Sultan, Grete

Sultan, Grete, German-born American pianist; b. Berlin, June 21, 1906. She was reared in a musical family; studied with Kreutzer at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik (1922-25) and later with Fischer, Arrau, and Buhlig. She established herself as a pianist of both Classical and contemporary works in Berlin before going to the U.S. in 1941; she toured widely, giving all-Bach, all-Beethoven, all-Schubert, and all-contemporary programs; made her N.Y. debut in 1947. She became associated with Cowell, with whom she gave performances of works by Schoenberg and Stravinsky; settling in N.Y., she met John Cage, who became a lifelong friend and assoc; they often appeared in concerts together, and Cage wrote his Etudes australes, a chance-determined set of 32 etudes based on star maps, for her; she performed it throughout the U.S. and Europe and in Japan. In 1968-69 she gave a series of programs at N.Y.’s Town Hall under its Jonathan Peterson Lectureship Fund. Sultan’s performances, which continue well into her 80s, are always critically acclaimed, her alacrity, sensitivity, and uncompromising directness uniquely enhancing the disparate works she programs; most recently she has championed the works of Ben Weber and Tui St. George Tucker. She was praised by Arrau, who saw her as following “...in the footsteps of the greatest women keyboard masters—Landowska, Haskil, Hess—blessed with musical purity and inwardness, reinforced by mind as well as soul.”

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire