Marie Soldat-Roeger

{{Short description|Austrian musician (1863–1955)}}

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Marie Soldat-Roeger (born in Graz (Styria), March 25, 1863, died in Graz (Styria), September 30, 1955) was a violin virtuoso active in orchestral and chamber music in the Vienna of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A pupil of violin master Joseph Joachim, she was born 'Marie Soldat', but in 1889 married a lawyer named Roeger.

While studying with Joachim at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik, she won the Mendelssohn Prize in 1880.{{Cite book |last=Roth |first=Henry |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/36862554 |title=Violin virtuosos : from Paganini to the 21st century |date=1997 |publisher=California Classic Books |isbn=1-879395-18-5 |location=Los Angeles |oclc=36862554}}{{Cite book |last=Schenk |first=Dietmar |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/55887914 |title=Die Hochschule für Musik zu Berlin : Preussens Konservatorium zwischen romantischem Klassizismus und neuer Musik, 1869-1932/33 |date=2004 |publisher=F. Steiner |isbn=3-515-08328-6 |location=Stuttgart |oclc=55887914}}

Marie Soldat-Roeger became friends with Marie Baumayer, an Austrian pianist, Baumayer was friends with Clara Wittingstein (part of the important Wittgenstein family) and Johannes Brahms. The latter introduced her to Joseph Joachim, who trained her in violin. For many years, she was the only woman to play Brahms's Violin Concerto.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QQkvc_PeW7EC&dq=Soldat-Roeger+Quartet&pg=PA48|page=46-48|title=Wittgenstein in Vienna|author1=Allan S. Janik|author2=Hans Viegl|date=1998|publisher=SpringerWienNewYork (Springer-Verlag/Wien)|isbn=9783211830772|access-date=11 August 2022}}

In the late 1880s and early 1890s, she formed an all-female string quartet, in which she played first violin. Agnes Tschetschulin played second violin, Gabriele Roy played viola and Lucy Hebert Campbell played cello. The group toured and was managed by the Herman Wolff Agency, which also managed the Berlin Philharmonic. The group was billed as the world's first all-female professional string quartet.{{Cite web|date=2019-05-02|title=A celebration of historical Finnish women who wrote music, Part 2: Agnes Tschetschulin|url=https://fmq.fi/articles/part-2-agnes-tschetschulin|access-date=2021-05-21|website=FMQ|language=en-us}}{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=olklAQAAMAAJ&dq=Gabriele+Roy+violist&pg=RA2-PA28|page=28|title=North Philadelphia's Musical Journal|publisher=Oliver Ditson & Co. (Copyright of F. A. North & Co.|volume=2|issue=9|date=September 1887|access-date=12 August 2022}}

In 1896, she founded the celebrated, all-female Soldat-Roeger Quartet, whose viola-player was Natalie Bauer-Lechner, Elsa Edle von Plank as second violinist (replacing Ella Finger-Bailetti in 1898), and Leontine Gärtner as cellist (replacing Lucy Herbert Campbell in 1903).{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lOAfEAAAQBAJ&dq=Ella+Finger-Bailetti&pg=PT146|language=french|quote=À partir de 1898, la violoniste Elise von Planck remplace Ella Finger-Bailetti, et en 1903, la violoncelliste Leontine Gärtner prend la place de Lucy Herbert Campbell qui jouait déjà dans la première formation de Marie Soldat. (At the end of 1898, the violinist Elise von Planck replaced Ella Finger-Bailetti, and in 1903, the cellist Leontine Gärtner took the place of Lucy Herbert Campbell who already played in the first formation [quartet] of Marie Soldat)|title=L'âme soeur {{!}} Natalie Bauer-Lechner et Gustav Mahler|author=Evelyne Bloch-Dano|date=2021|publisher=Stock|isbn=9782234086784|access-date=12 August 2022}} This quartet would perform at Soirées musicales presenting modern music.