Biography (read more)
Marie Trautmann was born at Steinseltz in Alsace on 17 August 1846, the daughter of the village mayor and a mother who loved the arts and acted as her advocate and manager. She began piano at six and by seven was studying in Stuttgart with F. B. Hamma and Ignaz Moscheles, giving concerts in Germany and Switzerland within a year. In 1856, at ten, she was introduced to Henri Herz at the Paris Conservatoire, and took the First Prize for piano after four months as a registered student; the Revue et gazette musicale wrote in July 1862 of her higher mechanism, beautiful style and deliciously moderate playing, of an irreproachable purity and lofty elegance. On 9 August 1866 she married the Austrian pianist Alfred Jaëll, fifteen years her senior, and the two toured Europe and Russia together, publishing a joint transcription of Beethoven’s Marcia alla turca in 1872. She died in Paris on 4 February 1925.
She was the first pianist to perform all of Beethoven’s piano sonatas in Paris, and specialised in Schumann, Liszt and Beethoven; she met Liszt in 1868 through her husband’s connections. She composed for piano, along with concertos — dedicating her cello concerto to Jules Delsart — and chamber works including quartets. In later life she turned to research, making scientific studies of the hand in piano playing and working to replace mechanical drilling with systematic method; Albert Schweitzer, who studied with her in 1898–99 while taking organ with Widor, was among her pupils.
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