Maria Lidka

Maria Lidka (* May 27, 1914 in Berlin as Marianne Louise Liedtke ; † December 12, 2013 in London ) was a German violinist and violin teacher.

family

She was the youngest of three daughters of Ernst Liedtke, attorney at the Court of Appeal , and his wife Emmy, née Fahsel. One of her older sisters became a photographer, the other an actress. The latter married as Countess Ursula von Plettenberg into the Westphalian nobility.

In her parents' house in the west of the city, a musical atmosphere was decisive. Marianne received a concert subscription from her father so that she could subsequently experience the Berliner Philharmoniker under Wilhelm Furtwängler , but also Vladimir Horowitz , Erich Kleiber , Otto Klemperer , Arthur Rubinstein , Artur Schnabel and Bruno Walter . She meticulously kept a record of every concert visit, so that she was able to recapitulate the quality and atmosphere of the events at any time, even in old age.

After the transfer of power to the National Socialists at the end of January 1933, her father was banned from working and died just eight months later.

In 1955 she married Walter May, an operations director from Cologne who had emigrated from Germany. With this she had two sons, the philosopher Simon May, who later worked at King's College in London, and the later cellist Marius May. Her brother-in-law, the doctor Edward May from Highgate, was a well-known amateur cellist. Her husband, who ran a factory in Cardiff from 1938, died in 1963. She had to raise her two sons mostly alone.

education

The cellist Gregor Piatigorsky recommended that she study with Josef Wolfsthal . Nine months after his very early death, she was taught by Max Rostal from 1931 . He wanted to prepare her for a year to study at the University of Music , where he worked himself. She made good progress in class and was able to perform on the Berlin German broadcaster .

After the handover of power to the National Socialists and their marginalization of the Jewish minority, their violin teacher Rostal, who taught three members of the Amadeus Quartet , emigrated to Great Britain. Marianne Liedtke also saw her artistic and professional plans in Germany as shattered. She therefore considered emigrating to a cultural metropolis like the French capital, but then decided to follow her teacher Rostal to London in 1934.

She lived in a boarding house with the violinist Lilo Kantorowicz († June 3, 2013) and the cellist Eva Heinitz (1907-2001). There she taught German children to English children and gave violin lessons. At the same time she took violin lessons from Max Rostal until 1936. Together with her roommate, the cellist Eva Heinitz, and the pianist Peter Gellhorn (1912-2004), Marianne Liedtke formed a trio and performed. In 1936 she also acted as a duo with Gellhorn. During the period of validity of her German passport, she was able to travel regularly to Germany until 1938, after which this was no longer possible.

The doctor and amateur cellist Edward May, who had fled Germany, invited students from Max Rostal and other refugees to music evenings. As a result, Liedtke appeared in public with Norbert Brainin , the Austrian pianist Paul Hamburger and the violinist Siegmund Nissel (1922–2008) , who also came from Austria . She gave chamber music evenings for well-off residents of the British capital, for example with the New York sculptor Jacob Epstein (1880–1959), to whom she played pieces that she was studying. Through his efforts and with the support of prominent Britons and the Quakers , the British Home Office gave her both a permanent work permit and an unrestricted residence permit. In addition to her studies, she was able to establish increasing contacts with British musicians.

Career

In January 1939 she was in a "Violin Recital", accompanied by Gerald Moore , with works by Franck and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart on the stage of the Wigmore Hall . In the chamber ensemble under the direction of Walter Goehr she was the concertmaster.

Lingering too long at one of the concert evenings brought her to a prison cell for one night because of the curfew due to the war and her status as an enemy alien , for which she was later apologized. On the same night, their accommodation in Belsize Park was hit directly by the German Air Force . The short term imprisonment may have saved her life as a result. Due to the loss of all her possessions, she had to completely reorganize and equip herself.

In 1939 she met the Czech Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk . As a result, instead of Marie Hlouňová (1912–2006) she became a member of the newly founded Czech Trio with Walter Süsskind (1913–1980) on the piano and Karel Horitz (1913–1990) on the cello. The Czech government-in-exile in London, which had suggested the formation of the trio, paid the musicians' fees. The colleagues thought it appropriate to give her a Czech-sounding artist name, because after the occupation of Czechoslovakia by the German Wehrmacht and the air raids on England, a German name did not sound good. This is how Marianne Liedtke became the future Maria Lidka. The London agency Ibbs & Tillett brokered the trio. In December 1940 it was signed up by the BBC for radio broadcasts and studio recordings. In the National Gallery daily concerts were held between October 1939 and April 1946, in which Lidka participated in various ensembles, including with Benjamin Britten . Often she was the only German, but she also played together with other refugees who had fled Nazi persecution.

From 1939 and after the Second World War , she performed works by the contemporary British composers Richard Rodney Bennett , Benjamin Britten, Peter Racine Fricker and Michael Tippett together with talented British instrumentalists. From 1943 she worked in the baroque ensemble of Karl Haas (1900–1970). Duo and trio partners included Benjamin Britten, Max Rostal, Peter Stadlen and Gerald Moore. From 1944 she was involved in the Boosey & Hawkes concerts with contemporary music. She was concertmaster of the Morley College Orchestra and the String Ensemble under the direction of Michael Tippett. In the London String Trio , founded in 1944 , she played mostly classical compositions together with Watson Forbes (viola) and Vivian Joseph (violoncello) for many years.

In 1946 Lidka traveled to Berlin to visit her family. She has performed concert tours as a soloist to Germany, France, the Netherlands and Switzerland. After the introduction of the BBC's third program, she was regularly heard there as a chamber musician or soloist. In the 1950s she was invited to the Darmstadt summer courses .

She played at the premiere of Franz Reizenstein's Sonata in G major at London's Wigmore Hall. In 1950 she played with Margaret Kitchin (1914–2008) at the premiere of Fricker's violin sonata. In 1951 Fricker wrote his first violin concerto (Violin Concerto No. 1, op. 11, performed live in 1951 and premiered on the BBC), which he dedicated to Lidka. It received the Arts Council Festival of Britain award . She played it at the premiere with the London National Orchestra under the direction of Walter Goehr and at the annual Proms Concerts with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Malcolm Sargent . In 1953 she played the violin solo at the Edinburgh Festival in the premiere of Tippett's Fantasia Concertante on a theme by Arcangelo Corelli . In 1953 she played Iain Hamilton's Variations for solo violin and in 1954 John Joubert's concerto at the York Festival under the direction of John Hopkins (1927–2013). In the same year it was she who first presented Boris Blacher's Sonata for Solo Violin to the public. Lidka formed a trio with Franz Reizenstein and Derek Simpson (1928–2007) in 1959, and Simpson was later followed by Christopher Bunting (1924–2005). In 1960 she played all Beethoven sonatas with Otto Freudenthal (1934–2015) on the occasion of the York Festival . Both have also performed two sonatas by Béla Bartók and Arnold Schönberg's Phantasy for Violin with Piano Accompaniment (1949).

In the late 1960s she formed a duo based on the Viennese classics with Peter Wallfisch (1924–1993), but they also performed works by Béla Bartók, Leoš Janáček , Kenneth Leighton , Franz Reizenstein and Mátyás Seiber . Wallfisch was her duo partner for over twenty years, with whom she performed, for example, Ludwig van Beethoven's sonata cycle for piano and violin. Another duo partner was the pianist Richard Greenwood († December 27, 2007), with whom she performed for several years. Francis Routh (born January 15, 1927) dedicated his Duo op. 12 , premiered in 1967, and the Dialogue for Violin and Orchestra op. 16 to her ; First performed in 1968. Franz Reizenstein dedicated his sonata for violin and piano op.20 to her .

The Times characterized their playing by "seriousness, energy, and warm yet finely drawn tone" (= seriousness, energy and a warm, but finely drawn tone color). The Telegraph summed up that Lidka appeared for years at all important premieres with violin participation: "For many years, she gave all the important violin premieres".

From 1955 to 1985 Maria Lidka was professor of violin at the Royal College of Music in London. She also appeared as a freelance musician. Her students include Eri Konii and Helge Slaatto .

She played a Willemotte Stradivarius from 1734, which she acquired in 1955, until she was old. She died at the age of 99.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Maria Lidka - obituary . In: The Daily Telegraph , January 13, 2014, at: telegraph.co.uk, accessed April 17, 2016
2. ^ Daniel Snowman: The Hitler Emigrés: The Cultural Impact on Britain of Refugees from Nazism . Random House. New York City 2010. ISBN 978-0712665797 .
3. ↑ Maria Lidka , at: uni-hamburg.de, accessed on April 17, 2016
4. ^ Gloria Tessler: Maria Lidka . In: The Jewish Chronicle, April 11, 2014, at pressreader.com, accessed April 17, 2016
5. ^ University of the Arts Berlin, archive: Max Rostal estate with information on Maria Lidka . Sign .: inventory 108
6. ^ Royal College of Music, London, Center of Performance History, Archive, contains program leaflets with evidence of Maria Lidka's performances in Great Britain
7. ↑ Jutta Raab Hansen: Musicians persecuted by the Nazis in England. Traces of German and Austrian refugees in British music culture . Phil. Diss. University of Hamburg 1995, von Bockel. Hamburg 1996. ISBN 978-3928770699 .
8. ^ For many years, she gave all the important violin premieres , on slippedisc.com, accessed April 17, 2016
9. ^ Maria Lidka obituary . In: The Guardian , January 16, 2014, at: theguardian.com, accessed April 17, 2016