Elly Ney

Elly Ney (27 September 1882 – 31 March 1968) was a German pianist and music educator, born in Düsseldorf. She grew up in the family of sergeant Jakobus Ney and music teacher Anna Ney.

She began studying music in Bonn with Leonhard Wolf, then continued at the Cologne Conservatory with Isidor Seiss and Franz Wüllner, and later studied with Theodor Leschetizky and Emil von Sauer. At nineteen she won Berlin’s "Mendelssohn Prize", and at twenty she received the "Ibach Prize" in Cologne.

After completing her studies in Vienna, she taught at the Cologne Conservatory from 1904 to 1907 while also building a career as a concert pianist. In 1907 she met the violinist Willem van Hoogstraten, whom she married in 1911; the marriage ended in 1927. Ney and van Hoogstraten performed extensively as a duo in Germany and other European countries, and from 1914 to 1921 they also played in a piano trio with Fritz Reitz.

In 1921 she became an honorary member of the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn, and in 1927 she was named an honorary citizen of Bonn. During the 1920s she lived and performed mainly in the United States, strengthening her worldwide reputation as a leading interpreter of Beethoven and Brahms, before returning to Europe in 1930. In 1931, at her initiative, Bonn established an annual festival, the Volkstümliche Beethoventage, held until 1944 and regarded as a predecessor of the modern Beethoven Festival; in 1932 she founded the "Elly Ney Trio" with violinist Wilhelm Stross and cellist Ludwig Hoelscher.

Ney supported the establishment of the fascist regime in Germany and joined the Nazi Party (NSDAP) on 1 May 1937. She taught at various music institutions, including a special conservatory created by the Germans in occupied Kraków; during the war she played many concerts in military hospitals and in 1943 received the War Merit Cross, 2nd class. From 1939 to 1945 she taught a piano class at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, and a letter to Joseph Goebbels is known in which she asked whether the Netherlands had already been "cleansed" of Jews, stating that if so she would be willing to tour there.

After World War II, Ney was barred from performing for seven years, returning to active concert life only in 1952 and continuing to perform until the final years of her life. In 1952 she became an honorary citizen of Tutzing in Bavaria, where a street was later named after her and a monument erected on the shore of Lake Starnberg (vandalized on 11 February 2009). Between the ages of 79 and 86 she recorded most of her repertoire, and on her 85th birthday the city of Bonn held a reception attended by Federal President Heinrich Lübke.

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