Irma Surányi - A Child Violin Virtuoso

The child prodigy. The young phenom. The whiz kid, The precocious youth. The wunderkind. The next Mozart. Exceptional musical talent in a child has always been an astounding, even miraculous experience, because it seems so improbable that a mere youth can exhibit fantastic skills and artistry. We can't understand it, so we call it a gift.   Here is one such gifted child,  Irma Surányi, the 8 year old violin virtuoso.

Wearing a white dress with her long hair in tight curls, Irma presents a kind of surreal effect as she stands in front of a photo studio's impressionistic pond. She holds her violin down in a classic resting pose, looking directly at the camera. Even without the caption of Die 8 jährige Violinvirtuosin, we can see a confidence and sensibility in her that is beyond a beginning violin student.

The postcard was sent from Veitsch, Austria on 19 XI 1907. The penciled scribble on the back and front looks like the handwriting of several people. Perhaps a card for a birthday congratulations or just a "wish you were here" message. Under the picture is another date of 18.11.07   finishing with an exclamation mark. Did the writer hear Fraulein Surányi perform and was marveling at her music?

Just because I think it is pretty impressive mountain, this is the Hohe Veitsch. It is in the Mürzsteg Alps in the Austrian state of Styria, with a height of 1,981 m (6,499 ft). 

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Here is a second postcard of Irma, this time holding the violin in playing position. Her hair is shorter and she is taller. Her dress is no longer that of a child but of a young girl. The caption reads Surányi Irma, jugendliche Violinvirtuosin. Her name is Hungarian, though in this time before the first world war, Hungary was one of the kingdoms of Austria under the rule of Kaiser Franz Joseph.

Back in 2011, I posted the story of another young violin prodigy, Kun Arpad, who was also Hungarian and from Budapest. This postcard, which I didn't use in that earlier post, dates from 1901, and shows the boy violinist at age 7.

Hungarian names are complicated because the family surname and given forename are reversed in order. So in the other European languages he would be known as Arpad Kun. However in all the newspaper accounts of his short career in London and New York, he was always called Kun Arpad. 

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This third postcard shows Surányi Irma, 12 jährige Violinvirtuosin, four years later. Here she stands at the ready with violin under her chin. There is a white bow in her hair and the photographer has placed her before a simple blank wall which concentrates our attention on her angelic gaze. 

Like the second card, this one was never posted but with Irma's age we can date it to around 1911.


Kun Arpad received quite a number of newspaper and magazine reports. Irma Surányi - not so much, in fact nothing. Unfortunately with the distance of time and the obstacle of language, it seemed my research would only tell the story in just these images of a lovely wonder child. 

The Sunday Repository, Canton OH
 June 3, 1917

Then I found a tantalizing advertisement in the aptly named newspaper of Canton, Ohio - 
The Sunday Repository.  The date is June 3, 1917 and The Courtland Restaurant placed a big box ad for performances by the

Suranyi Ladies
Quartette
Two Singers, All Soloists
Popular and Classical Music
Violin, Piano, Cello, Cornet
and Trap Player

Never mind that there are five instruments, a drummer never counts anyway, the violin is listed first and the name is linked to an ensemble of lady musicians. Could Irma Surányi have emigrated to America before the Great War? Did she live in Canton or was she a touring artist on the vaudeville circuit?

Here is most of the entertainment page from The Sunday Repository  so that readers can see what they missed at the theaters in 1917. Satan's Private Door; The Silent Lie; Mystery of the Double Cross; and The Railroad Raiders.










Despite my best effort, I could not find Irma's name in any US census or city directory. Of course  by 1917, she is now a young woman and regrettably for historians and genealogists, a marriage confers a new name that becomes the cloak of invisibility for a woman. Maybe she left the music halls of Europe for the concert stages of America, but we can never know for sure. Another musician lost in mystery.



Or maybe not.



Just as I was nearly finishing this post, I decided to try once more with a new combination of search terms. Google now finds PDF files too and it found a university graduate paper, written in Hungarian, on the history of Hungarian people educated in London. Irma Surányi was listed as an example of a Hungarian music student at London's Royal Academy of Music in 1915.  Could this young prodigy have gone to London to study violin? It certainly seemed plausible, even for an Austrian national in 1914-15.

Then just like catching a fish, I hooked a big one and this time it didn't get away.

The London Gazette 23 May, 1947

The London Gazette of 23 May, 1947 published a long, long list of names of people who had been granted re-admission to British nationality. The list included alternate names, nationality, occupation, and address.

And on page 2344, Steier to Tajg, is the entry:
 
Suranyi, Irma. See Szlovak, Maria Stefaniia.

Which convienently, is just 8 names below.

Szlovak, Maria Stefania (also known as Irma Suranyi); Czechoslovakia; Music Teacher and Concert Artist; 103, Brunswick Road, Buckley, near Chester, Cheshire.
11 April, 1947.



It would be hard to find a more authoritative documentation than the London Gazette, the official record of British court and government proceedings. If it linked the name Szlovak with Suranyi then it must be true. 



(Let us take a moment to appreciate the fairness of the British legal system that  would allow Mr. Abraham Szmuclerz Dit Fuks to become Mr. Albert Fox)

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Last week I wrote a fictional story based on musicians whose names will always be unknown. Even when we know an identity, without the continuity of a real history we are forced to imagine one. Looking at this young girl, Surányi Irma, from 1907-11 we know that she faces the years 1914 to 1945, a period filled with immense turmoil. Therefore it is a great sense of relief to know that by 1947 she had survived this horrible void of time that tragically stole so many names from history.

It is also satisfying to know that she continued in music after her inevitably brief career as a child violin virtuoso. Did she play restaurant music in Ohio? Did she marry a Czech? Her full history must remain a mystery since the records of the second half of the century are still sealed.  But I found one last reference from Rhuddlan, Wales. A death notice dated July 1989 for Maria Stefania Szlovaka, age 92, birth date - 20 September 1896. Perhaps Surányi Irma was a bit older than 8 when the photographer took that first photograph in 1907.

But a woman never reveals her real age.

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday
where you might meet more young ladies in white.