Celebrating Hispanic Heritage: Angélica Morales von Sauer (Piano '28)

Acclaimed concert pianist, educator, and Curtis alumna Angélica Euterpe Morales von Sauer (Piano ’28) was born in Gurabo, Puerto Rico, on January 22, 1911, to a Puerto Rican father, violinist Angel Celestino Morales Marcano, and Mexican mother, pianist María Dolores Martinez Velazquez. When Angélica was an eight-month-old infant, the family traveled to Cuba, where Angel was to give a concert tour; however, he tragically died in the city of Cienfuegos, leaving his pregnant wife with her baby and unborn daughter, Estela. During this time, they lived in both Aguascalientes and Mexico City, and María taught private lessons and played the piano at cinemas for silent films. By age six, the young Angélica showed great promise as a pianist and studied the instrument with her mother and Mexican aristocrat, Miguel Cortazar.

On January 26, 1921, she gave her first recital at the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria to rave reviews, and plans were set in motion for her to study abroad. Throughout the summer of that year, Mrs. Morales and her daughters traveled to various cities across Mexico where Angélica performed concerts to garner acclaim beyond the country’s capital city. In 1922, sixty-six students were granted pensions by the Universidad Nacional to study in Europe. Mrs. Morales, Estela, and Angélica briefly moved to Paris before being advised by a Mexican student she met to find a piano teacher in Berlin instead. Here, she auditioned for Italian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher Ferruccio Busoni, who was not taking additional students and suggested she apply to the Hochschule für Musik and study with his protege Egon Petri.

After four years of studying with Petri, Angélica made her debut with the Berlin Philharmonic at age 13 and met German composer and pianist Emil von Sauer, a student of Franz Liszt, whom she began briefly studying with. In 1925, she moved back to Paris to further her musical studies. In the middle of 1926, she spent four months in Mexico, where she took lessons with Josef Hoffmann, who, in 1924, had been appointed the first head of the piano department at Curtis by Mary Louise Curtis Bok. Angélica joined his studio here in Philadelphia and graduated in 1928. Shortly after that, she began working with Russian pianist Josef Lhévinne in New York, and in 1929, she made her professional debut at Carnegie Hall and gave recitals throughout the U.S., Europe, and Mexico.

In 1930, she went to the Austrian spa town of Bad Gastein in Salzburg to study with Emil von Sauer again. There, she performed with the Dresden Philharmonic, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Budapest Philharmonic, Lamoureaux Orchestra of Paris, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Southern Philharmonic, and many others. By 1939, they were married until he passed away in 1942 at age 79. During their short union, Mrs. von Sauer had two sons with her husband—Julio and Franz. Following his death, she succeeded to her late husband’s chair at the Vienna Academy of Music before returning to Mexico in 1946 to teach at the Conservatorio Nacional de Música, drawing widespread acclaim for her annual three-week-long masterclasses throughout the country to support the next generation of talented young Mexican pianists.

In the mid-fifties, she was invited to join the faculty of the University of Kansas, where she taught until she retired in 1973, and at age 62, moved to Oklahoma and recorded the complete Well-Tempered Clavier, BWV 846-893 (Johann Sebastian Bach). She continued to actively serve as a piano competition judge in the United States, Europe, and Mexico, and a concert hall in Mexico City was named in her honor.

Mrs. von Sauer passed away on April 16, 1996, at age 85, in Stillwater, Oklahoma.

Explore more Curtis history at the Curtis Institute of Music Open Archives and Recitals (CIMOAR) digital collections. Learn more about Curtis’s library and archives HERE.

Biographical information of Mrs. von Sauer’s life provided in part by María Eugenia Tapia’s doctoral dissertation, Angélica Morales von Sauer: An Account of Her Performing and Teaching Career; The University of Texas at Austin, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, May 1995.

Photo Credits: 1.) Angélica Morales von Sauer, La Crónica de Hoy. 2.) Courtesy of Reforma.com. 3.) The book cover of Angélica Morales: Historia de una pianista mexicana by María Teresa Castrillon, published by the National Council for Culture and Arts (Conaculta), 2007. 4.) Courtesy of the Curtis Archives and Special Collections. 5.) Todd Mueller Autographs. 6.) Photo of Mrs. von Sauer and the Jury of the 1983 Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels; courtesy of the competition’s website.