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The contralto, Gertrude Pitzinger, spent her youth in Olmütz (Olomouc), became first a children teacher, studied then at the Wiener Musikakademie and received in 1926 her diploma as a music teacher. She studied Lieder singing among other things in courses with the famous Julia Culp. It took then in Reichenberg (Liberec) in Bohemia her domicile and became soon a much-admired concert and oratorio alto-singer.
Gertrude Pitzinger gave her first concert in 1929 in Olmütz. Concert tours in Europe as in North America brought her great successes. She was particularly estimated as a Bach interpreter and as a Lieder singer. She gave concerts in Austria (1939, Vienna), Denmark (1935, Copenhagen), Italy, Norway, Holland (1935, Amsterdam) and Belgium (1936 Brussels). In 1937 she sang in London under Wilhelm Furtwängler, in 1938 at the Carnegie Hall and in the Town Hall in New York. In 1937 and in 1941 she appeared in Prague at the Concert Hall, 1941 brought her to Holland.
Until 1940 Gertrude Pitzinger could be heard regularly in concerts and in Lieder recitals in Berlin. Big successes with concert performances at the Salzburg Festival, among other things. 1934 in the Stabat Mater of Dvorák, in 1951-1959 in the Requiem of Mozart, in 1955-1957 in its Missa Solemnis, in 1953 in Judas Makkabäus by George Frideric Handel. Until 1960 she appeared there also as soloists in Masses of J. Haydn and L.v. Beethoven. In 1945 she had to leave it her Bohemia homeland and lived then first in Landsitz in Schwarzwald.
Since 1959 Gertrude Pitzinger was Professor at the Musikhochschule of Frankfurt a.M., continued however at the same time her activity in the concert hall. She was married with the concert singer Otto Dupont (born 1911, Fredericia in Daenemark).
Gertrude Pitzinger made relatively few recordings: on Amadeo, Quadrigafon, DGG (Mozart Requiem, Te Deum by A. Bruckner, Lieder) and on BASF (Lieder of Johannes Brahms). |
