Pianist, writer on music, pupil of Heinrich Schenker 1923‒25; previously pupil of Hans Weisse.

Life Summary

Maria Rebhan was born in Vienna on January 13, 1883, daughter of Samuel, bookkeeper with the textile firm of Ernst Mauthner. In 1908, Samuel Rebhan and Richard Komorn, who worked for the private banking house Brüder Feldmann, both moved into apartments in Vienna IX/2, Bleichergasse 15. The date at which Maria and Richard Komorn were married is unknown. Richard died on June 12, 1933 (his death notice described him as "accounts director, Phoenix Life Assurance Society). Maria had become the occupant of record at the Bleichergasse address already in 1929, and she remained at that address until 1938, after which she disappears from the Vienna street directory.

She seems to have been well acquainted with Wilhelm Furtwängler and his wife, and occasionally acted as a go-between with Schenker. She held musical tea parties on the first day of every month. She gives her occupation as "pianist, writer on music." As a writer, she contributed articles to several papers and journals, and authored two books, one comprising reminiscences of Bruno Walter, and the other on Brahms as choral conductor in Vienna (copy in Schenker's private library at his death: Hinterberger).

Maria ("Marie"), who is listed in Herbert Gerigk's infamous Lexikon der Juden in der Musik (1940), was deported on the first transport from Vienna to Riga on December 3, 1941, her address at that time being Vienna IX, Berggasse 25/22. After an eight-day rail journey, she will have been placed in the recently emptied Riga ghetto; her death date is not known, but the likelihood is that she either was gassed in a gas van or shot, or possibly died from the conditions in the ghetto. (Unlike Maria, Richard's married sister, Ernestine Lowie, emigrated to the USA and lived in New York City, where she died in 1932, and her son, Robert Heinrich ("Harry") Lowie died on September 24, 1957 in California.)

Komorn and Schenker

Komorn first asked Schenker to take her on as a piano pupil in April 1923 ‒ on grounds that she was suffering a "pianistic-technical crisis." She had previously been a pupil of Hans Weisse, who warned Schenker that she was a "clingy, pathological being" (diary May 4, 1923), and who claimed to be at the same time both "offended" and "liberated" at Schenker's acceptance of her (September 25, 1923). Schenker insisted on regular lessons rather than the occasional basis that she requested (although she seems to have got the better of him on that).

She studied with him throughout 1923/24 and 1924/25, her repertory being mostly short pieces by Beethoven, Schubert, and Schumann. Although the lessonbook records no instruction in theory or source studies, she did attempt an analysis of one recitative from the St. Matthew Passion at Furtwängler's request, in which she had, according to Schenker, "gone all astray" (diary, March 22, 1924) ‒ the 1923/24 lessonbook records: "St. Matthew Passion — concerning chorale in general and the two great chorale fantasies in connection with Furtwängler; recitative as task." Schenker declined to teach her beyond summer 1925, whereafter she reiterated her gratitude for all that he had taught her and lauded his unique way of thinking about music. She continued to the end of his life to send him greetings at Christmas and New Year, and communicated by letter and telephone with Jeanette Schenker until May 10, 1938, when Jeanette had been trying to visit her.

Correspondence

Ten letters, postcards, and a calling card from Komorn to Heinrich Schenker survive over the period 1923 to 1934 (OJ 12/17, [1]‒[9], OC A/291) and two letters to Jeanette Schenker, 1935 and 1938 (OJ 12/17, [10]‒[11]). No written communications from Heinrich or Jeanette Schenker to Komorn are known to survive, nor are any between Komorn and Weisse.

Bibliography

Sources

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