Käbi Alma Laretei (14 July 1922 – 31 October 2014) was an Estonian-Swedish

concert pianist A pianist ( , ) is an individual musician who plays the piano. Since most forms of Western music can make use of the piano, pianists have a wide repertoire and a wide variety of styles to choose from, among them traditional classical music, ja ...

. Her father

Heinrich Laretei Heinrich Laretei (4 January 1892 in Õisu – 3 April 1973 in Stockholm) was an Estonian politician, diplomat and soldier. He was a member of the II and III Riigikogu. 1926 he was Minister of the Interior. Heinrich Laretei's wife was Alma Lare ...

was a

diplomat A diplomat (from grc, δίπλωμα; romanized ''diploma'') is a person appointed by a state or an intergovernmental institution such as the United Nations or the European Union to conduct diplomacy with one or more other states or interna ...

in the service of the Republic of Estonia as ambassador to Sweden; when the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

occupied Estonia in 1940, the family did not return to Estonia. Her piano teacher was Maria-Luisa Strub-Moresco, who had an indirect influence on the artistic choices of Laretei's later husband,

Ingmar Bergman Ernst Ingmar Bergman (14 July 1918 – 30 July 2007) was a Swedish film director, screenwriter, producer and playwright. Widely considered one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time, his films are known as "profoun ...

. Laretei had a long and distinguished career as a pianist, and in the 1960s she played to packed halls in the United Kingdom, Sweden,

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 ...

, and the United States, including

Carnegie Hall Carnegie Hall ( ) is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east side of Seventh Avenue between West 56th and 57th Streets. Designed by architect William Burnet Tuthill and built ...

. From 1950 to 1959, Laretei was married to Gunnar Staern, with whom she had a daughter, Linda (born 1955). Laretei is also known for her marriage to and professional collaborations with

film A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmospher ...

director

; Laretei was his fourth wife. They met in the late 1950s, and were married in 1959. She introduced Bergman to a variety of music, some of which he would use in film scores.James Eugene Wierzbicki. Music, Sound and Filmmakers: Sonic Style in Cinema. Routledge, 2012. They divorced in 1969, though the marriage was effectively over by 1966. His 1961 film '' Through a Glass Darkly'' is dedicated to Laretei. They had a son, Daniel Bergman (born 1962), who is also a film director. Laretei worked with

Igor Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century clas ...

and

Paul Hindemith Paul Hindemith (; 16 November 189528 December 1963) was a German composer, music theorist, teacher, violist and conductor. He founded the Amar Quartet in 1921, touring extensively in Europe. As a composer, he became a major advocate of the ' ...

. She continued to play in concert and give musical consultations on the set of some of her former husband's films and even appears playing the piano in a scene of '' Fanny and Alexander''. She recorded piano passages that appear diegetically in Bergman's films, such as '' Autumn Sonata'' and ''

The Magic Flute ''The Magic Flute'' (German: , ), K. 620, is an opera in two acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a '' Singspiel'', a popular form during the time it was written that in ...

''. She took an early interest in the TV medium, hosted many programmes on literature and music on Swedish TV and, starting with ''En bit jord'' (1976; "A lump of earth"), published a number of books on life and

music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspe ...

, the last being ''Såsom i en översättning'' (2004; "As in a translation", the title being a paraphrase on "Through a Glass Darkly" (Såsom i en spegel)). Moreover, she has been the subject of numerous television and film documentaries. She was awarded Estonia's Order of the National Coat of Arms, 3rd Class in 1998. She died on 31 October 2014 at the age of 92.

Filmography

References

Further reading