Unsung heroines: contributions of selected early twentieth-century women to American piano pedagogy

American Music Teacher, Dec, 2002 by Debra Brubaker Burns, Anita Jackson, Connie Arrau Sturm

      America is musically great today, not because of the splendid efforts of
   a few earnest men of ability and fine training who have given their lives
   to the art, but rather because of the cooperation of a vast army of women
   who, through their high ideals and well-organized efforts, have brought
   music in far greater measure to every city, town and hamlet on the
   continent. (19)

Having acknowledged many important accomplishments of female musicians overall in the early twentieth century, the remainder of this article will spotlight the achievements of selected women who made significant contributions to piano teaching and performing throughout the century.

Julie Rive-King

Julie Rive-King (1854-1937) was one of the first American women to be considered a world-class concert pianist. She performed more than 4,000 concerts, 500 of them with an orchestra, and taught piano over a period of fifty years. (20) Rive-King received her first instruction from her mother; her other teachers included William Mason, Karl Reinecke and Franz Liszt.

Rive-King debuted with the New York Philharmonic Society in 1874 and then began a performing career under the management of Frank H. King, whom she later married. For the next ten years she toured extensively throughout the United States, playing from a solo repertoire that numbered over 300 works.

According to music critics, Rive-King's repertoire was surpassed only by that of Anton Rubinstein. She memorized all works that she studied. Concert reviews highlighted her extraordinary technique and musicianship. In an 1899 issue of The Etude magazine, John S. Van Cleve wrote that Rive-King was the greatest woman pianist of American birth, ranking her with Teresa Carreno and Fanny Bloomfield-Zeisler. (21)

Rive-King, who taught at the Bush Conservatory (later Chicago Conservatory) for twenty-eight years, was also an excellent teacher. Amy Fay, who studied with Liszt in Germany, advised young students that they no longer needed to go to Europe to study piano because of fine American piano teachers such as William Mason, William H. Sherwood and Rive-King. In addition to giving private piano lessons, Rive-King taught weekly two-hour interpretation classes, which were modeled after those of Liszt. In them, she required her pupils to play from memory and, afterwards, she gave her observations of their performances, using a second piano for demonstration. Her guidance was generally practical and straight-forward. She believed in using a good edition, following composers' markings carefully, playing a wide range of repertoire, including contemporary pieces, and studying the tonal color of orchestral instruments. (22)

Music critics and historians credit Rive-King for having raised the standard of piano playing in the United States. W. S. B. Matthews wrote that "[b]y her well-made and thoroughly educational program she became, in her way, as great an educator of the American public in piano playing as [Theodore] Thomas was in the line of orchestral work." (23)