Eva Heinitz (February 2, 1907 – April 1, 2001) was a German

musician A musician is a person who composes, conducts, or performs music. According to the United States Employment Service, "musician" is a general term used to designate one who follows music as a profession. Musicians include songwriters who w ...

, best known as a cellist but also highly acclaimed for her recordings on the

viola da gamba The viol (), viola da gamba (), or informally gamba, is any one of a family of bowed, fretted, and stringed instruments with hollow wooden bodies and pegboxes where the tension on the strings can be increased or decreased to adjust the pitch ...

. Heinitz, who was "half

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

", left her native Berlin after the

Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hit ...

came to power, living first in France and later the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

, where she joined the faculty of the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seat ...

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a port, seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the county seat, seat of King County, Washington, King County, Washington (state), Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in bo ...

in 1948.John Ross, "Eva Heinitz", ''Seattle Metropolitan'', December 2008, p. 72. Heinitz was considered for some time to be an authority on the viola da gamba (especially regarding pieces written for the instrument by

Johann Sebastian Bach Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the ''Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard wo ...

), though it was a title she immensely disliked. Heinitz remained active late into her life, and continued

teaching Teaching is the practice implemented by a ''teacher'' aimed at transmitting skills (knowledge, know-how, and interpersonal skills) to a learner, a student, or any other audience in the context of an educational institution. Teaching is closely ...

and giving occasional interviews until her death. In 1931, in

Berlin Berlin is Capital of Germany, the capital and largest city of Germany, both by area and List of cities in Germany by population, by population. Its more than 3.85 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European U ...

, she gave the premiere of the

Cello Sonata A cello sonata is usually a sonata written for solo cello with piano accompaniment. The most famous Romantic-era cello sonatas are those written by Johannes Brahms and Ludwig van Beethoven. Some of the earliest cello sonatas were written in the 1 ...

John Foulds John Herbert Foulds (; 2 November 188025 April 1939) was an English cellist and composer of classical music. He was largely self-taught as a composer, and belongs among the figures of the English Musical Renaissance. A successful composer of li ...

. While at the University of Washington, Heinitz was an excellent (and patient) teacher who introduced young Americans to the joys of early music and the viola da gamba. In 1964 she took on a group of students from Dr. Wallace Goleeke's Ingraham High School Madrigal Singers, teaching them to play in a viol ensemble of soprano, alto, tenor, and bass Renaissance instruments.

References

German classical cellists University of Washington faculty 1907 births 2001 deaths 20th-century classical musicians 20th-century German musicians German women classical cellists 20th-century women musicians 20th-century German women 20th-century cellists {{Cellist-stub