Pupil of Schenker from January 1912 to summer 1919.

Trude [Gertrud?] Kaff lived in Brno (Brünn), capital of Moravia. She lived with her parents, travelling by train to Vienna as needed, until the Fall of 1918, when she considered moving to Vienna and establishing herself as a piano teacher in the City (which she had presumably done by March 1919, when she sent a message by her maid). But she is not to be found in the Vienna Street Directory at that time. The newspaper Der Tag, on March 21, 1931 under "Musik und Theater," reported the performance of songs by her in the recital hall of the Musikverein Building, together with a photograph, the same event being reported in Der Tag for March 29: “Hilde Tometschek-Hofmann gave a varied program of songs by unknown young female composers. Among others, three atmospheric songs by Trude Kaff were performed". Kaff sent Schenker a letter with tickets for this event (“to a concert at which three songs of hers will be performed!”), which he returned on March 11 (diary).

Trude Kaff and Schenker

Trude Kaff appears in Schenker's earliest lessonbook (1911/12), the first recorded lesson taking place on January 25, 1912, taking one lesson a week, the middle slot between Elias and Pairamall, lessons continuing through 1913/14, then after a three-year gap, 1917/18 and 1918/19. She does not appear in Schenker's diary before 1912, but does so thereafter in 1913, 1914, 1918 and 1919. On January 14, 1919 she requested to transfer from Schenker to Moriz Rosenthal (whom she had encountered on a train from Brno to Vienna on December 17, 1913), but she continued with Schenker for a further four months. In May 1913 Trude’s father bought her a piano; and after her move to Vienna she bought or hired an upright piano (pianino). Trude’s mother was a source of frequent annoyance to Schenker.

Correspondence with Schenker

One letter survives from Kaff to Schenker, OC 30/40, December 31, 1932 (to which OC 30/41 is an incomplete draft reply), sending New Year's wishes and speaking in glowing terms of her lessons long ago with Schenker, which she appropriately described as “keenly pleaded and fought for,“ and quaintly as “put in commercial terms, the one single thing in my life that has continued to amortize to this very day.”

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