Clara Herrmann (pianist)

Johanna Amina Julie Clara Herrmann (born May 28, 1853 in Sondershausen , † February 28, 1931 in Lübeck ) was a German pianist and concert organizer.

Live and act

Clara Herrmann was a daughter of the chamber virtuoso Karl Herrmann (born March 10, 1810 in Nordhausen ; † February 17, 1890) and his wife Auguste Christiane Magdalena ("Johanna") Hartmann (born November 7, 1824 in Arnstadt ). Her father gave her first music lessons and put on a concert in Nordhausen where she could be heard as a pianist at the age of seven. She performed at concerts by her uncle Gottfried Herrmann in Lübeck in 1861 and 1865. From 1868 she studied at the Leipzig Conservatory . For her exam concert on June 1, 1870, she received positive reviews from the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik .

In 1871 Herrmann moved to Lübeck, where her uncle worked as music director. In the following years she repeatedly engaged her as a soloist for his concerts by the Musikverein and chamber music soirées musicales. During this time she traveled with the cellist Wilhelm Müller and the sisters Pauline and Charlotte Grossi and gave concerts in many German cities. On April 16, 1880, she performed in London's Crystal Palace , where she gave a notable concert.

Gottfried Herrmann died in 1878. Clara Herrmann took over the Lübeck Chamber Music Evenings created by her uncle and from then on organized them independently as a subscription series. This began in October 1879 and ended in the winter of 1920 with a Beethoven evening. Only during the First World War in 1915 did no concerts take place. Herrmann himself last played on November 25, 1922 as a concert pianist with the Rathjen Quartet. She was also a sought-after music teacher and taught at the Detloff private girls' school and was part of the singing academy.

Herrmann mostly played the piano during their concerts. Despite singing lessons from Pauline Viardot-García , she only sang as an exception. During the first nine years she almost always played her repertoire consisting of chamber music, songs and solo contributions in a trio with the violinist Carl Bargheer and the Hamburg cellist Albert Gowa. Herrmann had extensive relationships with artists and, from 1888, engaged renowned artists such as Fritz Struss , Michael Balling , Florián Zajíc , Hugo Becker and Richard Mühlfeld for their Lübeck concerts . In addition, she often performed string and piano quartets. From 1891 the most important quartets of the time could be heard at the chamber music evenings, including the Bohemian, Dutch, Brussels and Petersburg quartet, the Halix, Sevčik, Fitzner and Bandler quartet. The artists played the complete repertoire of classical and romantic chamber music.

Herrmann engaged musicians for their concerts who played works by Antonín Dvorak , Bedřich Smetana , Anton Arenskij , Peter Tchaikovsky , Alexander Borodin , Camille Saint-Saëns , Niels Gade , Hugo Wolf and Richard Strauss . She was particularly interested in the pieces by Johannes Brahms .

From 1896 onwards, the Verein der Musikfreunde was established in Lübeck , offering local musicians the opportunity to give sophisticated chamber concerts. Herrmann also performed there and had to forego his own piano performances from 1897 to 1899 due to illness. Ida Boy-Ed therefore referred to her in the "Lübecker Eisenbahn-Zeitung " as - "Entrepreneur", who does not adequately support ambitious young artists at her concerts. Herrmann undoubtedly organized high-quality evenings and continued to employ mostly foreign musicians. With this she established chamber music in Lübeck.

Herrmann remained unmarried for life and had no children.

literature

• Sylvina Zander: Herrmann, Clara . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 11 - 2000. ISBN 3-529-02640-9 , pages 169-170.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Sylvina Zander: Herrmann, Clara . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 11 - 2000. ISBN 3-529-02640-9 , page 169.
2. ↑ Sylvina Zander: Herrmann, Clara . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 11 - 2000. ISBN 3-529-02640-9 , pages 169-170.
3. ^ ^{A b} Sylvina Zander: Herrmann, Clara . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 11 - 2000. ISBN 3-529-02640-9 , page 170.