Four Centuries of Great Music September 22, 2024 Celebration of the Music of Women Composers From Berlin

Today on Four Centuries of Great Music we are focusing on women composers from Berlin. We open with a work by Anna Amalia of Prussia.

Anna Amalia of Prussia born in 1723-was the younger sister of Frederick II of Prussia. Eleven years younger, she benefitted from the new musical focus Frederick II brought to the court. Anna Amalia played the harpsichord, flute, and violin, with her first lessons coming from her brother.

She was made Abbess of Quedlinburg in 1755 which made her wealthy and independent.  She started serious study of music composition and theory in 1758 with Johann Philipp Kirnberger, a student of J.S. Bach. Like her brother, she composed chamber music, such as flute sonatas, and unlike her brother, seems to have destroyed much of her work as few pieces survive.

But she also had a couple of other important influences.  Her interest in religious music, an interest her brother did not share, may have helped nurture the oratorio in Germany.

Amalia also collected music, preserving over 600 volumes by Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frideric Handel, Georg Philipp Telemann, Carl Heinrich Graun and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, among others.  Without her collections that come down to us today, much of this music may have been lost

She died in 1787 and was buried in Berlin.

We open with Anna Amalia’s Sonata in F Major (for Flute and Basso Continuo) (1771).  It is in 3 movements:
I. Adagio, II. Allegretto, III. Allegro ma non troppo.  Here is a performance by Sophia Aretz, flute and Alexander von Hessen piano from the album Prussian Blue: Flute Music at the Court of Frederick the Great.  Haenssler Classics


Fanny Hensel
Fanny Mendelssohn was born in Hamburg but moved to Berlin with her family at the age of seven.  Fanny was the first sign of musical genius in the Mendelssohn family. Her father Abraham recognizes immediately that his first-born possesses “Bach's fugue fingers.” As a little girl, she practices the piano so intensively that her relatives grow concerned about her welfare as a child. After the family moved to Berlin she receives top-notch musical training at the same level as her brother, who was four years younger. For many years, she serves as her brother’s confidante in artistic matters and he gives her the nickname “Kantor” as a token of her authority. Nevertheless, Father Abraham seemed convinced that music should not become a professional calling for Fanny.

Felix also discourages his sister because in his view in order to be a professional composer, it is not a matter of simply composing a work now and again – instead, a composer must regularly edit works and deal with the ensuing critical reactions. And so the pianist, conductor, impresario, and the most important woman composer of the 19th century initially confined her creativity to the semi-public arena: She became the promoter and impresaria of the family’s Sunday Concerts, Sonntagsmusiken (Sunday musicales), a tradition whose beginnings can be traced to back to her grandmother .

However she was approached by two music publishers in 1846 and began publishing her work under her married name - Hensel.

Unfortunately this new life was a composer was cut short with a stroke  and her death in 1847.

These Sonntagsmusiken (Sunday musicales) perhaps inspired Fanny Hensel to publish the six songs for mixed choir, collectively entitled Gartenlieder (Garden Songs), Op. 3. Hensel set texts by well-known German Romantic poets such as Eichendorff and Uhland as well as a poem by her husband Wilhelm Hensel. This set was eventually expanded to 17 songs.
Each creating a wholly different mood, the songs feature recurring motives: Alongside trees, forests and music in the countryside, the idea of listening or eavesdropping is of central importance. The musical texture of the Gartenlieder is generally homophonic and based around wonderful melodies, which are predominantly carried by the soprano voice.  In these pieces, Fanny Hensel displays her many years of experience as a successful composer of song, even if she only ever published a handful of works. With their memorable, varied melodies and colorful harmonies, the Gartenlieder are a veritable treasure trove for choirs.

01 Gartenlieder, Op. 3_ No. 1. Im Wald
02 Gartenlieder, Op. 3_ No. 2. Lockung
03 Gartenlieder, Op. 3_ No. 3. Abschied
04 Gartenlieder, Op. 3_ No. 4. Waldeinsam
05 Gartenlieder, Op. 3_ No. 5. Seid gegrusst
06 Gartenlieder, Op. 3_ No. 6. Morgendammerung
07 Gartenlieder, Op. 3_ No. 7. Komm
08 Gartenlieder, Op. 3_ No. 8. Morgengruss
09 Gartenlieder, Op. 3_ No. 9. Schone Fremde
10 Gartenlieder, Op. 3_ No. 10. Schweigend
11 Gartenlieder, Op. 3_ No. 11. Nachklange No. 1
12 Gartenlieder, Op. 3_ No. 12. Nachklange No. 2
13 Gartenlieder, Op. 3_ No. 13. Nachklange No. 3
14 Gartenlieder, Op. 3_ No. 14. Wer will mir wehren

15 Gartenlieder, Op. 3_ No. 15. Ariel
16 Gartenlieder, Op. 3_ No. 16. Der Abend
17 Gartenlieder, Op. 3_ No. 17. Schilflied

Here is a performance of Fanny Hensel’s Gartenlieder, Op. 3 for mixed choir
Cologne Leonarda Ensemble Choir and soloists
Mendelssohn-Hensel: Gartenlieder
CPO Records




Ilse Fromm-Michaels
Ilse Fromm-Michaels was in many ways a casualty of war: “one of the artists whose work and life were drastically affected or even destroyed by the reprisals of National Socialism [...] She had already built a brilliant career as a performing and creative musician but it was violently broken down by the measures of the Nazi regime” (G. Distler-Brendel).  Fromm-Michaels was born in Hamburg to a mathematician and a school principal in 1888, and showed musical promise early—already at the age of 13 she relocated to Berlin to pursue serious musical studies, later moving to conclude her study in Cologne--already, she was a formidable artist with a burgeoning concert career laid out before her—her vast repertoire encompassed concertos by Rachmaninov, Reger, and Busoni.

This career was “brilliant but unfortunately brief” (F. Rothenberg); Fromm-Michaels was married to a Jewish man, a district judge, who was forced in 1933 to “voluntarily retire”; because of her marriage, she was forbidden from engaging in any public artistic activities. Fromm-Michaels watched as her husband became progressively more and more ill, as relatives emigrated or attempted to, and as others were arrested and taken to concentration camps: the situation was one of “isolation, fear and uncertainty.  Fromm-Michaels was under enormous stress due to the threat to her husband and her son (...), the pressure to teach as much as possible, and the de facto ban on work” (C. Friedel).  Yet, she continued to work and teach in private—her home became a secret sanctuary for others who were the targets of the Nazi regime.  Gisela Distler-Brendel notes “I, the daughter of a mixed marriage who was also not allowed to study at university, was a student of Ilse Fromm-Michaels.  I experienced the unforgettable, music-filled atmosphere in her house.”  
An exploration of Fromm-Michaels’s music demonstrates again a singular, beautiful and powerful artistic voice; this music’s absence from concert stages and music pedagogy makes the sting of “canon” prejudice exponential.  

Her first great keyboard masterpiece is the monumental Sonata, Op. 6, in which “one senses her horror at the First World War” (B. Dorn).  The first movement (Markig) commences with granitic octave batteries which restlessly move from key-to-key before finally arriving in a dark-lit c-sharp minor.  The music unctuously glides to c minor, and the first of many barrages of double notes precipitate the refulgent second theme—an exquisite snow-globe of lyricism in an otherwise storm-tossed landscape.  The development is filled with hair-raisingly jagged re-imaginings of the theme, some with more than a hint of sulfur, but the volcanic floes eventually come to a full stop at a harmonized restatement of the opening octave contour, and the recapitulation unfolds in a truncated form which still encloses the almost sacredly tender second theme.  Rather than providing relief, the second movement refocuses the “horror” of the first movement as a stringent funeral march.  The dotted rhythms associated with this idea gradually loosen and recede into the background, to make way for a contrastingly lyrical but non-committal theme in thirds.  Fromm-Michaels gently achieves the parallel major (C major) by the end of this movement, which organically welcomes the last movement’s f minor tonality.  This breathless movement (Lebhaft, aber nicht schnell) contains the most hazardous—and explosive—moments in the whole sonata; beginning with an undulating, restless theme with a conspicuous slide of chromatic triads at its centre, the music quickly reaches an almost over-extended, blistering chordal theme set in the extremes of the keyboard’s range (easily living up to Fromm-Michaels expressive indication massig).  The movement’s middle section is something of a contrapuntal briar-patch, but provides a brief rhythmic oasis; once emerging from this resting point, the music seems to proceed on a controlled, slow-burning fuse.  Fromm-Michaels holds her one “FFFF” in reserve until the music’s most white-hot moment, when the hard-won dominant has finally been established; yet, the most harrowing moment is still to come: an epic keyboard-wide climax replete with double-note textures—the aural effect being a true “cathedral of sound.”


At the conclusion of World War Two, the artistic and wider world Fromm-Michaels had known was forever changed; her husband died in 1946, and from 1949, she stopped composing: “her creative powers were broken” (G. Distler-Brendel).  Yet, it is not just the interruption of her career, but the combined “general neglect of women artists which (has denied) Fromm-Michaels the respect and attention she deserves.  Her death on January 22, 1986, at age 97, ended a long career devoted to music, first as a performer and composer, and in her later years, as a teacher” (F. Rothenberg).

Piano Sonata, Op. 6
Ilse Fromm-Michaels:  Piano Sonata, Op. 6   I.   Markig
Ilse Fromm-Michaels:  Piano Sonata, Op. 6   II.  Sehr langsam. Frei im Zeitmass
Ilse Fromm-Michaels:  Piano Sonata, Op. 6   III.  Lebhaft, aber nicht schnell
Babette Dorn, piano
Ilse Fromm-Michaels: Complete Piano Works
Tacet Music Productions

Grete von Zieritz
Grete von Zieritz (10 March 1899 – 26 November 2001) was an Austrian-German composer and pianist.

Grete von Zieritz was born in Vienna, Austria into a noble family, and grew up in Vienna, Innsbruck and Graz. She received her first piano lessons at the age of six, and later studied with Hugo Kroemer (piano) and Roderick Mojsisovics (musical composition). She gave her first concert at age eight.

In Berlin, she continued her studies with Martin Krause, a student of Franz Liszt, and Rudolf Maria Breithaupt. After the successful performance of her "Japanese Songs" in 1921, she decided to become a composer. Von Zieritz worked as a music teacher and continued to study in Berlin from 1926 to 1931 under Franz Schreker In 1939 she was the only woman at the International Music Festival in Frankfurt am Main among composers from 18 nations.  Since she was able to present a “proof of Aryan origin” and was not politically seen as a left-wing sympathizer, she was accepted into the Reich Chamber of Music without any problems and was able to continue her work as a composer. in Berlin.

As a foreigner working voluntarily in National Socialist Germany, she found herself somewhat welcome in the country, even if her private circumstances meant that she did not conform to the Party’s ideal image of women. She was also not subject to any musical or stylistic restrictions. Nevertheless, a certain amount of
adaptation was necessary on her part. During this period, von Zieritz avoided highly expressionistic subjects (such as Passion in the Jungle from 1930); instead, she chose more traditional titles for her works, such as the Bockelsberger Suite (1933) or Das Gifhorner Konzert (1940), which became very popular at the time. However, this issue did not change anything in von Zieritz’s music in terms of her compositional technique.

She also avoided presenting works that could be interpreted as apologist with regards to the Nazi state. After the war, von Zieritz saw no reason to conceal her past activities within the Third Reich, nor to distance herself from the works she had created during this period. A personal consequence of her experiences of the Nazi era was to become actively involved in the peace movement.. She died in Berlin in 2001.

Le Violon de la Mort is also part of a tradition, namely the tradition of dances for the dead. The work was conceived in 1953, when Grete von Zieritz was confronted with the serious illness and foreseeable demise of her father. According to her own account, she had a vision during a mountain hike: she saw the Grim Reaper in a tree. and heard him playing a violin. The melody she remembered the ghoul playing became the basis of a work for violin and piano, which unfolds overfive movements: Entree, Marche des Ombres, Valse, Lamentation, Cancan phantastique. In 1957, the piano version was orchestrated.

Grete von Zieritz:  Le Violon de la Mort (Danses macabres) - Duo concertante for violin, piano and large orchestra (1953/57)

Grete von Zieritz:  Le Violon de la Mort (Danses macabres) - Duo concertante for violin, piano and large orchestra   1. Entrée. Mit rhythmischer Vehemenz
Grete von Zieritz:  Le Violon de la Mort (Danses macabres) - Duo concertante for violin, piano and large orchestra   2. Marche des Ombres. Nicht zu schnell!.
Grete von Zieritz:  Le Violon de la Mort (Danses macabres) - Duo concertante for violin, piano and large orchestra   3. Valse. Langsam, etwas gravitätisch abgezirkelt beginnen!
Grete von Zieritz:  Le Violon de la Mort (Danses macabres) - Duo concertante for violin, piano and large orchestra   4. Lamentation. Langsam und traurig.
Grete von Zieritz:  Le Violon de la Mort (Danses macabres) - Duo concertante for violin, piano and large orchestra   5. Cancan phantastique. Allegro

Nina Karmon, violin; Oliver Triendl, piano; and Jakob Brenner,  conductor of the Robert-Schumann-Philharmonie

Grete von Zieritz: Orchestra Works - Japanese Songs, Le Violon de la Mort and Double Concerto for two trumpets
Haenssler Classics