Sophie Menter

Sophie Menter (1875)

Sophie Menter (later married Popper , born July 29, 1846 in Munich , † February 23, 1918 in Munich) was a German pianist , composer and music teacher .

Sophie Menter on a painting by Ilya Repin , 1887

Newspaper advertisement for a joint concert by Sophie Menter and David Popper on April 21, 1870 in the municipal theater in Troppau

Life

Sophie (also: Sofie) Menter was born as the daughter of cellist Joseph Menter on July 29, 1846 in Munich and began playing the piano at an early age under the guidance of her mother and older sisters. She received her first lessons from Sigmund Lebert , who was then working in Munich and who later founded the Stuttgart music school . After the death of her father, she studied from 1857 at the Royal Conservatory with Rheinberger , Leonhard and Julius von Kolb and finally privately with Friedrich Niest until her successful debut on November 24, 1862 in a concert at the Musical Academy in Munich. Thereupon she began to organize her own concerts and to undertake concert tours, the longest of which took her to Switzerland at the beginning of 1866. Two appearances a year later in the Leipzig Gewandhaus , the most famous German concert hall at the time, where it was enthusiastically celebrated, were decisive for her becoming known in northern Germany . A visit to Berlin followed, during which she met Carl Tausig and became his pupil.

In 1869 she met Franz Liszt during a stay in Vienna , with whom she was close friends until his death. He rated Sophie Menter as the best pianist of her time. But she was not his student, as she had already completed her training when they met.

In 1868 Menter became court pianist for Prince Konstantin von Hohenzollern-Hechingen in Löwenberg in Silesia . On June 3, 1872, she married the cellist David Popper (1843–1913) in the Vienna City Hall , with whom she had a daughter. The mayor of Vienna, Cajetan von Felder , performed the wedding in the presence of Anton Rubinstein , Joseph Hellmesberger , Johann von Herbeck and Felix Otto Dessoff . After her marriage she was usually called Popper-Menter or Menter-Popper in the press . In 1885 both lived separately and almost simultaneously submitted applications for divorce to the Regional Court for Civil Matters in Vienna . The trial began on July 29, 1885 and was completed in early January 1886. Before they got married, the two had performed together regularly for several years.

She was appointed kk chamber virtuoso and was professor at the St. Petersburg Conservatory from 1883 to 1887 . During this time she established close contacts with Tchaikovsky , Rubinstein and Rimsky-Korsakov . Her concert piece, Hungarian Gypsy Ways, goes back to her own sketches, which were edited by Liszt and orchestrated by Tchaikovsky.

From 1887 to 1902 Sophie Menter lived at Itter Castle in Tyrol, which she had acquired in 1884, and from 1905 in Stockdorf near Munich. At the end of 1917 she moved to Munich to live with her friend Alice Ripper , where she died in 1918.

“The famous pianist Sophie Menter […] died last night at the age of 72. 'So many call themselves my children in music,' says one of Liszt's letters to Count Apponyi . 'Sophie Menter, however,' added the master, 'is my only legitimate child.' With the great artist who died in her native Munich, one of the most important representatives of the Weimar pianist tradition dies. Bülow and Liszt gave her, who emerged from the Munich Conservatory, the last part of her training. In addition to Therese Carreno , who was also overtaken by death during the chaos of war, she had risen to join the ranks of the very first female pianists who became famous after Klara Schumann's death. If the Spaniard was fiery and spirited and racy, Sophie Menter was captivated by her nobility and the calm plasticity of her game. Princes paid homage to her and showered her with precious gifts. Throughout Europe, to America, even to Persia, they have taken their concert tours, which have earned them a great fortune. [...] Occasionally Sophie Menter had tried her hand at composing and wrote the music for a fairy tale ballet. Your funeral will take place tomorrow afternoon from the southern cemetery in Munich. "

- Obituary in the Neue Freie Presse on February 26, 1918

tomb

Grave of Sophie Menter on the old southern cemetery in Munich location

The burial place of Sophie Menter is on the old southern cemetery in Munich (burial ground 5 - Series 2 - 35th) Location .

Honors

Sophie Menter became the first woman to become an honorary member of the Philharmonic Society in London . The Innsbruck Musikverein also made her an honorary member.

Works (selection)

• Hungarian gypsy tunes for piano and orchestra (first performance 1893 in Odessa )
• Tarantella op.4 for piano solo (1907)
• Romance op.5 for piano solo (1907)
• Mazurka op.6 for piano solo (1909)
• Petite valse op.7 for piano solo (1909)
• Etude en sextes op.8 for piano solo (1910)
• Etude in A flat major op.9 for piano solo (1910)
• Consolation op.10 for piano solo (1911)
• Waltz o. Op. ( Dedicated to Claudio Arrau ) for piano solo

Student (selection)

• Fay Foster
• Vasily Lvovich Sapelnikov
• Ernst Riemann

literature

• Sigfrid Karg-Elert : Sophie Menter. Biographical sketch. In: Die Musik-Woche, 3 (1904), pp. 18f.
• Lev Vinocour: Liszt - Menter - Čajkovskij. On the history of the concert piece 'Hungarian Gypsy Ways'. In: Mitteilungen der Tschaikowsky-Gesellschaft 13 (2006), pp. 37–130.
• Judith Wieser: Sofie Menter. Pianist, composer and educator related to Tyrol. AV Akademikerverlag, Saarbrücken 2016, ISBN 978-3-639-87005-3 .
• Diemut Boehm: A family of pianists from three centuries: the Munich pianist Sofie Menter, Franz Liszt and their musical legacy. In: Tijdschrift van de Franz Liszt Kring 2017, pp. 45–52.
• Diemut Boehm: ( Not) a forgotten woman from Munich: The pianist, piano professor and composer Sofie Menter (1846-1918) . In: Musik in Bayern, Vol. 82/83 (2017/18), pp. 92–111. ISBN 978-3-96233-100-9 .
• Cord Garben: Past luck ... the art and fate of legendary pianists. Wilhelmshaven 2018, 2nd edition. Pp. 35-54. ISBN 978-3-7959-1013-6 .
• Stephanie Hodde-Fröhlich: Profession pianist. Facets of cultural action with Marie Wieck (1832–1916) and Sofie Menter (1846–1918) . Hanover 2018. ISBN 978-3-86525-652-2

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} (newspaper advertisement for a concert in the municipal theater in Opava). In:  Troppauer Zeitung , April 20, 1870, p. 4 (online at ANNO ).
2. ↑ ^{a b} News. In:  New musical newspaper for Berlin / Neue Berliner Musikzeitung , June 12, 1872, p. 191 (online at ANNO ).
3. ↑ Leipzig. In:  Musikalisches Wochenblatt. Organ for sound artists / musicians and music lovers / musical weekly paper. Organ for musicians and music lovers. New music magazine. United musical weeklies , February 21, 1873, p. 11 (online at ANNO ).
4. ↑ Vienna. In:  Musikalisches Wochenblatt. Organ for sound artists / musicians and music lovers / musical weekly paper. Organ for musicians and music lovers. New music magazine. United musical weeklies , July 10, 1874, p. 11 (online at ANNO ).
5. ↑ Stockhom, February 1st .:  Signals for the musical world , year 1882, p. 189 (online at ANNO ).
6. ↑ Mr. Ullmann. In:  Neues Wiener Blatt , February 9, 1874, p. 5 (online at ANNO ).
7. ↑ From Vienna. In:  New musical newspaper for Berlin / Neue Berliner Musikzeitung , January 28, 1875, p. 4 (online at ANNO ).
8. ↑ Königsberg, January 1st. :  Signals for the musical world , year 1876, p. 76 (online at ANNO ).
9. ^ Popper-Menter divorce. In:  Morgen-Post , July 30, 1885, p. 4 (online at ANNO ).
10. ↑ Divorce. In:  Neue Freie Presse , January 15, 1886, p. 5 (online at ANNO ).
11. ↑ Concert Revue. :  Signals for the musical world , year 1869, p. 331 (online at ANNO ).
12. ^ Lviv Theater. In:  Neue Freie Presse , April 10, 1872, p. 7 (online at ANNO ).
13. ^ Pianist Sophie Menter has died. In:  Neue Freie Presse , February 26, 1918, p. 9 (online at ANNO ).

Web links

Sophie Menter (1846–1918), illustration in the Neue Musik-Zeitung 1888, 9th year, no. 5, p. 53

• Works by and about Sophie Menter in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Sophie Menter  in the German Digital Library
• Sofie Menter in the Lexicon of European Female Instrumentalists of the 18th and 19th Centuries of the Sophie Drinker Institute, Bremen
• Silke Wenzel: Article “Sophie Menter” . In: MUGI. Music education and gender research: Lexicon and multimedia presentations , ed. by Beatrix Borchard and Nina Noeske, University of Music and Theater Hamburg, 2003ff. As of November 23, 2017
• Sheet music and audio files by Sophie Menter in the International Music Score Library Project

Commons : Sophie Menter  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Exhibition BSB Munich: "(Not) a forgotten woman from Munich: The pianist Sofie Menter and Franz Liszt." July 2 - September 21, 2018. (Accessed July 4, 2018)
• (Not) a forgotten pianist - Sofie Menter Excerpts from a concert with works by Sofie Menter and Franz Liszt played by the up-and-coming pianist Michael Andreas Häringer, the great-great-grandson of Sofie Menter and Franz Liszt.
• Video at ARD-Alpha, 16 min. (Online until April 20, 2022) Stories of Great Spirits: Red Carpet for Art Franz von Lenbach (1836–1904 / painter), Paul Heyse (1830–1914 / writer and Nobel laureate in literature) and Sophie Menter (1846–1918 / pianist) discuss on a stage in the old southern cemetery.