Erna Tauro

{{Short description|Finnish-Swedish composer and pianist (1916–1993)}}

{{Infobox musical artist

| name = Erna Tauro

| image = TauroErna.png

| birth_name = Erna Pergament

| birth_date = 16 August 1916

| birth_place = Viipuri, then-Finland

| death_date = {{Death date and age|1993|06|04|1916|08|16|df=y}}

| death_place = Stockholm, Sweden

| occupation = Composer, pianist

| years_active = 1955-1993

| spouse = Risto Ilmari Tauro

}}

Erna Tauro ({{née}} Pergament; 16 August 1916 {{spaced ndash}}4 June 1993), was a Finnish-Swedish pianist and composer, as well as a theatre musician and teacher.{{cite journal|title=Finnish Music Quarterly|journal=Finnish Music Quarterly|date=2002|page=12|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vTQJAQAAMAAJ|access-date=19 April 2025|publisher=Performing Music Promotion Centre (ESEK)|language=en}} She is remembered for her collaboration with Tove Jansson.{{cite book|last=Jansson|first=Tove|title=Letters from Tove|date=10 March 2020|publisher=University of Minnesota Press|isbn=978-1-4529-6382-2|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ylfzDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT453|language=en}}

Biography

Erna Pergament was born in 1916,{{cite book|last=Gustafsson|first=Barbro K.|title=Stenåker och ängsmark: erotiska motiv och homosexuella skildringar i Tove Janssons senare litteratur|date=1992|publisher=Uppsala universitet|isbn=978-91-554-2897-6|page=31|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HEguAAAAIAAJ|access-date=19 April 2025|language=sv}} in Viipuri. She was the daughter of Isak Pergament and Rifka (née Rosenthal), and niece of composers Moses Pergament and Simon Parmet. The family moved to Berlin in 1921 and later to Helsinki. Tauro studied piano and music theory in Berlin, and according to some sources, also studied music at the Sibelius Academy in Finland.{{cite web|url=http://www.sls.fi/BLF/artikel.php?id=9600|publisher=Swedish Literature Society|title=Erna Tauro|access-date=8 October 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100606020940/http://www.sls.fi/blf/artikel.php?id=9600|archive-date=6 June 2010|url-status=dead}} During World War II, Tauro worked as a nurse and also an accompanist. She married Risto Ilmari Tauro, and they had one daughter born in 1945. From 1955 to 1969 she was principal accompanist at the Little Theater in Helsinki and composed music for a number of plays and musicals.

Her composition "Höstvisa" ("Autumn Song") with lyrics by Tove Jansson won third prize in the 1965 Finnish Broadcasting Song Contest. The same year, she won second place with the song "Den gamla brudkläderskan" ("The Old Bridal Wife") with lyrics by Huldén Evert.

In 1969, Tauro received a position as musical director for Fiddler on the Roof in Stockholm, and in 1977 she settled permanently in that city. She died in Stockholm in 1993.

Tauro is best known for the songs for Moomin, a series of children's books by Tove Jansson which were translated into plays and animation. Music for the last play, King Moomin Valley, was finished by composer Mika Pohjola after the death of Jansson and Tauro and premiered in August 2008.