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Donald Macleod explores Johanna Müller-Hermann’s final years under the Nazis, and her musical legacy.

Johanna Müller-Hermann once held a significant place as a composer and teacher in Vienna, yet has been largely forgotten over the decades since her death in 1941. Radio 3 has been working to unearth her music and story through its Forgotten Women Composers project, in collaboration with the Arts and Humanities Research Council and Dr Carola Darwin. This week, Dr Darwin and Professor Robert Evans join Donald Macleod to explore this fascinating composer and her times. Their series includes many specially recorded works by Müller-Hermann that have sat neglected in dusty archives for decades.

Müller-Hermann was greatly celebrated in her own lifetime and moved in eminent musical circles. She studied with Zemlinsky, befriended Alma Mahler, and also corresponded with Arnold Schoenberg. She went on to teach at Austria’s New Vienna Conservatory where students travelled from as far away as America and the UK to study with her. She became a pivotal figure in Vienna’s cultural scene and her music was regularly performed and published during her lifetime.

During the build-up to World War Two, the social and political scene in Austria was rapidly changing. It was a period of great unrest leading up to the annexation of Austria by Hitler, and the Nazis' subsequent persecution of the Jewish population there. Johanna Müller-Hermann would have witnessed these changes in Vienna and had to face the dilemma of whether to sign up as a member of the Reich Chamber of Culture in order to have her music still performed in the city, or to see it totally banned. She died in 1941, just as the tide of the war was about to turn against Hitler, and Donald explores her musical legacy with Dr Carola Darwin.

In Memoriam, Op 28 No 5 (Herbstlieder)
Kitty Whately, mezzo-soprano
Joseph Middleton, piano

Novelette in A flat, Op 3 No 2 (Fünf Klavierstücke)
Hiroaki Takenouchi, piano

Violin Sonata in D minor, Op 5 (Allegretto amabile) UK Broadcast Premiere
Jennifer Pike, violin
James Baillieu, piano

Piano Quintet in G minor, Op 31 (Adagio sostenuto)
Louise Farrenc Ensemble
Mayumi Kanagawa, violin
Jevgênijs Čepoveckis, violin
Klaus Christa, viola
Mathias Johansen, cello
Katya Apekisheva, piano

Drei Gesange, Op 33
Ilona Domnich, soprano
´óÏó´«Ã½ Concert Orchestra
Jane Glover, conductor

String Quartet in E flat, Op 6 (Allegro con spirito)
Artis Quartet
Peter Schuhmayer, violin
Johannes Meissl, violin
Herbert Kefer, viola
Othmar Müller, cello

Produced by Luke Whitlock