Maria Hofer

Maria Francisca Friederica Hofer (born July 6, 1894 in Amstetten , † August 15, 1977 in Kitzbühel ) was an Austrian organist , pianist and composer .

Life

Maria Hofer was born as the daughter of the auditor Michael Hofer and the Albertina Anna Hofer, geb. Lindemann, born in Amstetten. The family soon moved to Vienna, where they probably had lived before. Maria Hofer received musical support from an early age. Her first teachers were Ernst Ludwig and Hermann Graedener , who presumably taught her privately. In 1912 she passed the entrance exam for the kk Academy for Music and Performing Arts in Vienna and completed the teacher training course with Ernst Ludwig, Richard Stöhr and Franz Schmidt in just one year .

During the First World War she worked as a music teacher in Vienna and Budapest. Victor Boschetti , cathedral organist at St. Stephan in Vienna , made it possible for her to provide organ services. She learned to improvise and the first compositions were created. From 1917 to 1918 she attended the academy again and studied the organ with Rudolf Dittrich . She made a name for herself as a pianist and had numerous appearances in the Vienna Konzerthaus between 1916 and 1919 . During a concert tour to Scandinavia in 1922/1923, she met the Danish composer Paul von Klenau , who put her in contact with Universal Edition in Vienna. There she was employed as a lecturer for organ music, worked with Josef Venantius von Wöss and came into contact with musicians such as Arnold Schönberg , Alban Berg , Egon Wellesz , Anton von Webern or Béla Bartók and writers such as Stefan Zweig and Franz Werfel . She had a close friendship with the director of Universal Edition, Emil Hertzka and especially his wife Yella Hertzka . The two encouraged her greatly and also published some of her works. Maria Hofer lived in the Hertzkas' villa in Grinzing for several years .

Maria Hofer was sporty, played tennis and rode. She already had a driver's license in the 1920s. She was close to the women's and peace movements , at Friederike Zweig's suggestion she joined the International Women's League for Peace and Freedom .

After the annexation of Austria in 1938 and the forced closure of Universal Edition as "Judenverlag", Maria Hofer emigrated to London with the widowed Yella Hertzka, but returned after several months and settled in Kitzbühel in August 1939. She was imprisoned for eight months in 1941/42 on account of "insulting the Führer, suspicion of listening to prohibited foreign broadcasters and food hamstering".

Hofer played the organ in Kitzbühel and Kirchberg . After 1945 she received numerous commissions and gave concerts. On her initiative,  a carillon was purchased for the Liebfrauenkirche in Kitzbühel in 1950 , for which she created "sound monograms", small compositions based on the names of people from her environment and famous personalities. In 1959 she became a permanent organist at the parish church in Kitzbühel . Around 1974/1975 she lived in Hopfgarten im Brixental for two years .

Maria Hofer's most creative phase as a composer was from the mid-1930s to the early 1950s. During this time, she wrote her only symphonic work, the dance of death based on the painting of the same name by Albin Egger-Lienz , as well as piano and organ pieces, songs, incidental music and much more. The compositions from this period are stylistically indebted to the avant-garde of the first third of the 20th century and are related to Arnold Schönberg, Alban Berg, Max Reger , Igor Stravinsky and the French Impressionists. In the last years of her life, however, she limited herself to church music , commissioned works for associations and the like, and destroyed many of her compositions from earlier years. The oeuvre, which has only been incompletely preserved, shows considerable qualitative and stylistic differences and led to speculation about the authenticity and authorship of some pieces. Hofer's preserved works were  recorded on CD in 2006 under the direction of Bernhard Sieberer .

Works

• Toccata for organ, 1937
• 4 songs in memoriam , 1945
• Dungeon songs , 1945
• Dance of Death for orchestra, 1947
• The machine , Toccata for piano, 1947
• Spiritualia Cantabilia , cantata for small chamber orchestra, 1948
• King Susan , orchestral ballad, 1948 (Text: Paula Preradović )
• Normandy Songs for high voice and piano, 1948
• Stage songs for the play We could be saved by Alma Holgersen , 1949
• Peace hymn for organ
• Ballada for violoncello with piano accompaniment
• Sound monograms on the names of famous personalities for carillon
• 8 fairs

literature

• Uwe Harten: Hofer, Maria. In: Oesterreichisches Musiklexikon . Online edition, Vienna 2002 ff., ISBN 3-7001-3077-5 ; Print edition: Volume 2, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 2003, ISBN 3-7001-3044-9 .
• Hofer Maria. In: Ilse Korotin (ed.): BiografıA. Lexicon of Austrian Women. Volume 1: A-H. Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 2016, ISBN 978-3-205-79590-2 , p. 1322 ( PDF; 10.1 MB ).
• Milena Meller: The organist and composer Maria Hofer (Amstetten, July 6, 1894 - Kitzbühel, August 15, 1977) . Brenner Archive, Innsbruck 2017 ( Word document )
• Thomas Nussbaumer: Bell moid with a page head. In: Quart Heft für Kultur Tirol No. 10/07, pp. 27–29 ( online )
• Esther Pirchner: Diverse soundscapes. Female music creation in Tyrol. In: Office of the Tyrolean Provincial Government (Ed.): Panoptica. women.culture.tyrol. Innsbruck 2013, pp. 14–19 ( PDF; 16 MB )

Web links

• Maria Hofer - Dance of Death , municipality of Kitzbühel
• Maria Hofer Collection , Brenner Archive Research Institute