Women Musical Trailblazers by Thomas Wolf
November 15, 1940 was a rainy day in Philadelphia. The downpour had been unusually heavy since morning and the weather was discouraging some of the ladies who regularly attended the Philadelphia Orchestra’s Friday afternoon concerts. A few wondered whether this particular program might be skipped but most decided that cancelling a luncheon date “in town” (most of the ladies commuted from the suburbs) was simply more trouble than it was worth. And if they were going to lunch, they might as well use their seats for the concert—seats that had been passed down to them from earlier generations of family. Indeed, tickets to these Friday afternoon concerts were hard to come by in those days and showing up was a clear sign of entitlement and culture.
All-Beethoven programs of the Philadelphia Orchestra on November 15 and 16, 1940. The three soloists in the concerto were women.
There were other reasons to attend this concert. The program featured Beethoven’s music and, more importantly, only Beethoven. Not some of that “modern music” that Eugene Ormandy’s predecessor, Leopold Stokowski, had sometimes sneaked into his programs, much to the ladies’ displeasure. And there was another reason. Ormandy had promised something special. The three soloists at this concert would all be women and the ladies knew from previous appearances that one of these musicians—the violinist Lea Luboshutz—was fun to watch. Even before she came through the door to the stage of the Academy of Music, a white runner was rolled out to ensure that her long and beautiful concert gown (which was always a subject of conversation among the ladies) would not touch the floor. Luboshutz would be joined by cellist Elsa Hilger and pianist Edith Braun.
The three performers were to play the so-called Beethoven “Triple” (or more formally, the concerto for violin, cello, piano, and orchestra, opus 56). Had this work ever been programmed with three women as soloists? Possibly, though almost certainly not by a major American orchestra—and not with musicians each of whom had been a trailblazer in the field.
Today, such an orchestral event, with three recognized female soloists, would hardly merit comment. But in 1940, few women graced the classical music stage, either as soloists or even as members of orchestras. True, the Philadelphia Orchestra had hired its first woman ten years earlier—but that appointment hardly counted. Edna Phillips was merely a second harpist who only played a fraction of the concerts. The initial hire of a woman who appeared in all of the concerts hadn’t come until 1935 and not coincidentally that woman was one of the three soloists appearing on stage in the Beethoven concerto—cellist Elga Hilger.[i]
Elsa Hilger as a young prodigy cellist in Vienna with her Guarnerius cello, a gift to her at the age of thirteen—one of the three female soloists at the All-Beethoven concerts in 1940 in Philadelphia.
Hilger recalled her appointment to the Orchestra some seventy years later on her hundredth birthday in 2004[ii]. She had received a call from the pianist Olga Samaroff, who was married to the Philadelphia Orchestra’s Music Director at the time, Leopold Stokowski. The conductor was looking for a cellist and he had heard about Elsa and wanted to hear her play. She took a train to Philadelphia from the home she shared with her two musician sisters in New Jersey. The audition with Stokowski was held in secret (Stokowski did not want to appear as a laughingstock in case Elsa’s talents had been exaggerated by those who had heard her). But the conductor was so impressed by Elsa’s playing that he decided to hire her; that is, if he could get permission. To receive a contract, Elsa would have to audition before a panel from the musician’s union and it was unclear whether this group would give its approval no matter how well she played.
The following week the cellist played solo pieces and sight read for two hours on the stage of the Academy of Music. No man would have been subject to such a workout but Hilger was unfazed and the session did convince the skeptics that Hilger was worthy. With her appointment in 1935, she became not only the first woman cellist in the Philadelphia Orchestra but the first in any major American orchestra.
Even in deciding to hire her, Stokowski had been cautious and did not want to rock the boat too much. The appointment would be controversial and though by all reports she was an extraordinary talent, Elsa was offered the fourth chair in the pyramidal hiring structure of the cello section. It would take several years and a conductor change for her to move up. When Eugene Ormandy took over as music director, Elsa advanced to third chair and then to assistant principal. But that was as far as she would go, despite the fact that Ormandy was comfortable enough to use her as a soloist on numerous occasions. But he simply did not have the courage to promote her further and establish such a precedent for the field. His misogynistic comment (as reported by Hilger years later) was: "You would have had the first chair but your pants were not long enough.” We have come a long way since those days. Today, many principal orchestras chairs are occupied by women.
Edith Braun, pianist, performing with Lea Luboshutz, violinist, during the spring of 1939 at Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music where both women were faculty members. While Luboshutz had trained at the Moscow Conservatory and established a distinguished career as a soloist in Europe, Braun had trained at a midwestern college in the United States and her early professional experience was accompanying the Marysville (Ohio) Church choir.
Lea Luboshutz and Elsa Hilger were both European-born and European-trained – Lea at the Moscow Conservatory and Elsa at the Vienna Conservatory. Not so the pianist at the concert, Edith Evans Braun, who was a graduate of Oberlin College in the midwestern United States—hardly a hotbed of musical talent at the time. The idea that an American woman—one who grew up in Marysville, Ohio and spent her early professional years accompanying the local church choir—could end up soloing with the Philadelphia Orchestra was unprecedented. Braun would also accept a prestigious position as a fellow faculty member with Lea Luboshutz at Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music. Both Luboshutz and Braun would be awarded honorary doctorates by Curtis for their pioneering work in the field.
The Luboshutz trio in 1913: Lea (left), Pierre (center), Anna (right).
Of the three women, Lea Luboshutz was perhaps the best known as a soloist. Initially “discovered” in Europe and then championed in the United States by the impresario Sol Hurok, she toured extensively, appearing as soloist not only with major orchestras but with the pianist and Curtis Institute director Josef Hofmann. She had introduced the second Prokofiev violin concerto first to New York audiences and then to audiences in other cities and she was already familiar to Philadelphia Orchestra audiences by the time she appeared in the 1940 concert. Like Elsa Hilger, she had received a gift of an extraordinary Italian instrument—the incomparable Stradivarius violin (the “Nightingale,” so-called for its beautiful singing tone).
The Hilger trio in 1920: Maria (left), Elsa (center), Greta (right)
Both Lea and Elsa had been members of musical families and had had early success in chamber ensembles with their siblings. Lea toured Russia with the Luboshutz trio which featured her sister Anna, a cellist, and her brother Pierre, a pianist.
Elsa had toured Europe and the Americas with the Hilger trio which included her two sisters—Maria (violin) and Greta (piano).
But despite their successes with these family ensembles, both Lea and Elsa pursued careers involving very little chamber music—Lea as a soloist and Elsa as an orchestra player. Ironically, it was Edith Braun, the only one with less ensemble experience in her early years, whose performing career was centered around chamber music, most especially as an accompanist.
Elsa Hilger as I remember her in a portrait by Monica Acee. She played in the Philadelphia Orchestra for 35 years, only missing a single concert on the day her son was born.
Each of these women distinguished herself in a specific way. For Elsa, it was her rock-solid dependability as an orchestral player. Her track record was extraordinary. She played in the Philadelphia Orchestra for 35 years and in all that time she missed only one concert…on the day she delivered her son. When I was growing up in Philadelphia, I attended many of the Orchestra’s concerts, well into my college years. I saw many changes in the cello section including new players coming and going (the principal cellist among them) and noticed musicians taking time off. But I never witnessed a concert in which Elsa was not playing every piece. Also, by the time I saw her on stage, her physical appearance had changed markedly from her days as a slim teen-aged prodigy. She now resembled someone’s grandmother, with her small rather rotund body, her grey hair with tightly wrapped braid, and her always serious expression (I don’t ever remember seeing her smile on stage). But she still could play circles around many of her younger colleagues.
Lea Luboshutz is remembered today primarily as a pedagogue having trained scores of students at Curtis who went on to successful careers (including six members of the Philadelphia Orchestra and two concertmasters). However, one of her most enduring contributions to classical music was neither in her playing nor teaching but in concert etiquette and it occurred at her final concerts with the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1945.
Lea Luboshutz at a rehearsal for her final concerts as soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1945. Elsa Hilger is on the right. Between bows, she planted a kiss on Maestro Eugene Ormandy’s cheek which caused a minor sensation as noted by the critics. Such stage etiquette was completely unknown at the time. (photo by Adrien Siegl)
As critic Edwin Schloss described it in the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin on November 3, 1945, Lea “added a new touch to Academy protocol…Madame (seven times a grandmother, but miraculously youthful in appearance) kissed conductor Ormandy chastely on the cheek. The lucky maestro grinned, while the Friday afternoon ladies tittered and redoubled their applause.” Linton Martin in a review in the Philadelphia Inquirer on the same day did not believe Lea’s behavior had been so demure: “…she rewarded Maestro Ormandy with even more, for she marked her recall to the stage by planting what appeared to be substantially more than a merely perfunctory peck on the cheek following her impeccable performance, while her grandchildren admiringly watched from the conductor’s box.” It is well to remember that female instrumental soloists with orchestras were quite rare in those days and the protocol of a female kissing a male conductor on stage at the conclusion of a performance – something that is commonplace today – had not been established. Lea, it appeared, was leading the way as she was about to enter her seventh decade.
Edith Braun in her office at the Curtis Institute of Music where she taught theory, composition, and history until 1972. She became a friend and semi-patroness of Curtis graduates, composers Samuel Barber and Gian-Carlo Menotti. (courtesy Diana Steiner collection/Curtis Institute of Music Archives)
Perhaps the most unexpected later career turn was that of Edith Braun who stopped performing soon after the Beethoven concerto concert in 1940 and turned full-time to teaching music theory, composition, and history at Curtis. Her pedagogy extended into close friendships with the likes of such major composers as Samuel Barber and Gian Carlo Menotti, who continued to seek her advice. Another composer who she quietly coached was the famous television personality, Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. Most people do not realize that the star of such programs as “77 Sunset Strip” and “The FBI” had been a student at the Curtis Institute of Music when his violinist father, Eftem Zimbalist senior was Director. The younger Zimbalist wanted to write a violin sonata to honor his father and Edith Braun helped behind the scenes. I still remember that cold winter afternoon, February 27, 1964, when a tan, handsome Efrem junior strode into the concert hall at Curtis with Edith Braun to hear his father perform the sonata’s premiere.
During the summer of 1960, as a fourteen-year-old music student, I was taking private lessons in counterpoint with Edith Braun at her summer home in Rockport, Maine. One day, the mail arrived as I was leaving and there was a package. “Let’s see what it is,” she said.
She opened the large manilla envelope out of which she carefully removed music manuscript paper. There was a note from composer Samuel Barber that explained that this was a draft of his “Toccata Festiva” for Organ and Orchestra that he was commissioned to write for the 1960 dedication of the Philadelphia Orchestra’s new organ. Could she take a look and let him know what she thought? And so, for the next hour, we sat together at her Steinway piano as she played through the piece, commenting along the way. By the time I attended the premiere a couple of months later, it was like returning to an old friend.
[i] My thanks to Craig Maynard for sharing information regarding Else Hilger about which I was unaware.
[ii] Bartley, Margaret, “Elsa Hilger: Genius on the Cello, Vermont Woman (https://www.vermontwomanspeakers.com/articles/2004/0404/elsa-hilger.html) accessed March 8, 2022