Ida Ekman

Ida Paulina Morduch{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iUQDFlj1ykkC&dq=ida+morduch+ekman&pg=PA59|title=Historical Dictionary of the Music and Musicians of Finland|first1=Ruth-Esther|last1=Hillila|first2=Barbara Blanchard|last2=Hong|date=September 4, 1997|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|isbn=9780313277283|via=Google Books}} was born in Helsinki in 1875 to Jewish parents Israel Jacob Morduch (1833–76) and Eva Grünblatt (1833–1913). Her stepfather was Arye Leib Krapinsky (1832–1897). She studied at the Russian Girls School in Helsinki,{{Cite web |url=http://www.amitys.com/phpGedView/individual.php?pid=I4611&ged=Gedcom.ged |title=Meliza's Genealogy |access-date=2009-10-31 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110707134105/http://www.amitys.com/phpGedView/individual.php?pid=I4611&ged=Gedcom.ged |archive-date=2011-07-07 |url-status=dead }} Vienna (under Pauline Lucca), Germany and Italy. She sang with the Nuremberg Opera for a time,{{Cite web|url=http://www.carlonordling.se/finlandssvenskar/5.html|title=carlonordling.se|website=www.carlonordling.se}} but her greatest success came in lieder. In 1895, when she was 19, she married the pianist, composer and conductor Karl Ekman, a piano student of Ferruccio Busoni. She appeared in concert with Edvard Grieg. Ernst Mielck's song "Heimath" (1898) was dedicated to Ida Morduch-Ekman.{{Cite web|url=https://imslp.org/wiki/Heimath_(Mielck,_Ernst)|title=Heimath (Mielck, Ernst) - IMSLP: Free Sheet Music PDF Download|website=imslp.org}} She accompanied Robert Kajanus and Jean Sibelius on their European tour in the summer of 1900. She was the a soloist with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra on its visit to the 1900 World's Fair in Paris. She probably sang in the concert of 25 July 1900 in the Salle de la Grande Harmonie in Brussels.{{Cite web |url=http://mfb.cb-lib.org/sibelius/sibelius010.html |title=Musical Finland in Brussels |access-date=2009-10-31 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110725145838/http://mfb.cb-lib.org/sibelius/sibelius010.html |archive-date=2011-07-25 |url-status=dead }} She had earlier been instrumental in bringing Sibelius's music to the attention of Johannes Brahms, who died in 1897.

She was particularly appreciated by Sibelius himself, who dedicated a number of his songs to her and she was their first interpreter. There exists a manuscript score of the song "Spring is flying", Op. 13, No. 4, with an inscription from Sibelius "To Ida Ekman, the incomparable "Sibelius singer", with gratitude from Jean Sibelius".[https://docs.google.com/gview?a=v&q=cache:rJKqPWRfvicJ:www.breitkopf.com/feature/download/2757/4470+ida+ekman&hl=en&gl=au&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEEShGyWkCXzv850zV7kCvCVv7nbj3fWwRs8YTwNRmwrdzgGSp2yOa3jYVvt03oc2hVcQzn6npGM_xgTk-WVe4iVnS7B5-Ub_E_7Jp0Xn9W5Y7_QaIKORIBeYq1XQa4cKHNn6_9WSn&sig=AFQjCNFyGnsWb_EONRmYgZyGJtU8qPHDfg www.breitkopf.com] She gave the first performance of "The Tryst", Op. 37, No. 5 in late January 1901 in Berlin.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vkIWs6nvRs8C&dq=ida+ekman&pg=PA143|title=Sibelius|first=Andrew|last=Barnett|date=September 4, 2007|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0300111590|via=Google Books}} Her Sibelius dedications included three songs from Op. 36 – "Black Roses", "But my bird is long in homing" and "Tennis at Trianon"; "On a balcony by the sea", Op. 38, No. 2,{{Cite web |url=http://www.kaiku.com/sibeliussongs.html |title=Kutri's Kormer |access-date=2009-10-31 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090406172947/http://www.kaiku.com/sibeliussongs.html |archive-date=2009-04-06 |url-status=dead }} and all the songs from Opp. 86, 88 and 90.{{Cite web|url=http://www.sibelius.fi/english/musiikki/laulut_4.htm|title=The last solo song collections|website=www.sibelius.fi}}{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vkIWs6nvRs8C&dq=ida+morduch+ekman&pg=RA1-PA269|title=Sibelius|first=Andrew|last=Barnett|date=September 4, 2007|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0300111590|via=Google Books}} Ekman performed the Op. 90 songs for the first time at her jubilee concerts in October 1917, at the end of her career.

After the retirement of Aino Ackté, Ida Ekman became the preeminent interpreter of Sibelius's songs. Sibelius wrote in his diary in 1918: "They - our female singers - 'they make too much' of every phrase. The absolute music which I write is so exclusively musical and strictly independent of words that reciting them is not a good idea. Ida Ekman has understood this which is why she is incomparable".

Ida Ekman made some recordings between 1904 and 1908, including songs in 1906 that were among the first compositions by Sibelius ever to be recorded.[http://dvm.nu/hierarchy/periodical/ns/2005/02/?show=data/periodical/5/e/0/periodical-1119272865-361805-22806.tkl&type=periodical Det Virtuelle Musikbibliotek]{{Dead link|date=January 2020 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} The Sibelius songs were "Was it a dream?", Op. 37, No. 4; "Longing", Op. 50, No. 2; "But my bird is long in homing", Op. 36, No. 2; "A maiden yonder sings", Op. 50, No. 3; "Black Roses", Op. 36, No. 1; "And I questioned then no further", Op. 17, No. 1; and "Tennis at Trianon", Op. 36, No. 3.

{{Cite web|url=http://www.fiftyrecords.com/kauppa/amcd1010_sibelius.htm|title=The very first Sibelius recordings 1901-1908|website=www.fiftyrecords.com}} She also recorded songs by Richard Strauss and arias from operas by Tchaikovsky and Handel.{{Cite web|url=http://aanitearkisto.fi/firs2/nimike.php?Id=Ida+ekman+recordings+1904+-+1908|title=Ida Ekman Recordings 1904-1908|access-date=2009-10-31|archive-date=2011-07-18|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110718183643/http://aanitearkisto.fi/firs2/nimike.php?Id=Ida+ekman+recordings+1904+-+1908|url-status=dead}} A selection of her recordings can be heard [https://archive.org/details/ida_ekman here].

She influenced Sibelius to orchestrate some of his songs originally written for voice and piano; these included "Spring is flying" (Op. 13, No. 4), "And I questioned then no further" (Op. 17, No. 1), "The Diamond on the March snow" (Op. 36, No. 6), "Sunrise" (Op. 37, No. 3), "On a balcony by the sea" (Op. 38, No. 2) and "Night" (Op. 38, No. 3), orchestrated between 1903 and 1914.[http://dvm.nu/hierarchy/periodical/ns/1990/04/?show=data/periodical/ns/1990/ns1990_4XML/periodical-ns1990_4_04.tkl&type=periodical Det Virtuelle Musikbibliotek]{{Dead link|date=January 2020 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}

On 21 October 1905, she sang Hector Berlioz's Les nuits d'été as part of the seventh of Ferruccio Busoni's Orchesterabende in Berlin.{{Cite web |url=http://www.rprf.org/Concerts.htm |title=Programs of Busoni's Orchestral Concerts |access-date=2009-10-31 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080905181603/http://www.rprf.org/Concerts.htm |archive-date=2008-09-05 |url-status=dead }}

Ida and Karl Ekman had a son, Karl Ekman Jr (1895–1962), a noted biographer of Sibelius. She died in 1942, aged 66.

In 2003, the manuscripts of four Sibelius songs ("The Girl Came from A Meeting With Her Love", "Was It A Dream?", "Spring Passes So Quickly", and "Lost") dedicated to Ida Ekman turned up in a Helsinki bank vault.{{Cite web|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1440660/News-in-brief.html|title=News in brief|website=The Telegraph}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.boosey.com/teaching/news/Sibelius-Scores-Found/10690|title=Sibelius Scores Found|website=www.boosey.com}}

{{reflist}}

• Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 5th ed, 1954, Eric Blom, ed.

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ekman, Ida}}

Category:1875 births

Category:1942 deaths

Category:19th-century Finnish Jews

Category:20th-century Finnish Jews

Category:Singers from Helsinki

Category:Finnish sopranos

Category:19th-century Finnish women singers