Description

MORITZ MAYER-MAHR (JANUARY 17, 1869 MANNHEIM, GERMANY – JULY 30, 1947 GOTHENBURG, GERMANY) 

Mayer-Mahr was the youngest of five children born to the businessman Michael Mayer-Mahr and his wife Clara Reis. He received piano lessons as a student. 1886–1890 he studied composition with Woldemar Bargiel and piano with Ernst Rudorff at the Berlin University of the Arts. Mayer-Mahr undertook concert tours and performed as a soloist, in a duo with Willy Burmester and in a trio with the cellist Heinrich Grünfeld and the violinist Bernhard Dessau, who was succeeded by Alfred Wittenberg after his death in 1923. He admired Ferruccio Busoni, whom he knew personally. 1910-1930 he recorded a number of pieces by Franz Liszt, Frédéric Chopin and others. His late shots, however, were viewed with skepticism.  From 1892 Mayer-Mahr taught at the Berlin Klindworth Scharwenka Conservatory. His students included Manfred Gurlitt, Georg Bertram, Jascha Spiwakowski, Henry Jolles, Lotar Olias, Erwin Bodky and Róża Etkin. From 1907 Mayer-Mahr was one of the judges of the Ibach competition for young artists at the Stern Conservatory. He founded the Mayer Mahr Foundation to support his students, into which he contributed the notable donation presented to him on his 60th birthday. After Hitler’s seizure of power, Mayer-Mahr lost his seat in the Senate of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin in 1933 because of his Jewish origin. In 1935 he was excluded from the Reich Music Chamber. In 1936 a professional ban finally came into force. However, he was still allowed to teach foreigners and members of the Kulturbund German Jews. In 1937 he left the Klindworth-Scharwenka Conservatory. In 1937 he appeared in an event of the Kulturbund Deutscher Juden with the cellist Leo Rostal of the orchestra there and the concert master Wladislaw Waghalter and again in 1938 for the Jüdische Winterhilfe. In 1938 he taught the Spanish conservatory. In 1940 Mayer-Mahr and his second wife Paula Sternberg drove to Norway, lived briefly in Vestre Aker, then fled to Sweden before the Norwegian occupation, where he taught again. His son Robert was unable to escape; he was deported from the Drancy collective camp to Auschwitz concentration camp in 1942 and has been considered missing since then. In the 1940’s he still gave a concerts in Sweden.

TRACKLIST

1. Berceuse Op. 38, No. 1 (Grieg)
2. Charakterstück in kanonischer Form, Op. 56 (Schumann) with Bernhard Dessau and Heinrich Grünfeld Gramophone 028030 1284s
3. Extase (Reverie) Louis Ganne with with Bernhard Dessau and Heinrich Grünfeld Gramophone 048039 1282s 28-11-13
4. Fantasiestück, Op. 88 (Schumann) with Bernhard Dessau and Heinrich Grünfeld Gramophone 028031 397AL
5. Fra Karnevalet Op. 19 No. 3 (Grieg)
6. Melodie in F (Rubinstein) with Bernhard Dessau and Heinrich Grünfeld Gramophone 048026 393AL
7. String Quartet No. 1 in D Major, Op. 11, TH 111 – 2. Andante cantabile (Arr. for Piano Trio) (Tchaikovsky) with Bernhard Dessau and Heinrich Grünfeld
8. Trio in B-Dur Op. 11 Adagio (Beethoven) with Bernhard Dessau and Heinrich Grünfeld Gramophone 048027 390AL 15- 4-13