Sophie Carmen Eckhardt-Gramatté

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Sophie-Carmen Eckhardt-Gramatté (December 24, 1901 – December 2, 1974) was a Russian-born Canadian composer and virtuoso pianist and violinist.

Born in Moscow as Sofia (Sonia) Fridman-Kochevskaya, Eckhardt-Gramatté studied at the Conservatoire de Paris, where her teachers included Alfred Brun and Guillaume Rémy for violin, S. Chenée for piano, and Vincent d'Indy and Camille Chevillard for composition. She also embarked on several concert tours of Western Europe, on which she performed her own works. In 1920, she married the painter Walter Gramatté in Berlin. She toured with Edwin Fischer in Germany in 1925^[1] Following her husband's death in 1929, she pursued further lessons in composition with Max Trapp in Berlin.

In 1934, she married the journalist and art historian Ferdinand Eckhardt and together they moved to Vienna. She dedicated herself exclusively to composition after 1935. The couple relocated again to Winnipeg, Canada in 1953.

Eckhardt-Gramatté died in Stuttgart, as a result of an accident. Her legacy is preserved through the work of the Eckhardt-Grammaté Foundation.

Her compositions included: a symphony; a concerto for orchestra; a triple concerto for trumpet, clarinet, bassoon, strings, and timpani; three piano concertos; two violin concertos; a piece for two pianos and orchestra; a bassoon concerto; various chamber works; as well as numerous instrumental solos for piano and violin.

[edit] Musical Works

Bassoon Concerto
February Suite for Violin and Piano
Piano Concerto (1946)^[2]
Symphony No.2 "Manitoba"
Symphony-Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (1967)^[2]
Triple Concerto for Trumpet, Clarinet and Bassoon
Piano Sonatas (recorded by Marc-André Hamelin)
10 Caprices for Solo Violin

[edit] Literature

^ Kennedy, Michael; Kennedy, Joyce-Bourne (2004). The concise Oxford dictionary of music. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 219. ISBN 978-0-19-860884-4. OCLC 55051624.
^ ^a ^b Hinson, Maurice (1981). Music for piano and orchestra : an annotated guide. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 87. ISBN 0-253-12435-2.

Eckhardt, Ferdinand (1985). Music from Within: A Biography of the Composer S C Eckhardt-Gramatté, Winnipeg, Manitoba: The University of Manitoba Press. ISBN 0-88755-136-X