Gisa Széchényi (1890 - 1945)
Gisa Széchényi, née Haas von Teichen, wife of Ferenc Széchényi’s great-grandson, the naval officer Gyula, was born in Vienna in 1890, dying there in 1945. Baroness Gisella was the daughter of the industrial magnate Baron Philipp Haas von Teichen. Gisa Haas von Teichen was a beautiful woman with a gift for music, and an excellent pianist. It is said that a number of her admirers once hauled a piano to the top of a mountain for her to play.
Gisa wrote the music for her father’s melodrama Abendsonne (‘Setting Sun’), which received its first, highly successful performance on 6 April 1911 at the Vienna City Theatre in the presence of Archduchesses Maria Theresa and Maria Josepha, Princess Mathilde von Sachsen, Archduke Franz Salvator and numerous other members of the high nobility.
A film of Abendsonne was also made in 1917—a silent film, shown with piano accompaniment. The music was a great success and it was reported in the Viennese press on the occasion of the 1917 première ‘Countess Széchényi-Haas contributed the delightful, heartfelt music.’
Grand Piano has gained a reputation for producing high quality recordings of rare keyboard gems. Dedicated to the exploration of undiscovered piano repertoire, the label specialises in complete cycles of piano works by many lesser-known composers, whose output might otherwise have remained unknown and unrecorded.
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