Maria Donata Nanetta Paulina Gustava Erwina Wilhelmine Stein (18 October 1926 – 6 March 2014), known as Marion Stein, was an Austrian-born British concert pianist. During her marriage to George Lascelles, Earl of Harewood, she was known as Marion Lascelles, Countess of Harewood and was a member of the extended British royal family. After her divorce and subsequent remarriage to British politician Jeremy Thorpe, leader of the Liberal Party from 1967 to 1976, she became known as Marion Thorpe.
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Career
Stein was born in Vienna to a Jewish family, the daughter of Sophie Bachmann and musician Erwin Stein. She came to the United Kingdom just before the Second World War. She attended the Royal College of Music and became good friends with composer Benjamin Britten.
By 1949, as Countess of Harewood, and with the patronage of her mother-in-law, Princess Mary, Stein was chatelaine of the Palladian Harewood House, north of Leeds, and threw herself into organising events.
In March 1950, she created an opera-inspired fancy dress ball in aid of Britten's English Opera Group, featuring Frederick Ashton and Moira Shearer dancing the tango from the ballet Façade. In September 1950, she was reported as being pregnant and, unusually for society women of the time, "planning to attend every night" of the Leeds Triennial Musical Festival which featured a performance by Britten. She was the joint founder in 1961 (along with Fanny Waterman) of the Leeds International Piano Competition. She also collaborated with Fanny Waterman on Piano Lessons, a successful piano tutor.