The Story of the Trapp Family Singers

by Maria Augusta Trapp

  “Oh, thank you!”

  He was counting them! When we finally met, coffee in hand, all he said, with a twinkle in his eye, was:

  “611!”

  Once we gave a concert in a small college conducted by Sisters in the south. It was their first concert, and Reverend Mother, a tiny, elderly nun, was nervous. She was bustling around backstage with eyes like a frightened bird. I felt sorry for her, and wanted to console her. Then it flashed through my mind: “If somebody is very nervous and you want to calm him down, simply say…”—and I said it as friendly and reassuringly as I could:

  “Oh, Reverend Mother, please keep your shirt on.”

  She did.

  Another time—this was in the middle west—we were invited to a Bishop’s house. By that time we had learned that there are Bishops and Bishops. Some are informal and paternal, so that you can almost forget who they are and say, full of confidence. “Father.” Some, however, can never quite take off the mitre, so to speak. They are Bishops every inch of them. There you meet all the dignity and authority of the Church. It is quite breathtaking. Such a one had invited us to dinner, and, of course, it was a formal dinner with speeches and so on. There were also his Chancellor, a few Monsignori, and other dignitaries, and, sitting next to the Bishop, I was exhausting my best English a mile a minute. After grace was said, on the way from the dining room into the library, the Bishop and I met in the doorway. Politely he motioned me to go first, but, of course, I knew better, and wanted His Excellency by all means to precede me. Motioning to each other, we caused a traffic jam. Then that same spark enlightened me (hurray for Dr. Johnson!). “If you want someone to leave the room quickly, just say…” And so, looking up into the Bishop’s eyes, I said confidently and with my best enunciation:

  “P-lease, Bishop—scram.”

  The effect on his entourage was absolutely petrifying, and only the Bishop’s hearty laughter prevented some sure collapses.

  It was in Roanoke, Virginia. We came back to the hotel rather late after the concert. Rupert, the gadget-minded, immediately turned on the radio in his room, and his blood curdled when he heard a voice announce that all New York was in an uproar.

  Rupert notified Georg and Father Wasner. They told me. How terrible—our little girls were in the Bronx! We called the desk. They had heard about it, but didn’t have any recent news. A long bad night followed. Next morning we read in the newspaper the explanation. It had only been an imaginary invasion from Mars, a play produced by Orson Welles, so realistically presented that people really got into a panic. But our little ones were safe in their convent.

  It was now December, and I was wearing Number 3. The newspapers mentioned the “stately” mother, the “majestic” figure, but that was all. I avoided looking into mirrors or show windows, and was wondering whether it wasn’t perhaps twins, and whether the other one would be a boy. It didn’t occur to me, however, to ask a doctor. After all, I wasn’t sick; not really, at least, because very swollen feet and a severe ache in the back I had learned to get used to.

  Barbara and I had it a little harder each day of this tour. It was not exactly fun to be jostled for hours and hours in a bus, to change clothes several times each day before, during, and after concerts, to rehearse every morning and sing every evening, to climb in and out of the bus, to sleep each night in a different bed, and to eat those strange new kinds of food, such as mayonnaise on a pear (pooh!), or that funny coffee, a whole big cup full and only a drop of cream, when one was used to the opposite, a whole cup of hot milk with a little coffee added, very black; or ham cured with sugar, or melons with pepper and salt. On the other hand, it was absolutely impossible to procure for love or money a single bite of one of the special dishes for which I longed with my whole being. It seemed so silly, but often for hours and hours I would dream of Schinkensemmel, or Apfelstrudel. But Barbara and I didn’t have time to pay too much attention to these little hardships.

  Everything went along smoothly until a certain evening, the last one before reaching New York. We had given a concert in a very small town in Delaware. We had stopped at the one tiny hotel in the place, which was built alongside the railroad tracks. With no presentiment of what was to come, I said “good-night” to my family and went to my room, which was the only one on the fourth and top floor.

  I had hardly fallen asleep, when I dreamt I heard a lion roaring. I tried desperately to run away, and it seemed as if I couldn’t. In the moment of utter desperation I woke up. But what was that? Wide awake, I could still hear the lion, and his roar came nearer and nearer. I was scared to death. Now something terrific was right beside my bed, roaring and thundering. The whole house was shaking. My bed was shaking. Barbara and I were shaking, too. Then the noise faded away, and with a heart pounding loudly, I listened until everything was quiet. Just as I was about to settle down to sleep, the whole thing started all over again, coming now from the opposite direction. Now I was really quite frightened. I wanted to call for someone, but there was no telephone in the room, and besides, just that night I had forgotten to inquire the room numbers of my family.

  And so the night crept on with a crescendo and decrescendo of the lion’s roaring, and with Barbara and me becoming more and more frightened all the time. Toward four o’clock in the morning I felt an unusual pain. Now I became really alarmed. What if something should happen here and now in this lonely little hotel room?

  In moments of extreme danger you become supersensitive. Out of the gray past pictures arise going way back to your childhood days perhaps, and you are able to understand voices which, in everyday life, you are too busy to hear. “Maria has helped—Maria will always help.” Have you ever been in one of the famous pilgrimage churches in Austria, Italy, or France—in Lourdes, for instance? Have you seen there the hundreds of little votive pictures, crutches, silver hearts, waxen hands and feet—the words repeating themselves all over the place, scribbled on the wall, embroidered in old-fashioned style, painted simply or artistically: “Maria has helped—Maria will always help.” Such places do not grow overnight. They are the result of the tears and prayers of the centuries. If you have knelt in such a house of prayer, if you have ever taken your troubles and worries there—when you are thousands of miles away, a grown-up person, all of a sudden the image of all this will come back to you in a moment of severe fright.

  I sat up in bed straight, folded my hands, and said aloud:

  “Dear Blessed Mother, help me. Let nothing happen to this child. I promise to bring her in my own arms to your chapel in St. Georgen, and a large candle, too.”

  How I wish that no one were too grown up to understand what inexpressible peace can settle down on a troubled heart. It is that peace which is promised to them who “become as little children.” I lay back and fell asleep almost immediately, sleeping calmly and long into the next morning.

  When I awoke, my entire family was assembled around my bed, looking weary after a sleepless night, and highly astonished to find me sleeping so soundly. They, too, had been disturbed by the roaring lion which, on investigation, proved to be nothing more than the trains between New York and Washington.

  While passing through New York, we wanted to report to “Grandpa Wagner” how nicely everything had gone with the concerts. This was Barbara’s eighth month, and by now I was convinced that anyone had to be unconscious, blind, deaf, and dumb not to notice “it.” In the course of the conversation I remarked casually:

  “Of course, I shall be happy when the baby is finally here.”

  The old bachelor jumped up as if stung.

  “Whose baby?” he asked.

  “Why—mine—” I said innocently.

  The effect was tragic. He canceled immediately all of our remaining concerts, and our tour came to a sudden end right then and there. He really had had no idea—wasn’t that too bad! What a blow! Fewer concerts meant less money, and we needed every cent.

  What next?

  A little depressed, we went to the Hotel Welli
ngton.

  There we met Mrs. Pessl, the mother of Yella Pessl, the harpsichordist, and a former acquaintance from Vienna. She and Professor Alexander Wunderer, the first oboist of the Vienna Philharmonic, had already encouraged us greatly during the first stages of our musical life back in Austria. It was good to see her again.

  “Well, children,” she said, and came directly to the point, “there is only one thing to do if you want to have success in America. You have to give a Town Hall concert. Every artist who wants to make his way has to do that. And for that you need a publicity agent.”

  “A what?”

  “Why—don’t you have someone to do publicity for you?” she asked, quite astonished.

  “To do what for us?” we asked lamely.

  That was too much for the kind-hearted lady, mother of an artist, who knew what was what.

  “But children, children, this is terrible!” And right there and then she called the girl who did all the publicity for Yella, and had her come over to the Wellington. We shouldn’t lose a day, Mrs. Pessl insisted.

  Edith Behrens came, and she and Mrs. Pessl explained to us the meaning and importance of a concert in Town Hall, New York. It would cost us $700, and at this thought we shuddered, but it might be worth millions, and this made us hopeful again. It should be soon, as soon as possible, and Mrs. Pessl’s eyes wandered over me. No Number 3 could cheat her, I could see that. The first date available at Town Hall would be in two weeks, Edith learned on the telephone. Father Wasner approved the idea most heartily, and with a deep gulp we accepted.

  “That gives us time for publicity,” Mrs. Pessl said, very satisfiedly; and so it did. Our peace and our privacy were gone. Edith followed us with one or more photographers wherever we went, whatever we did, and pictures appeared in the newspapers: The Trapp Family Eating at the Chinese Restaurant; The Trapp Family Sight-Seeing; Craning Their Necks at Rockefeller Center; Window Shopping on Fifth Avenue; Looking Out of the Bus; Getting into a Trolley Car; Crossing the Street; Coming Down Steps. We got used to the idea of jamming up steps in stores, hotels, movie houses—everywhere—to be photographed while doing so. The Trapp Family Rehearsing in Their Hotel Room; Father Wasner (oh, how he hated it!) Directing, Reading a Score, Eating English Muffins (his favorite breakfast dish); Getting a Shoe Shine.

  Then came the interviews by Time and the Times, Life, the Herald Tribune, the Sun, the Daily News, P.M.: “When did you arrive in this country?” “How do you like America?” “Why did you leave Europe?” “What is the difference in the food?” “Why do you wear those funny dresses?” We tried desperately to talk about music and our program, but Edith assured us that the public was much more interested in the other questions.

  One single consolation there was to this—by now—awful Town Hall project: that we could make our very own program; and we did. For the first part we chose the three hardest madrigals we knew (after all, we wanted to show what we could do!), and the second part was devoted to the whole motet: “Jesu Meine Freude,” all forty-five minutes of it. That was a program to our heart’s delight.

  As we were completely unknown, Mrs. Pessl had suggested that her daughter, then already quite well known as a harpsichordist, should join us in this recital, taking turns with us, in rendering pieces on the harpsichord.

  The great day came, and with it our great chance. Earnestly and solemnly we stood on the stage in Town Hall: no make-up, no unnecessary smiles, all worthy of the occasion of performing Bach’s great motet. The hall was three-quarters filled. Much of it was “paper” (tickets given away), much of it was curious managers from all over the place, listening to this new attraction, a singing family. How good were they? Would they appeal to the broad public all over the country? Was there any money in them? Many of them left before the last chorale sounded solemnly through the air: “Jesu—meine—Freude!”

  Some people, however, were seriously touched, and some even came to tell us so. A tall, young-looking man rushed backstage, and with moist eyes, taking my hand in both of his, said in a very moved tone of voice:

  “This I am sure was exactly as Johann Sebastian would have wanted it to be. You must come and see me at the Public Library. I am Carleton Smith.”

  Now came a sleepless night of waiting for next morning’s newspapers, which would present our fate in print. Either we were made now, or…

  But next morning Edith, Yella, Mrs. Pessl came excitedly, each waving newspapers, exclaiming: “Wonderful! Excellent! Grand!” They read to our buzzing ears that we were “like no other family alive” that “when eight members of one family sing and play as did the Trapp Family ensemble at Town Hall on Saturday afternoon, music would seem to have achieved one of its miracles” “as a choral group the Trapps proved admirable. They evidently possess either perfect pitch or an extraordinary memory for tonality. The effects achieved in Praetorius, Lechner, Isaac numbers were already those of musicians of discriminating taste. Their work in the difficult Bach motet was accurate and veracious in the conveyance of the composer’s intentions. It was all-around musicianship” crowned by an important daily which gave two long columns and said, among other things: “There was something unusually lovable and appealing about the modest, serious singers as they formed a close semi-circle about their self-effacing director for their initial offering; the handsome, portly [!] Madame von Trapp in simple black, the others in black and white. It was only natural to expect work of exceeding refinement from them, and one was not disappointed in this” and so on, a long column. By now, most of us were hopping around in joy and jubilation. Finally someone intoned: “Nun Danket Alle Gott,” Bach’s great hymn of thanksgiving. We were so terribly happy that we were “made,” although we didn’t know yet what that meant.

  On Monday morning we paid the promised visit to the Public Library to see Carleton Smith. He was talking to a gentleman whom he introduced to us as Professor Otto Albrecht from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

  “Otto is a music lover, and I told him all about you,” Carleton beamed. “By the way, what are your plans?”

  “We are looking now for a place where we can stay for the next weeks. The hotel is so expensive,” said Georg.

  Professor Albrecht’s face lighted up.

  “I know a furnished house which is for rent, not far from where I live.”

  And, in a genuinely American way, he made a couple of telephone calls and everything was fixed. The rent was one hundred dollars a month, and we could come right away.

  Georg and the older girls went ahead with Otto Albrecht to fix up the house. It was very close to Christmas now, and Barbara and I simply loved the idea of settling down and having nothing moving under us for a while. The house was in Germantown, Philadelphia. When we got out at the North Philadelphia Station, there were Georg and Otto Albrecht and several cars waiting. On the way from the station to Germantown Georg said:

  “It is perfectly incredible. Absolute strangers, friends of Otto Albrecht, stop with their cars, come in, find out what we don’t have enough of. Then they return with spoons, forks, and knives, glasses, blankets, one brought a bed, another one pots and pans, and one even came with a carload of records. There is a victrola in the house. Now they have come with their cars to help me to install my family. They are Quakers, from the Society of Friends, as we used to call them in Europe.”

  The Society of Friends. They were not new to me. After World War I when I was in my teens, a student in Vienna, the famine had gotten so terrible that it was impossible to study or do any work. For a bite to eat one would have sacrificed everything. In that most crucial moment the Society of Friends came to Vienna with food, and every student and every school child got one hot meal a day. If it had not been for that one hot meal a day, I might not be alive now. Such a thing one never forgets; and there they were again crossing our path—the “Friends.”

  When we entered “our” living room, the fire was burning in the fireplace, and from the victrola sounded the great “Halleluja
h Chorus” from “The Messiah.”

  Georg, noticing how tired I was, took my hand and said reassuringly: “‘And all these things shall be added unto you.’”

  Yes—even friends—one of the rarest gifts in the world.

  IV Barbara

  THE very next day was Sunday, and in the evening two cars stopped before our house. Out came Otto Albrecht and Rex Crawford, a friend of his.

  “We want you to meet Henry Drinker,” said Otto, and told us to get into the cars. “He is a great music lover, and once a month he has a big party in his house, singing a cappella music just the way you do. I am sure you’ll like each other.” And off we went.

  In a very large music room there were about a hundred and twenty people gathered around a tall, boyish-looking gentleman. We were too far in the rear and couldn’t hear what he was saying, but that wasn’t necessary. He was simply radiating enthusiasm. Then he raised his hand—silence fell upon the hall, and he conducted his guests in the “Requiem” by Johannes Brahms. We had been given the music, and we sang with them. Mr. Drinker was neither a great conductor, nor had he any outstanding voice, but never mind all that. He was as sincere a lover of music as we had ever seen. When an especially beautiful passage had just finished, he interrupted the music, dropped his hands, and said with contagious fervor:

  “How marvellous! How simply wonderful! Oh, let’s do it again!”

  And we did it again. After an hour of such intensive music-making everyone seemed to be ready for the buffet supper. During this intermission we were introduced to Mr. and Mrs. Drinker. Otto told them about us. At the end of the evening, when most of the people had gone home, Otto asked us whether we would sing one number for our host. We gladly did, and chose our favorite Bach chorale: “Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern.” With this one number we sang our way directly into the innermost heart of the Drinkers. We didn’t know it then, but on that evening one of those friendships had started which have a beginning but no end.