Trapp Family

Maria and Georg Ludwig von Trapp

Georg von Trapp had seven children at the time of his first wife, Agathe Whitehead,'s death, and in 1927 he married Maria Kutschera, who was twenty-five years his junior, with whom he had three more children. 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.[1] While singing at their Salzburg home they were also heard by the German concert singer Lotte Lehmann, who persuaded them to take part in the song competition at the 1936 Salzburg Festival, 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, Holland, Italy, Germany and England.[1]

In the same year, the family performed in the United States for the first time before returning to Austria when their visas expired; however, in the same year, Adolf Hitler annexed Austria, and the family decided to leave, first for Italy (of which the Zadar-born Georg and thus the family were legally citizens). For some months in 1938, just after their flight, they lived in Warmond, near The Hague, 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 for an unknown reason does not mention this stay.

From there they went to the United States, where they applied for immigrant status in 1939. 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[2] and then Merion, Pennsylvania, where their youngest child Johannes was born, the family settled in Stowe, Vermont, in 1941. They purchased a 660-acre (270 ha) farm in 1942 and converted it into the Trapp Family Lodge, initially called "Cor Unum". After World War II, they founded the Trapp Family Austrian Relief 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.[3] They made a series of 78-rpm records for RCA Victor in the 1950s, some of which were later issued on RCA Camden LPs. There were also a few later recordings released on LPs, including some stereo sessions. The family singing group disbanded in 1957.

The Trapp Family rehearsing before a concert, near Boston, 27 September 1941.

Cor Unum (later the "Trapp Family Lodge"), home of the Trapp Family Singers in the U.S., in 1954

Maria wrote an account of the singing family The Story of the Trapp Family Singers which was published in 1949 and was the inspiration for the 1956 West German film The Trapp Family, which in turn inspired by Rodgers and Hammerstein's Broadway musical The Sound of Music.[4][5] 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 (b.1929), Eleonore (b.1931), and Johannes (b.1939).[6] 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,[7] which was later itself turned into the film The von Trapp Family: A Life of Music in 2015.[8]

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 because many of the original family wanted to pursue other endeavors, and only Maria's "iron will" had kept the group together for so long.[6] After the group's demise, Maria, Johannes, Rosmarie, and Maria Franziska went to New Guinea 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.[6] All of the original seven Trapp children had died by 2014, while the later two children, Eleonore and Johannes, are still alive as of June 2020.

[more details awaited]

• Trapp Family Choir: Folk Songs of Central Europe - Dr. Franz Wasner, conductor - Victor 78rpm set (5 records) (other details not known)

• An Evening of Folk Songs with the Trapp Family Singers Decca DL 9793, 19??
• Christmas with the Trapp Family Singers Deutsche Grammophon, 1953
• The Best of the Trapp Family Singers Decca, 19??
• The Original Trapp Family Choir: The Sound Of Folk Music of Many Lands CAS904eLP33 1965 (compilation)

• The Sound of Christmas Delta Distribution / Laserlight, 1992
• Journey Jasmine, 20?? (2 CDs)
• One Voice Jasmine, 20?? (2 CDs)
• Original Trapp Family Singers [details??]