JOHN HICKENLOOPER - OTHER FAMILY CONNECTIONS:
OLGA SAMAROFF, PIANIST - nee Lucy Mary Olga Agnes Hickenlooper
PART 6
Each of the wiki biographies I have cited above of John Hickenlooper, and the other Hickenloopers all cite Olga as a relative, but fail to explain the exact relationship to any of them. No doubt that info is available but not from the easily available data I was focusing on for this search.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olga_Samaroff
Olga Samaroff, nee Hickenlooper, was actually quite an amazing woman. She was born in San Antonio, Texas. Her parents were Carlos Hickenlooper and Jane Hickenlooper. Her grandmother, Lucie Palmer Loening Grünewald, was an accomplished pianist, and was her first teacher. The grandmother arranged for her to be heard by some of the well known Lights in classical music at the time, who agreed that she should study in Europe, as there was a deep bias at that time against American trained artists…. much less, women artists.
Her grandmother accompanied her to Europe where she received excellent training. While there, her parents had moved to Galveston and were wiped out during the 1900 great Galveston Hurricane.
In 1900, her grandmother was arranging for her Berlin debut, when Olga decided to marry Russian civil engineer Boris Loutzky. Olga was pressured by her husband to stop performing, as well as having the internal bias as well, to be the conventional wife, so she did stop her perfomances. However, that did not seem to be enough for him, because reportedly he was quite jealous. She was able to obtain a papal annulment and legal divorce in 1904, and returned to the US.
She was able to re-launch her career in America by playing in the Steinway Hall, where she was heard by some influential musicians and gliterati, and so she was off and running. Her promoters were not going to accept her unless she changed her name from “Hickenlooper” to something “European.” There was a name in her family tree which was acceptable, so she become “Olga Samaroff.”
She was the first American woman to record her performances.
In 1905, she met a completely unknown organist/musician, English-born Leopold Stokowski. They courted for about 5 years and married. A bit later, he obtained the conducting position at the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1912, which is where he had a career for many years.
Olga, again with her inner drive to play the “wife” role, she subsumed her career, but not totally. She was the first American woman pianist to perform all 32 Beethoven piano sonatas. She worked hard to promote his career. They had a child, Sonya.
They separated in 1923, yet remained friendly. According to the Olga wiki page, she was heart broken at Stokowski’s unfaithfulness:
“…She took refuge in her friends, among whom were George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Dorothy Parker, and Cary Grant. In 1925, Samaroff fell in her New York apartment and suffered an injury to her shoulder. The injury forced her to retire from performing. So from that point on, she worked primarily as a critic and teacher.…”.
And what a teacher she was! If one is interested in the development of piano curriculum in the US, she is one of the shaping powerhouses. She was on the faculty of the newly established Juilliard Graduate School in New York. She had quite a number of noted students.
END PART 6
Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q
Olga Samaroff, recorded in 1922.
Is the steinway you climb under one of Olga’s? Fantastic research and writing here, texokie.
Olga Samaroff, recorded in 1923. She takes it a lot faster than I'm used to hearing it. What is interesting is just how little pedal she uses and her sense of the long line of the movement.
SHeeeeeeeeeet. (golly)
She played at Steinweigh Hall?