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chapter four Maria Bach Vienna from Imperial Splendor to the Second Republic On February 19, 1930, after a performance of music by the Viennese composer Maria Bach (1896–1978), an unidentified critic for the Neue Freie Presse slung demeaning arrows: “ . . . This young woman is decidedly gifted. Certainly, she glows and storms. But knows not where she is going! Ability and childlikeness coexist. All said, the music turns into an enchanting jumble! And she does this with talent. How much little Maria imagines herself to be Stravinsky . . . ; genius or philistine, holy or devilish, she could become anything—perhaps even a completely useful composer!”1 And on March 23 of the same year, a critic identified only as “ber” wrote in the Neuigkeits-Welt-Blatt after the premiere of Viennese composer Johanna MüllerHermann ’s “Lied der Erinnerung” at the fourth Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde Concert: “The row of female composers of rank has been sown very sparsely. In all types of art women have, by chance, reached a certain equality of rights as opposed to a man; but music, as a productive factor of art, has remained noticeably closed to them. With a few exceptions. And Johanna Müller-Hermann numbers among them. Her lyrical cantata Lied der Erinnerung for Solo [vocal] Quartet, Orchestra and Organ, which took up the evening shows, besides an imposing ability and knowledge in the technical details of orchestration, a surprisingly blossoming fantasy and invention, power in the forming of . . . pictorially graphic clarity and richly flowing melody.” (The text was based on a Walt Whitman poem on Abraham Lincoln’s death.)2 These comments by Viennese critics encapsulate Maria Bach’s promising professional future and yet portend her lifelong struggle to attract renown and respect as a “serious” woman composer. Born into Austria’s late-nineteenth-century privileged “aristocracy”—the affluent upper middle class—Baroness Maria Bach, Viennese composer and pianist, prided herself on her intellectual and artistic heritage. (The family name had been entitled early in Emperor Franz Josef’s lifetime .) For her birth in 1896 set her solidly within the imperial capital’s golden age, that brilliant constellation of the arts known as Viennese modernism. From the last decade of the nineteenth century to World War I, fin-de-siècle Vienna was a cultural mecca unequaled anywhere else in central Europe. Its now-affluent haute bourgeoisie had gained social prominence and entrepreneurial optimism, creating both motive and means to further the arts—with an intensity matching the splendor of the newly constructed Ringstrasse encircling the city. Genealogical Convolutions Maria Bach inherited a legacy of cultural achievements over many generations of ancestors. Her parents claimed descent from Catholic ancestors linked, though distantly, to the composer Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) and his Thuringian branch of the Bach family. Although no hard evidence has surfaced, the belief passed down through generations of Maria Bach’s forebears was that Catholic ancestors of the Bachs had emigrated early in the Reformation period from Thuringia in Germany to Grafenberg in Lower Austria, establishing there a vineyard and winery. Among the progeny of these emigré Austrian Bachs was a Sebastian Bach, mayor of Grafenberg, where his sons Johann Baptist Bach (1779–1847) and Michael Bach (dates unknown) grew to adulthood. Both the maternal and paternal sides of Maria Bach’s family descended from Michael Bach, whose sons Alexander Bach (1813–1893)—a high official in the Austrian Interior Ministry—Eduard (1814–1884), and Heinrich Josef (1835–1915) were ennobled court officials under Emperor Franz Josef. Heinrich Josef was also a composer and painter. Both Heinrich and a fourth brother, Otto Johann Baptist (1833–1893), were Maria Bach’s grandfathers, consequently making her parents first cousins. In 1860 Heinrich married Maria Theresia Kolisko (1837–1922), the daughter of a respected Viennese family of physicians and attorneys. Heinrich’s son Robert fathered Maria Bach. Her grandfather Otto, another Austrian Bach composer, was music director of the Salzburg Mozarteum for twelve years. Maria Bach claimed that his appointment to this position had rested on the recommendation of the celebrated Austrian composer Anton Bruckner. From 1880 Otto was a church Kapellmeister in Vienna , where he married Therese Katharina Jander (1825–1884), the widow of the well-known German opera composer Heinrich Marschner. Therese Katharina, an accomplished singer and pianist, was a member of the Vienna Conservatory voice faculty for seven years. Her daughter Eleonore was Maria Bach’s mother.3 Maria Bach’s father, Robert Bonaventura Michael Wenzel Freiherr von Bach (1864–1927), an...

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