Sophie Weisse was a Scottish music teacher and founder of Northlands, an all-girls school in Surrey, England.
14 Facts About Sophie Weisse
1.
2.
Sophie Weisse was the teacher and life-long friend of the music scholar and composer Donald Tovey.
3.
Sophie Weisse's father, Traugott Heinrich Weisse, was a refugee of the German Revolution of 1848.
4.
Sophie Weisse's wife, Sophie Marquidorff, was a Lithuanian pianist who performed regularly in chamber-music concerts in Edinburgh.
5.
Sophie Weisse knew Robert Louis Stevenson as a child through school and her father's role as his German tutor.
6.
Sophie Weisse claimed it was her father's influence that encouraged Stevenson to take up writing.
7.
Sophie Weisse never married and had no children of her own.
8.
Sophie Weisse purchased Bendemere House in Englefield Green and turned it into an all-girls school called Northlands in 1892.
9.
Sophie Weisse oversaw all aspects of his education until he attended Balliol College, Oxford.
10.
Sophie Weisse supported Tovey's career by financing the publication of his Piano concerto in 1903, of which she was the dedicatee.
11.
Sophie Weisse subsequently provided the funds for the publication of more of his work between 1906 and 1913.
12.
Sophie Weisse disapproved of choices Tovey made in his personal life and expressed frustration with a stall in his career between 1902 and 1914.
13.
However, upon Tovey's acceptance of the role of Reid Professor of Music at the University, Sophie Weisse followed Tovey to Edinburgh.
14.
Sophie Weisse was a benefactor of the University of Edinburgh, with which she had an association through her relationship with Tovey.