves to suit their pianistic abilities, altered the orchestration, copyrighted their version and deposited it with the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
in 1916. They performed the premiere of this version with the Philadelphia Orchestra
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...
under Leopold 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...
on 29 December 1916. In 1917 they played a further revised version of the work, with the number of movements reduced from four to three, 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"...
under Josef Stránský
Josef Stránský
Josef Stransky was a Czech conductor, composer, and art collector/dealer who moved to the United States and conducted the New York Philharmonic from 1911 to 1923.-Biography:...
. Bruch himself conducted a private rehearsal of the work with the Sutro sisters in Berlin, but gave permission for it to be played only in the United States (it is not clear from the source which version this was; apparently he knew that the Sutros had made revisions, but to what extent is not known). The Sutros withdrew the concerto after the second performance and never played it again; they never played Bruch's original version at all. But they continued to make revisions to their version, amounting to thousands of changes, the last by Ottilie as late as 1961 (Rose having died in 1957). Ottilie died in September 1970, aged 98, only three days before Rose's centenary. Some of her miscellaneous scores, manuscripts and newspaper cuttings were auctioned in January 1971. The pianist Nathan Twining purchased a box of unidentified papers for $11, and it proved to contain the autograph score of Rose and Ottilie's version of Bruch's concerto, a work unknown to him. The orchestral parts for the original version were bought by other people at the same auction, and Twining managed to track them down and buy the parts back from them. He and Martin Berkofsky
Martin Berkofsky
Martin Berkofsky is an American classical pianist known primarily for his interpretations of music by Franz Liszt and Alan Hovhaness. He has performed extensively throughout Europe as well as in Turkey and Armenia....
then reconstructed Bruch's original version, and they recorded it for the first time in November 1973, with the London Symphony Orchestra
London Symphony Orchestra
The London Symphony Orchestra is a major orchestra of the United Kingdom, as well as one of the best-known orchestras in the world. Since 1982, the LSO has been based in London's Barbican Centre.-History:...
under Antal Doráti
Antal Doráti
Antal Doráti, KBE was a Hungarian-born conductor and composer who became a naturalized American citizen in 1947.-Biography:...
.
Rose and Ottilie Sutro were also heavily involved in the fate of the manuscript of Bruch's best-known work, his Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor
Violin Concerto No. 1 (Bruch)
Max Bruch's Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Op. 26, is one of the most popular violin concertos in the repertoire. It continues to be performed and recorded by many violinists and is arguably Bruch's most famous composition.- History :...
. Bruch had sold the score to the publisher Simrock outright for a small lump sum - but he kept a copy of his own. At the end of World War I, he was destitute, having been unable to enforce the payment of royalties for his other works due to chaotic worldwide economic conditions. He sent the autograph to the Sutros, so that they could sell it in the United States and send him the money. Bruch died in October 1920, without ever receiving any money from the Sutro sisters. They had decided to keep the score themselves, but they claimed to have sold it, and sent Bruch's family some worthless German paper money as the alleged proceeds of the alleged sale. They persistently refused to divulge any details of the purchaser. In 1949, they sold the autograph to Mary Flagler Cary
Mary Flagler Cary
Mary Flagler Cary was heir to part of the Standard Oil fortune and became a notable philanthropist, mainly through the charitable trust established at her death...
, whose collection, including the Bruch concerto, now resides at the Pierpont Morgan Public Library in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
.