Maria Chefaliady-Taban

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Maria Chefaliady-Taban (4 November 1863 – 11 June 1932) was a Romanian pianist, music teacher and composer. Her music is romantic with folk elements, and she wrote choral works and songs, including Hora carturarului Urechia (Scholar Urechia’s Ring Dance). She performed as a concert pianist, playing Bach, Schumann, Beethoven and Grieg, and she later taught singing.

She was born in Iași and studied at the Iași Conservatory with Anetta Boscoff (piano) and Enrico Mezetti (theory). From 1883 to 1885 she studied in Vienna at the Akademie fur Musik und Darstellende Kunst with Joseph Dachs, Joseph Gansbacher, Adolf Prosnitz and Joseph Hellmesberger. She was offered a scholarship to stay longer but returned home, feeling homesick.

Back in Bucharest she married Vasile Taban, a cashier at the Ministry of Finance, but they divorced after five years. After finishing her studies, she performed as a concert pianist, debuting on 11 November 1880, at venues such as the Romanian Athenaeum and the National Theatre, and she played on an Erard piano she had commissioned in Paris.

Later she taught singing in Iași and Bucharest, at the Humpel Girls’ Institute. Her students included Adelina Kneisel, Julieta Missir, Aurelia Protopopescu and Mircea Stefanescu. She died in Bucharest on 11 June 1932, aged 69.