Mary Louise Barratt Due (9 April 1888 – 24 December 1969) was known as one of the most influential Norwegian pianists in the 20th century. She was the daughter of the pastor Thomas Ball Barratt and the preacher , née Jakobson. In 1916 she married the violinist

Henrik Adam Due Henrik Adam Due (19 April 1891 – 13 May 1966) was a Norwegian violinist originally from Saint Paul, Minnesota Saint Paul (often abbreviated St. Paul) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Minneso ...

, and together they founded the Barratt Due Institute of Music in 1927. Their children were the musicians Stephan Henrik Barratt-Due and Esther Barratt-Due.

Biography

Barratt Due was born in

Bergen Bergen (, ) is a city and municipalities of Norway, municipality in Vestland county on the Western Norway, west coast of Norway. Bergen is the list of towns and cities in Norway, second-largest city in Norway after the capital Oslo. By May 20 ...

, Norway, but the family moved the following year to

Kristiania Oslo ( or ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of 1,064,235 in 2022, an ...

(Oslo), where her father was a minister in the

Methodist Church Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a Protestant Christianity, Christian Christian tradition, tradition whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's brother ...

. Growing up in the Oslo borough of

Grünerløkka Grünerløkka () is a borough but also a neighborhood of the city of Oslo, Norway. Grünerløkka became part of the city of Oslo (then Christiania) in 1858. Grünerløkka was traditionally a working class district; since the late 20th century t ...

was happy, in a home harmonious and full of music. Both parents played and sang, and her father's daily morning devotions attended all the family in the song. Barratt Due received piano lessons at an early age. 10 years old, she got an exemption from the age limit of 12 years and attended the Oslo Musikkonservatorium. With a scholarship, she traveled as a 14-year-old to Rome, Italy, to study at the St. Cecilia Academy. Here she spent six years in an international and exuberant musical environment, where also theory and language were part of the curriculum, and in 1906 she made her debut in Oslo, and in 1907 she took a diploma exam in Italy. As a teacher of piano, she composer, pianist and

Liszt Franz Liszt (22 October 1811 – 31 July 1886) was a Hungarian composer, virtuoso pianist, conductor and teacher of the Romantic period. With a diverse body of work spanning more than six decades, he is considered to be one of the most pro ...

pupil Giovanni Sgambati. Through him she had first-hand knowledge of the interpretation of Liszt and Chopin, who would later become her favourite composers. In 1906 she made her debut in Kristiania with rave reviews. Back in Rome she completed her graduation music diploma in 1907 and gave several concerts. She performed extensively beside teaching at the institute. Apart from Liszt and Chopin, she was also open to the new style of

Impressionism in music Impressionism in music was a movement among various composers in Western classical music (mainly during the late 19th and early 20th centuries) whose music focuses on mood and atmosphere, "conveying the moods and emotions aroused by the subject ...

, and was among the first in Norway to put

Claude Debussy Achille Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionism in music, Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influe ...

on the schedule. She released ''Norsk pianoskole'' in 1931, together with the composer Eyvind Alnæs, and was president of the Soroptimist movement from 1948. Mary Barratt Due died in Oslo in 1969, aged 81.

Publications

*1931: ''Norsk Pianoskole'' (Norwegian Piano School) together with Eyvind Alnæs *1957: ''Musikkinntrykk fra Amerika'' (Musical impressions from America), chronicle in ''

Aftenposten (; ; stylized as in the masthead) is Norway's largest printed newspaper by circulation as well as Norway's newspaper of record. It is based in Oslo. It sold 211,769 daily copies in 2015 (172,029 printed copies according to University of Bergen ...

'' 15 April 1957

References

External links

* , "Notturno", Op. 54, No. 4, from Edvard Grieg's ''

Lyric Pieces ''Lyric Pieces'' () is a collection of 66 short pieces for solo piano written by Edvard Grieg. They were published in 10 volumes, from 1867 ( Op. 12) to 1901 (Op. 71). The collection includes several of his best known pieces, such as '' Wedding ...

'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Due, Mary Barratt 1888 births 1969 deaths Musicians from Oslo Academic staff of the Barratt Due Institute of Music Norwegian people of English descent People of Cornish descent 20th-century Norwegian classical pianists Women classical pianists