Julie Rive-King, American Pianist
Cincinnati Born Concert Artist of the Nineteenth Century
Sep 30, 2008
This very gifted pianist was born on October 31, 1857, in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she began to show talent at a very early age. Her mother, Caroline Staub Rive, a respected piano teacher in Cincinnati, was her first teacher and apparently gave the young Julie a thorough technical and musical training.
Julie was only eight years old when she played a transcription by Sigismund Thalberg of themes from "Don Juan." Her father was Leon Rive, an artist and art teacher.
Musical Education with Mason, Mills and Pruckner
She was still very young when she was taken to New York City to study with William Mason, Sebastian Bach Mills and Dionys Pruckner. Later, at the age of fifteen she was sent to Europe to continue her studies with Adolf Joseph Blassman in Dresden and Karl Reinecke in Leipzig. Unfortunately the death of her father recalled her to America and a proposed concert tour of Europe was cancelled.
While still in Europe, her public debut was made at a Euterpe concert under the direction of Reinecke when she was seventeen years old. Along the way she managed to get in some lessons with the great Franz Liszt at Weimar.
Concert Career
In 1873, at the age of sixteen, she played in her home city for the first time since studying in Europe. She was enthusiastically received and added to her reputation with an appearance with the New York Philharmonic Society in 1875. Her greatest triumph as a young pianist came when she performed at a concert in the second season of the Apollo Club in Chicago.
Her repertoire was exceptional for the times, and included the works of Bach, Handel, Schumann, Chopin, Moszkowski, Liszt and some later composers. She performed at over 4,000 concerts in her career and in 1877 she became associated with the conductor Theodore Thomas (1835-1905) and in 1884 toured with the orchestra, playing over forty concerts in three months. She married her manager, Frank King, in 1876.
Compositions : The Bubbling Spring of Talent
Julie Rive-King also composed and one of her most famous works was for piano..."Bubbling Spring." She also composed Polonaise Heroique, Polka Caprice, Gems of Scotland, Impromptu in A-Flat and made many transcriptions of works by Liszt and Scarlatti. Her compositions were published by Kunkel and Theodore Presser.
After the death of Frank King in 1900, Julie Rive-King took a position as teacher of piano at the Bush Conservatory in Chicago. She died there on July 24,1937 and is buried in the Spring Grove Cemetery.
Sources
Celebrated Pianists of the Past and Present A. Ehrlich, Theodore Presser, Philadelphia, 1894
The New Encyclopedia of Music and Musicians The Macmillan Company, 1929
Women of Notes:1,000 Women Composers Born Before 1900 Anya Laurence Richards Rosen Press, NYC 1978
For further reading about female pianists see Three Famous Pianists of the Past
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