Alba Rosa Viëtoraus modern

Alba Rosa Viëtor (* 18 July 1889; † 15 April 1979) was an Italian-American violinist and composer.

Life

Alba Rosa grew up in Milan, where she was admitted to the Milan Conservatory at the age of 8. She was the youngest student ever to be admitted. At the age of 14 she continued her studies in Brussels, after a short stay in Uruguay. Here she studied under the famed violinist César Thomson and later she studied under the creator of the Sevcik violin method, Otakar Ševčík. One of his notable students was Jan Kubelík, who would become her mentor and to whose memory she dedicated her Elegie. In 1919 she settled permanently in the United States, and married Jan Fresemann Viëtor, a Dutch businessman who was a skilled amateur violinist.

After a successful career as a violinist, in 1916 she played alongside Camille Saint-Saëns on piano during a tour in Argentina, she decided to end this and dedicated herself completely to composing.

After her divorce (the marriage was dissolved in 1940; Jan died in 1953 in Panama) she became a member of the National Association for American Composers and Conductors. She composed prolifically for orchestra, voice and various solo instruments. Several American orchestras and soloists including the National Gallery of Art Symphony Orchestra and the Frost Symphony Orchestra, have performed her works. Her compositions were performed in the same program as Charles Ives, Aaron Copland and John Philip Sousa by the National Gallery Orchestra in 1950.

The most important element that dominates all of Alba Rosa Viëtor’s work is not the form but rather the mood she wishes to convey. Lawrence A. Johnson calls one of her best known works, Primavera Lombarda (Springtime in Lombardy), “an intriguing moody Mediterranean tone poem”.

After her death in 1979 her compositions fell into oblivion. Due to the initiative of her son Hendrik Viëtor to digitize the works of his mother, her works have been performed more frequently since 2003.

Her works have been archived by the Marta & Austin Weeks Music Library of the University of Miami.

Source Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alba_Rosa_ViëtorPublic Domain List of Works: https://imslp.org/wiki/Category:Viëtor,_Alba_Rosa