As a child, Elisabeth von Trapp ran through the fields surrounding her Vermont home singing songs from “The Sound of Music,” the Broadway production and movie that immortalized her family’s flight from Nazi-occupied Austria.
Now Von Trapp, 43, is trying to establish her own voice as a singer and songwriter while celebrating the legacy of her family, who shortly after fleeing the Nazis became an international singing sensation. But expectations raised by the 1965 movie starring Julie Andrews as her grandmother, Baroness Maria von Trapp, have made it difficult for Elisabeth, the only Von Trapp still singing professionally, to forge her own musical identity.
“I think people often expect me to look like Julie Andrews in dirndl and lace,” said Von Trapp, a petite woman with short brown hair and radiant blue eyes dressed in stylish Geiger apparel. “But I think they’re pleasantly surprised when they see I don’t look like Julie Andrews. And I think they are even more surprised to hear me playing Jimi Hendrix, albeit my own acoustic version of `Little Wing.’ “
Despite the struggle to step out of the shadows of her family, Von Trapp embraces her Austrian heritage. She often entertains listeners at concerts with her own rendition of “Edelweiss” and stories of her family.
“I try to be understanding of their needs and wants as listeners. But I am also trying to expose them to my own authentic music,” said Von Trapp, sitting in the home where she and her husband, Edward Hall, are caretakers in Waitsfield, Vt.
When Von Trapp sings, accompanying herself on acoustic guitar, the music unfolds in a way listeners who are unfamiliar with her work rarely expect. There are no “do-re-mi”s or spirited sing-alongs. Instead, Von Trapp sings softly and with an astonishing clarity about disappointment, the power of love and coming of age in Vermont.
“I grew up listening to Mozart and Beethoven. But being a child of the ’70s, I also listened to the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Kinks and Pete Seeger. It was amazing how fast Mozart or Beethoven would come on when my parents came home,” she said with a laugh.
Von Trapp is the daughter of Werner von Trapp, the child depicted as the mischievous Kurt in the movie “The Sound of Music.” Her father and his siblings toured worldwide, bringing Austrian music to millions. But after several years of travel, the Von Trapps decided they could no longer financially support their growing families and personal needs. They stopped formally performing concerts in 1957 as each sibling took up alternative vocations. Werner von Trapp became a dairy farmer in Waitsfield, 20 miles from the Von Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe.
Like her father, Elisabeth showed an affinity for music at an early age. Her parents nurtured that love of music with piano and violin lessons.
“I would take piano lessons with a woman who lived in a farmhouse just up the road,” she said, pointing out the window of her home to the valley below where her childhood home stands nestled in a grove of trees. “I would walk a mile each way and pay her 50 cents a lesson. It was the thing that I looked forward to the most. My father also lent his cello to the town’s music teacher in exchange for free lessons for each of his children.”
When she was 10 years old, Elisabeth was sent to Austria to live with her maternal grandmother for a year. It was there she was first confronted with the expectations associated with being a member of a famous singing family.
“I had a music teacher in Austria who would make me stand up and sing. She would say, `You are a Von Trapp. Now stand up and sing.’ I felt very humiliated by that,” said Von Trapp. “The interesting expectation I always had growing up was the notion that of course I could sing well, because it was in my genes. But I would think to myself if it is in my genes, why are so many of my relatives not singing?”
As a young girl, Elisabeth would watch through the window as her father played his cello at night. She would also sit quietly and listen as the local farmers gathered to sing and perform music at her home. “I would just sit there in awe and totally enamored with the process,” Von Trapp said. “Within this Vermont farmhouse, I would get glimpses of his other life.”
After graduating from high school, Von Trapp returned to Austria hoping to attend a music academy. When her limited formal musical training prevented her from doing so, she entered a vocational school, Anahof, where she discovered her second love: traditional Austrian dressmaking.
“It was the first experience I had of learning a craft that was so classical in nature. It took so much discipline, and it showed me how to get from one place to another with precision,” she said.
Von Trapp used her dressmaking skills to help pay her way through Johnson State College in Vermont. Though she intended to major in music focusing on classical singing, her mother asked her to reconsider.
“She made me almost promise that I would finish my degree in education. She just wanted me to be practical. She would say, `You can always do music.’ I felt pulled and disjointed. Musically, I was just starting to understand my own motivations for singing,” said Von Trapp, who followed her mother’s advice and majored in education.
After completing her master’s degree in curriculum development, Von Trapp continued to make traditional Austrian dresses. She established her own company and began selling her dresses at the Von Trapp Family Lodge and through specialty catalogs.
“I would vow sitting there sewing 10 hours a day I would not give my life to sewing, that music was my thing,” said Von Trapp, who makes the traditional Austrian apparel for the staff at the lodge. “But while I was trying to make a living, it took me long time to filter through what I was doing and come to terms with becoming more devoted to the craft of music.”
For the last 10 years she has depended upon her sewing business to make a living while she honed her skills as a singer and guitarist. But these days she is concentrating on music. Three years ago she founded her own record label, Von Trapp Music, with her husband, who gave up his law practice to become her manager and executive producer.
She released her first CD, “Wishful Thinking,” a compilation of live cover songs, in 1994. And on her new album, “One Heart, One Mind,” she wrote all but one of its 11 songs. The title song is dedicated to her family and the life they built in America.
“They influenced me a great deal,” she said. “And I wanted to show my respect and admiration for what they had done. They were extraordinary people.”
Von Trapp also paid tribute to her father by enlisting him to play organ for “Childhood Home,” a song chronicling her youth. “It was magical seeing him play and to record alongside of him,” said Von Trapp, who enlisted help from her nieces and nephews as well.
Von Trapp’s music is hard to define. Even she can not place it in a particular genre. She said her music reflects her classical training and her love of folk music. The result: a haunting new-age sound. Even though it’s catchy and soothing, large record companies have shied away.
“We get lots of compliments. But the record companies can’t categorize it, and if they can’t put it in a genre, they feel they can’t sell it,” she said.
Despite these difficulties, Von Trapp is getting a lot of attention in the press, particularly for her participation in an arts program that has musicians performing in New York’s subways.
“I thought if the record companies couldn’t understand my music, I would bring it directly to the people. And this is about as direct as it gets,” she said, She sang the national anthem at Fenway Park in Boston several times last summer, performed at wedding receptions, restaurants and at small venues throughout New England. And everywhere she goes, the questions of her lineage and expectations follow — something she has grown to accept.
“I understand people’s curiosity. I look at the pictures of my family singing and they are so beautiful,” Von Trapp said after entertaining questions from Canadian tourists between sets of a recent performance in Vermont. “A lot of people drew strength and courage from them. And I have as well. Now it is just a matter of me being able to get them to see beyond the name and have them enjoy the music for what it is, not because of who I am.”
