Johanna Senfter 1879-1961

[eschiss1]

Senfter's piano concerto op.90 was published in 1998. I am aware of also concertos by her for violin and for 2 violins.

[Double-A]

This article on Senfter might interest you.  There is a long and presumably complete list of works.

Three things about it I want to point out:

-  This presentation cites as Senfter's models Bach, Brahms and Reger and the way it is written implies strongly that this is how she herself saw and described the situation.  No mention of Bruckner whatsoever.

-  Interesting parallels to Emilie Mayer's biography:  Reger was as enthusiastic about his female student as Loewe--Mayer's first teacher--had been about his.  Both women never married.  Both women were financially independent by family background (the money even came from the same business in both families: pharmacy), though both had to economize in later years, Senfter a lot more than Mayer after the Second World War.

-  In her sixth symphony she used the Horst Wessel Lied as a counterpoint to a Bach chorale.  This was pointed out by a critic after the war and immediately rendered her unsung for the rest of her life--unfairly I'd argue, especially when people who did much worse suffered only minor or no career damage (though her backward looking style was also contributing to her getting forgotten).  Everything points to her being politically naive rather than an active supporter of the regime.  To me the conjunction Horst Wessel Lied and Bach chorale is in exceedingly bad taste apart from politics and even for the 1930s.  I think it is a good reason not to perform the 6th symphony nowadays.

However here is a case where there is a clear marker as to how and when someone became an unsung composer.  Before the war her works were regularly performed and she would not have been considered unsung.

On another topic:  I was surprised not to find Johanna Senfter on IMSLP.  Is it really not there or is my search skill so bad?  She would have to be the most important composer of the last 500 years who is not there.

[eschiss1]

Very few of her works were published before 1965, which doesn't help. Remember IMSLP deals in music which is either public domain (somewhere) or contributed by someone with legal right (and it looks like there is a project to slowly edit and publish her manuscript works, that her estate - or whoever has legal right to her music - is unlikely to be donating any works for public CC reading (see eg the Vivian Fine and Willy Ostijn categories @ IMSLP.)

[chill319]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who doesn't care for Reger. I thought it was just me!

'Twas always thus... From Boston SO program notes for 31 Jan 1911: "Reger is still a much-discussed man. Some regard him as the greatest living composer, for there are passionate Regerites; others admit his facility, and find no other quality in his voluminous works."

Music aside, he shall always be warmly remembered for his retort to a newspaper critic who had savaged his latest premiere: "I am sitting in the smallest room of my house with your review before me. Soon it will be behind me."

[Alan Howe]

...and yet, and yet: there are works by Reger that would be among my desert island choices.

[chill319]

This presentation cites as Senfter's models Bach, Brahms and Reger and the way it is written implies strongly that this is how she herself saw and described the situation.

From Boston SO program notes for 11 Jan 1911 (by Philip Hale): "Dr. [Hugo] Riemann said that Reger has won his reputation by expressing his own individuality in a language that comes from deep study of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms."

My guess is that during Ms. Senfter's formative years the antagonism between post-Schumann classicists and post-Liszt New Music types was still sufficient to prevent a list of influences from including both Brahms and Bruckner -- even if she, like so many others, was influenced by both.

[chill319]

...and yet, and yet: there are works by Reger that would be among my desert island choices.

"Der bestirnte Himmel über mir und das moralische Gesetz in mir." 

I think Reger was aiming in the same general direction as Kant, using different means.

[Alan Howe]

I've absolutely no idea what you mean by that. I understand the German and, if I thought about it, I might be able to work out what Kant meant, but as for how it applies to Reger...

[chill319]

Your German is far better than mine, else I wouldn't have kept the original for its flavor.

Speaking of which, Riesling might be a nice flavor to discuss this over. But since that's not a possibility, let me keep it short and just opine that ...

Just as Kant believed it fundamentally important to try in his Critiques to find conclusive arguments linking the laws of physics and morality, so Reger in his music sounds to me as though, in following the profound laws of musical consonance and dissonance (as found in Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms), he was consciously attempting to construct fundamentally moral artworks -- ones that might wear well on, say, a deserted island.

[Alan Howe]

I'm lost, sorry. That's pseuds' corner stuff for me...

[Gareth Vaughan]

he was consciously attempting to construct fundamentally moral artworks

I don't understand the concept of morality as applied to art. Art is neither moral nor immoral. It just is.

[Alan Howe]

I suppose the closest one can get to morality in music is beauty, but I don't have the competence to go further down that road...

[Double-A]

I don't understand the concept of morality as applied to art. Art is neither moral nor immoral. It just is.

This is rather radical, don't you think?  Especially if including all art forms, e.g. the novel or the drama where morality plays an outsized role.  Or opera for that matter--if the libretto is any good.

For music in particular the connection is not so easy to establish.  What we know though is that quite a few composers saw their work in moral terms, Beethoven for example or Shostakovich (please allow him to be mentioned; he is such a good example here) not to mention the many who wrote music for the church with conviction (Rheinberger?).

[Alan Howe]

It's easier to see the moral dimension in music when words are added, but what of purely instrumental works?

[Double-A]

I do think there is nothing humans can do that has no moral dimension.  Example:  When you listen to music you don't have time to harass other people nor to do any good thing to them.  Moral dimension.

Also:  Music used to be a community activity--with the exception of personal practice on the instrument.  And I think this means a moral component.  There is the relationship between musicians who play/sing together.  The one between teacher and student.  The one between performers and the audience (from someone's living room to the concert hall or the theatre).  This has changed with the advent of recordings, but to me a live performance is still the "real" thing though I appreciate the options a CD player gives us.