Alice Frisca (March 7, 1900 — January 24, 1960) was the professional name of Alice Mayer, an American pianist.

Early life

Alice Mayer was from

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

, the daughter of Benjamin Mayer and Eva Mayer. Her stage name was a reference to that city. As a young woman she won the MacDowell Prize from the California Federation of Music Clubs. She was a student of Pierre Douillet,

Clarence Eddy Hiram Clarence Eddy (23 June 1851 - 10 January 1937) was a United States organist and composer Biography He was born in Greenfield, Massachusetts. He studied under Dudley Buck in Hartford, Connecticut, counterpoint under Carl August Haupt, and pi ...

, and

Leopold Godowsky Leopold Mordkhelovich Godowsky Sr. (13 February 1870 – 21 November 1938) was a Lithuanian-born American virtuoso pianist, composer and teacher. He was one of the most highly regarded performers of his time, known for his theories concernin ...

Career

She made her Paris debut in 1920. Frisca was honored with a medal for a concert she gave in 1921 in Paris, a benefit for French and Belgian artists in need after

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. "She has a conspicuously neat and fluent technique," noted critic Alfred Kalisch, writing in ''

The Musical Times ''The Musical Times'' is an academic journal of classical music edited and produced in the United Kingdom and currently the oldest such journal still being published in the country. It was originally created by Joseph Mainzer in 1842 as ''Mainze ...

'' of her London debut in 1921, "and a touch of no little charm." Her New York debut a few months later drew similar critical appreciation, though the ''

New-York Tribune The ''New-York Tribune'' was an American newspaper founded in 1841 by editor Horace Greeley. It bore the moniker ''New-York Daily Tribune'' from 1842 to 1866 before returning to its original name. From the 1840s through the 1860s it was the domi ...

'' scoffed that "Miss Frisca evidently mistakes force for brilliance," and said that she "more nearly resembled a noisy amateur than a professional pianist."

Personal life

Alice Frisca married businessman Ralph Kirsch in New York, and left behind her performing career. Her husband's nephew,

Harold C. Schonberg Harold Charles Schonberg (29 November 1915 – 26 July 2003) was an American music critic and author. He is best known for his contributions in ''The New York Times'', where he was List of chief music critics, chief music critic from 1960 to 198 ...

, was the Pulitzer Prize-winning chief music critic at ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' from 1960 to 1980; he cited her as his first piano teacher and an important early influence on his understanding of music. Alice Mayer Kirsch died in 1960, aged 59 years, while in Puerto Rico with her husband."Mrs. Ralph Kirsch"
''New York Times'' (January 27, 1960): 33.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Frisca, Alice American classical pianists American women classical pianists 1900 births 1960 deaths 20th-century American women pianists 20th-century classical pianists 20th-century American pianists