Introduction
Bertha Webb (September 1868 – 20 February 1959) was an American violinist.
Bertha Webb was born in September 1868 in North Bridgeton, Maine. She comes from a musical family on both sides. She developed an interest in music at an early age. It's believed that she was able to hum a tune before she could enunciate a single word.
Through her earlier years, her musical training was fraught with difficulty. She lived in Portland, Maine, with no teacher of the violin nearer than Boston. Once or twice a week, when only a child, she made her trips to that city, where Prof. Julius Eichberg gave her her first instruction.
Webb was often called upon to play before audiences in Maine, and on one of these occasions her uncle, Dr. Hawkes, of New York City, was so impressed with her talent that he proposed that she should go to the metropolis, where she could pursue her literary and musical studies without interruption. She went and was at once placed under the care of the late Dr. Leopold Damrosch. After his death, she studied with Bernhard Listemann, Gustav Dannreuther, Bouis and Camilla Urso.
For ten years, she studied earnestly and she is today considered an example of what a woman may accomplish by determined effort. She is well known in musical circles as one of the most conscientious and painstaking musicians in the country. She has played in nearly every city in the United States. Once, during a particular season, she played two-hundred-fifty nights in succession, and more than a quarter of a million people listened to her playing.
Death
Webb died on 20 February 1959, at the age of 90.