Sara Levy

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Drawing by Anton Graff (1786)

Sara Levy , born Sara Itzig (born June 19, 1761 in Berlin ; died May 11, 1854 in Berlin) was a German harpsichordist, patron and music collector. Her salon was the meeting place for the most important musicians and scholars in Berlin, and she is best known as a philanthropist .

Life

Sara Itzig was the tenth of fifteen children of the wealthy Jewish-Prussian court factor and banker Daniel Itzig and Mariane (Miriam), nee. Wulff, also the sister of Fanny von Arnstein , Cäcilie von Eskeles (Zippora Wulff) and Bella Salomon , the grandmother of Fanny Hensels and Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy . She was a highly talented harpsichordist , favorite pupil of Wilhelm Friedemann Bach from 1774 to 1784 and of Moses Mendelssohn and after her marriage to the banker Samuel Salomon Levy (1760–1806) in 1783 an admirer and patroness of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach . She supported his widow and, along with three of her brothers, subscribed to all of his printed works.

Abraham Mendelssohn Bartholdy , the husband of her niece Lea , had known Carl Friedrich Zelter since he was a child, as he frequented the house of his father Moses Mendelssohn. Sara Levy urged Zelter to become the teacher of Abraham's older children, Fanny and Felix. From her Zelter received some valuable manuscripts of compositions by the Bach family as gifts. In addition, in her will she bequeathed her precious music library, consisting of manuscripts and first editions, to the Singakademie . In 1854, immediately after her death, these treasures were sold to the Berlin State Library for a bargain price due to financial difficulties .

The most important musicians and scholars of Berlin frequented her salon, including Friedrich Schleiermacher , August Adolph von Hennings , Heinrich Steffens and Bettina von Arnim . At the soirees in her salon, the music of Johann Sebastian Bach was cultivated, which was no longer modern in those years. She herself sat at the piano and played, accompanied by an orchestra, only works by the Bach family.

Sara Levy is portrayed by her contemporaries, including Louis Pierre Edouard Bignon , Napoleon's envoy , as a highly educated, characterful and extremely charitable woman. She campaigned for the Berlin orphanages and bequeathed them 20,000 thalers after her death. Unlike most of her relatives who converted to Christianity , she remained true to the Jewish faith throughout her life.

Music and philosophy were her main interests. She had no children, but looked after some of her nephews and nieces, including the Mendelssohn children, the later lawyer Julius Eduard Hitzig and the coin collector Benoni Friedländer .

literature

  • Peter Wollny:  Levy, Sara. In: Ludwig Finscher (Hrsg.): The music in past and present . Second edition, personal section, volume 11 (Lesage - Menuhin). Bärenreiter / Metzler, Kassel et al. 2004, ISBN 3-7618-1121-7 , Sp. 44–45
  • Peter Wollny: "A formal Sebastian and Philipp Emanuel Bach cult". Sara Levy, b. Itzig and her musical-literary salon. In: Anselm Gerhard (Hrsg.): Music and Aesthetics in Berlin Moses Mendelssohns (= Wolfenbütteler Studies for Enlightenment. 25). Max Niemeyer, Tübingen 1999, ISBN 3-484-17525-7 , pp. 217-255.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Petra Wilhelmy: The Berlin Salon in the 19th Century. (1780–1914) (= publications of the Historical Commission in Berlin. 73). Walter de Gruyter, Berlin et al. 1989, ISBN 3-11-011891-2 , p. 719, (also: Münster, Universität, Dissertation, 1987).
  2. ^ Petra Wilhelmy Dollinger: The Berlin salons. With historical and literary walks. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin et al. 2000, ISBN 3-11-016414-0 , p. 147.