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The Trapp Family (also known as the von Trapp Family) were a singing group formed from the family of former Austrian naval commander
Georg von Trapp Georg Ludwig Ritter von Trapp (4 April 1880 – 30 May 1947) was an officer in the Austro-Hungarian Navy who later became the patriarch of the Trapp Family Singers. Trapp was the most successful Austro-Hungarian submarine commander of World W ...
. The family achieved fame in their original singing career in their native Austria during the
interwar period In the history of the 20th century, the interwar period lasted from 11 November 1918 to 1 September 1939 (20 years, 9 months, 21 days), the end of the World War I, First World War to the beginning of the World War II, Second World War. The in ...
. They also performed in the United States before emigrating there permanently to escape the deteriorating situation in Austria during
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. In the United States, they became well known as the "Trapp Family Singers" until they ceased to perform as a unit in 1957. The family's story later served as the basis for a memoir, two German films, and the
Rodgers and Hammerstein Rodgers and Hammerstein was a theater-writing team of composer Richard Rodgers (1902–1979) and lyricist-dramatist Oscar Hammerstein II (1895–1960), who together created a series of innovative and influential American musicals. Their popu ...
Broadway musical ''
The Sound of Music ''The Sound of Music'' is a musical with music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, and a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. It is based on the 1949 memoir of Maria von Trapp, '' The Story of the Trapp Family Singers''. Se ...
''. The last surviving of the original seven Trapp children, Maria Franziska, died in 2014 at the age of 99.


Biography


History of the group

Georg von Trapp Georg Ludwig Ritter von Trapp (4 April 1880 – 30 May 1947) was an officer in the Austro-Hungarian Navy who later became the patriarch of the Trapp Family Singers. Trapp was the most successful Austro-Hungarian submarine commander of World W ...
had seven children at the time of the death of his first wife,
Agathe Whitehead Agathe Gobertina von Trapp (née Whitehead; 14 June 1891 – 3 September 1922) was a British-Austrian heiress and aristocrat. She was the first wife of Georg von Trapp, Georg Ritter von Trapp and the mother of seven children of the Trapp Family, ...
, and in 1927 he married Maria Kutschera, who was twenty-five years his junior, and had three more children with her. Both parts of the family were musical, and by 1935 the family was singing at the local church in Aigen, where they made the acquaintance of a young priest, Dr Franz Wasner, who encouraged their musical progress and taught them sacred music to add to the folk songs, madrigals and ballads they were already singing.Campbell, Elizabeth M., 2007: Introduction to English Translation of Georg von Trapp: "To the Last Salute: Memories of an Austrian U-Boat Commander". University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, Nebraska. While singing at their Salzburg home they were also heard by the German concert singer
Lotte Lehmann Charlotte "Lotte" Lehmann (February 27, 1888 – August 26, 1976) was a German soprano who was especially associated with German repertory. She gave memorable performances in the operas of Richard Strauss, Richard Wagner, Ludwig van Beethoven, ...
, who persuaded them to take part in the song competition in Salzburg in 1936, for which they won a prize; after this, accompanied by Dr Wasner, the family toured and performed in Vienna and Salzburg, and undertook a European tour that encompassed France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany and England. When
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
annexed Austria in 1938, the family decided to leave, first for Italy (of which the
Zadar Zadar ( , ; historically known as Zara (from Venetian and Italian: ); see also other names), is the oldest continuously inhabited Croatian city. It is situated on the Adriatic Sea, at the northwestern part of Ravni Kotari region. Zadar serv ...
-born Georg and thus the family were legally citizens). For some months in 1938, just after their flight, they lived in
Warmond Warmond () is a village and former municipality in the Western Netherlands, north of Leiden in the province of South Holland. The municipality covered an area of 14.42 km² (5.57 mile², 30.7%) of which 4.42 km² (1.71 mile²) is water; ...
, near
The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...
, Netherlands, as the guests of a Dutch banker, Ernest Menten. This episode is described by local historian Miep Smitsloo in her 2007 Dutch book 'Tussen Tol en Trekvaart' ('Between Toll and Canal'). In her account of the flight, Maria von Trapp does not mention this stay. From there they went to London and then to the United States, where they stayed until the expiration of their visas. After touring in Scandinavia, they returned to the United States on 1939-09-07 where they applied for immigrant status. They arrived with very little money, having lost most of the family fortune earlier during a 1935 banking collapse in Austria. Once in the United States they earned money by performing and touring nationally and internationally, first as the "Trapp Family Choir" and then, the "Trapp Family Singers", a change suggested by their booking agent Frederick Christian Schang. After living for a short time in
Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
and then
Merion, Pennsylvania Merion Station, also known as Merion, is an unincorporated community in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. It borders Philadelphia to its west and is one of the communities that make up the Philadelphia Main Line. Merion Station is part of Lower M ...
, where their youngest child
Johannes Johannes is a Medieval Latin form of the personal name that usually appears as "John" in English language contexts. It is a variant of the Greek and Classical Latin variants (Ιωάννης, ''Ioannes''), itself derived from the Hebrew name '' Yeh ...
was born, the family settled in
Stowe, Vermont Stowe is a town in Lamoille County, Vermont, United States. The population was 5,223 at the 2020 census. The town lies on Vermont Routes 108 and 100. It is nicknamed "The Ski Capital of the East" and is home to Stowe Mountain Resort, a ski faci ...
, in 1941. They purchased a farm in 1942 and converted it into the
Trapp Family Lodge The Trapp Family Lodge is a resort located in Stowe, Vermont. It is managed by Sam von Trapp, son of Johannes von Trapp of the Austrian musical family, the Trapps. It was formerly known as Cor Unum (Latin for ''One Heart''). History The Trapp ...
, initially called "Cor Unum" (Latin for ''One Heart''). After
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, they founded the
Trapp Family Austrian Relief Trapp Family Austrian Relief, Inc. is an initiative founded by Georg von Trapp and Maria von Trapp of the famous Austrian singing family, the Trapp Family. History In January 1947, Major General Harry J. Collins turned to Georg von Trapp and ...
fund, which sent food and clothing to people impoverished in Austria. By now based permanently in the United States, the family performed their unique mixture of liturgical music, madrigals, folk music and instrumentals to audiences in over 30 countries for the next 20 years. They made a series of 78-rpm records for
RCA Victor RCA Records is an American record label currently owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America. It is one of Sony Music's four flagship labels, alongside RCA's former long-time rival Columbia Records; also Aris ...
in the 1950s, some of which were later issued on
RCA Camden The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Comp ...
LPs. There were also a few later recordings released on LPs, including some stereo sessions. The family singing group disbanded in 1957. Maria wrote an account of the singing family ''
The Story of the Trapp Family Singers ''The Story of the Trapp Family Singers'' is a 1949 memoir written by Maria Augusta von Trapp, whose life was later fictionalized in Rodgers and Hammerstein's Broadway musical ''The Sound of Music'' in 1959. Background Maria never intended to ...
'' which was published in 1949 and was the inspiration for the 1956 West German film ''
The Trapp Family ''The Trapp Family'' (german: Die Trapp-Familie, links=no) is a 1956 West German comedy drama film about the real-life Austrian musical family of that name directed by Wolfgang Liebeneiner and starring Ruth Leuwerik, Hans Holt, and Maria Holst. Ba ...
'', which in turn inspired
Rodgers and Hammerstein Rodgers and Hammerstein was a theater-writing team of composer Richard Rodgers (1902–1979) and lyricist-dramatist Oscar Hammerstein II (1895–1960), who together created a series of innovative and influential American musicals. Their popu ...
's 1959 Broadway musical ''
The Sound of Music ''The Sound of Music'' is a musical with music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, and a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. It is based on the 1949 memoir of Maria von Trapp, '' The Story of the Trapp Family Singers''. Se ...
'' and then its 1965
film adaptation A film adaptation is the transfer of a work or story, in whole or in part, to a feature film. Although often considered a type of derivative work, film adaptation has been conceptualized recently by academic scholars such as Robert Stam as a dial ...
starring
Julie Andrews Dame Julie Andrews (born Julia Elizabeth Wells; 1 October 1935) is an English actress, singer, and author. She has garnered numerous accolades throughout her career spanning over seven decades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Fi ...
and
Christopher Plummer Arthur Christopher Orme Plummer (December 13, 1929 – February 5, 2021) was a Canadian actor. His career spanned seven decades, gaining him recognition for his performances in film, stage, and television. He received multiple accolades, inc ...
, which held the title of
highest-grossing film Films generate income from several revenue streams, including theatrical exhibition, home video, television broadcast rights, and merchandising. However, theatrical box-office earnings are the primary metric for trade publications in assess ...
of all-time for five years. The original seven Trapp children were: Rupert (1911–1992); Agathe (1913–2010); Maria Franziska (1914–2014); Werner (1915–2007); Hedwig (1917–1972); Johanna (1919–1994); and Martina (1921–1952). The later children were Rosmarie (1929–2022), Eleonore (1931–2021), and
Johannes Johannes is a Medieval Latin form of the personal name that usually appears as "John" in English language contexts. It is a variant of the Greek and Classical Latin variants (Ιωάννης, ''Ioannes''), itself derived from the Hebrew name '' Yeh ...
(b. 1939).Prologue Magazine
Movie vs. Reality: The Real Story of the Von Trapp Family
/ref> The eldest daughter, Agathe (called "Liesl" in the film), published her own account of life in the Trapp family in 2003, ''Memories Before and After The Sound of Music'', which was later itself turned into the film '' The von Trapp Family: A Life of Music'' in 2015.


Later lives

Two members of the group died while the group was still active, Georg in 1947 at age 67, and Martina, who died in childbirth in 1952 at age 30. At the time of its cessation in 1957, the group included a number of non-family members and "only Maria's iron will had kept the group together for so long." After the group's demise, Maria, Johannes, Rosmarie, and Maria Franziska went to
New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu Hiri Motu, also known as Police Motu, Pidgin Motu, or just Hiri, is a language of Papua New Guinea, which is spoken in surrounding areas of Port Moresby (Capital of Papua New Guinea). It is a simplified version of ...
to do missionary work; later Maria returned to run the Trapp Family Lodge for a number of years. Of the remaining children in their later years, Rupert was already a medical doctor during World War II; Agathe spent many years as a kindergarten teacher in Maryland; Maria Franziska spent thirty years as a missionary in New Guinea; Werner became a farmer; Hedwig a music teacher; Johanna married and returned to Austria; Rosmarie and Eleonore both settled in Vermont; and Johannes followed his mother by managing the Trapp Family Lodge as a tourist resort. Maria died in 1987 and was buried with Georg and Martina in the family cemetery on the property. The original seven Trapp children had died by 2014, while only one of the later three children born to Georg and Maria, Johannes, is alive as of late August 2022. Eleonore "Lorli" von Trapp Campbell died on 17 October 2021, and Rosmarie died on 13 May 2022.


Musical style and repertoire

The real-life Trapp family were a respected Austrian singing group throughout their career. However, their style was a world away from the Rodgers and Hammerstein-created, crowd-pleasing popular numbers as later included in the musical and film versions of their lives. Many of their studio recordings survive and have been reproduced as contemporary CD compilations. As for their live performances, in his 2004 essay ''Family values: The Trapp Family Singers in North America, 1938-1956'', Michael Saffle writes: On the other hand, press releases subsequent to 1941 advertised "rollicking folk songs of many lands," "gay, lilting madrigals," and "lusty yodels and mountain calls" as well as "exquisite old motets and masses," and bragged of "record cross-country tour and large numbers of engagements, which attested to their popular appeal and suggests that the religious content was only one of several contributing elements to this over their main period of popularity in America. According to Maria, under the management of F.C. Schang, "Our programs in the past had been mostly in Latin and German. Now we added English numbers. Among the English
madrigals A madrigal is a form of secular vocal music most typical of the Renaissance (15th–16th c.) and early Baroque (1600–1750) periods, although revisited by some later European composers. The polyphonic madrigal is unaccompanied, and the number ...
and
folksongs Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has be ...
we found some wonderful pieces like 'Sweet Honeysucking Bees,' 'Early One Morning,' and 'Just as the Tide Was Flowing;' and among the old American folksongs we found hidden treasures. Our program now had five parts: first, sacred music, selections from the ancient masters from the sixteenth and seventh centuries; second, music played on the ancient instruments: recorders,
viola da gamba The viol (), viola da gamba (), or informally gamba, is any one of a family of bowed, fretted, and stringed instruments with hollow wooden bodies and pegboxes where the tension on the strings can be increased or decreased to adjust the pitc ...
,
spinet A spinet is a smaller type of harpsichord or other keyboard instrument, such as a piano or organ. Harpsichords When the term ''spinet'' is used to designate a harpsichord, typically what is meant is the ''bentside spinet'', described in this ...
; third, madrigals and ballads; fourth, Austrian folksongs and mountain calls; fifth, English and American folksongs."


Legacy

Four grandchildren of Werner von Trapp (called "Kurt" in the film), great-grandchildren of Georg and step great-grandchildren of Maria, formed a singing group, "
The von Trapps The von Trapps (formerly The von Trapp Children) was a musical group made up of Sofia, Melanie, Amanda, and August (formerly Justin) von Trapp, descendants of the original Trapp Family Singers. They are the grandchildren of Werner von Trapp, who w ...
," and recorded five albums in a modern style between 2001 and 2016 before disbanding.


Partial discography


78 recordings

*Trapp Family Choir: ''Folk Songs of Central Europe'' - Victor (Dr. Franz Wasner, conductor) (78 rpm set, 5 records): *https://archive.org/details/78rpm?query=Trapp+family


LP releases

*''An Evening of Folk Songs with the Trapp Family Singers'' - Decca DL 9793 *''Christmas with the Trapp Family Singers'' - Deutsche Grammophon, 1953 *''The Best of the Trapp Family Singers'' - Decca *''The Original Trapp Family Choir: The Sound of Folk Music of Many Lands'' - CAS904eLP33 1965 (compilation)


CD releases (compilations)

*''The Sound of Christmas'' - Delta Distribution / Laserlight, 1992 *''Journey'' Jasmine (2 CDs) *''One Voice'' Jasmine (2 CDs) *''Original Trapp Family Singers''


References


External links


History of the von Trapp Family (from the Trapp Family Lodge website)

Maria von Trapp
interview on BBC Radio 4 ''
Desert Island Discs ''Desert Island Discs'' is a radio programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4. It was first broadcast on the BBC Forces Programme on 29 January 1942. Each week a guest, called a " castaway" during the programme, is asked to choose eight recordings (usu ...
'', 29 December 1983 {{Authority control Family musical groups