Gisella Grosz, originally Gizella Grosz (26 November 1875, Szilágysomlyó, Austria-Hungary – 1942, Riga Ghetto, Latvia) was a Hungarian classical pianist.
Grosz was born into a Jewish family in Szilágysomlyó, then Austria-Hungary, today Șimleu Silvaniei, Romania. She studied piano at the Royal National Hungarian Academy of Music in Budapest with István Thomán. In 1897 she gave her first concerts in BudapestOrszágos Hirlap, 20 Dec 1897, p. 4; 21 Dec 1897, p. 8 and in 1898 and 1899 in Leipzig and Berlin with good success.Musikalisches Wochenblatt, Leipzig, 28 Apr 1898, vol 38, no. 18, p. 266 From 1898 on she lived in Berlin,Országos Hirlap, 14 February 1898, p. 10 where she studied with Teresa Carreño.
She performed as a soloist with the Berlin Philharmonic in 1902, 1905, 1908 and 1909.Peter Muck: Einhundert Jahre Berliner Philharmonisches Orchester, Tutzing, Schneider, 1982 On February 6, 1906 she was one of the first female pianists to record for Welte-Mignon.Gerhard Dangel and Hans-W. Schmitz: Welte-Mignon Reproductions. Complete Library Of Recordings For The Welte-Mignon Reproducing Piano 1905–1932. Stuttgart 2006. . p. 446
In 1911, she retired from her concert career to marry Adolf Weissmann (1873–1929), a well known Berlin music critic and author of biographies of Bizet, Chopin, Verdi, and Puccini. Grosz continued as a teacher of the piano and hosted frequent musicales into the 1920s, until her husband's untimely death in 1929. She was listed in Berlin telephone directories from 1937 to 1940 as Gisella Weissmann (Weißmann). In 1940 the statutory Jewish middle name Sara was added to her listing, and in 1941 Jews were omitted altogether. In January 1942 she was deported to Riga, Latvia, and died there in that year.
Grosz and Weissmann had in 1908 a child born out of wedlock, Ilse. The daughter became a pianist too, taught mainly by her mother in Berlin and Konrad Wolff in Paris. From 1933 on Ilse Weissmann lived in France, England and Italy and finally emigrated to the US, where she died in 2000.
Further reading Adolf Weißmann: Berlin als Musikstadt: Geschichte der Oper und des Konzerts von 1740 bis 1911. Berlin, Schuster & Loeffler, 1911 Walter Niemann: Meister des Klaviers, Berlin, Schuster & Loeffler, 1919
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