German music critic, also composer and pianist.

Career Summary

Niemann graduated from the Leipzig Conservatory in 1898 with a dissertation on mensural notation. Of his many books, in 1907 he published a history of keyboard music, and later a book on virginal music (1920). He was critic of the Leipziger neueste Nachrichten, 1907-17, where he was outspoken and sometimes vitriolic. Max Reger (of whom Schenker was himself a harsh critic) threatened to sue him for libel. Niemann denounced the "pathological" and "sensuous" music of Richard Strauss, Mahler and Schoenberg (again, objects of Schenker's continuous hostile criticism).

Niemann and Schenker

In 1908, Schenker had a complimentary copy of his Beitrag zur Ornamentik, 2nd edition, sent to him (WSLB 14). Elsa Bienenfeld wrote a review of Niemann's biography of Brahms in the Neues Wiener Journal, which Schenker clipped and sent to the publisher J. G. Cotta in 1920 (CA 171-172).

There is no known correspondence or contact between Niemann and Schenker.

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