Hortense Monath

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Hortense Monath
A young white woman with dark hair and eyes
Hortense Husserl, later Monath, from her 1924 application for a United States passport
Born
Hortense Husserl

January 16, 1905
Newark, New Jersey, U.S.
DiedMay 21, 1956 (1956-05-22) (aged 51)
New York City, U.S.
Occupation(s)Pianist, arts administrator

Hortense Husserl Monath (January 16, 1905[1] – May 21, 1956) was an American concert pianist and program director of New Friends of Music, a concert series that ran in New York City from 1936 to 1953.

Early life and education[edit]

Hortense Husserl was born in Newark, New Jersey, the daughter of Siegfried Husserl and Clara Gotthelf Husserl.[2] Her mother was an American music teacher and pianist trained under Leschetizky,[3] and her father was a physician from Austria.[4] She studied piano with her mother, Ernest Hutcheson[5] and Artur Schnabel.[6]

Career[edit]

Husserl made her professional debut in Hamburg. "Miss Husserl is without doubt the most promising young pianist heard so far this season," said a reviewer in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, after her New York debut at Town Hall in 1930. "She brings to her instrument a highly cultivated technique, marked individuality and a truly remarkable innate rhythmic sense".[7] She was a soloist who played with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the NBC Symphony Orchestra,[8] and the New York Philharmonic.[9] She made several recordings,[10] and performed on radio programs.[11]

Though she was based in the New York area,[12] Monath toured in the United States. She performed in Iowa[5] and California[13] in 1936, in Missouri in 1939 and 1943,[14][15] and in Texas in 1940.[16] In 1938 she was soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy, in a concert marking the 20th anniversary of the end of World War I.[17]

Monath was a co-founder and program director of New Friends of Music,[18] a subscription chamber music concert series[19] that ran for sixteen seasons, from 1936[20] to 1953.[6] The unconventional series was based at Town Hall, and scheduled for Sunday evenings, 5:30 pm to 7:00 pm. Monath instructed that audiences should not applaud, and there were no intermissions[21] and no encores in the program; the names of musicians and the works to be performed were not announced in advance.[15] The concerts were broadcast, and sometimes recorded.[22]

Monath was considered an important early proponent of Arnold Schoenberg, after playing his works at a recital in the early 1930s,[23] inviting him to conduct his own works for the New Friends of Music series in 1940, and sponsoring the world premiere of his Second Chamber Symphony.[20] She also debuted works by Schoenberg's student, Alban Berg.[24][25] Monath opined on musical topics, including a strong distaste for musical prodigies, declaring them "a menace to musical education, a menace to proper music appreciation, and a menace mostly to their own futures as musicians and human beings".[26] She was described as a stylish beauty in some publicity, with her beauty regimen, hairstyles, and fashion preferences detailed in newspaper profiles.[27]

Personal life and legacy[edit]

She married and divorced twice. Her first husband was Paul E. Monath; they married in 1926 and had a son, Peter, born in Vienna in 1927; they divorced in 1934. In 1937, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia officiated when she married her second husband, businessman Ira A. Hirschmann.[28][29] They divorced in 1952. Monath died in 1956, at the age of 52. Pianist Seymour Bernstein, a student of her mother's, described Monath's final years as complicated by mental illness and financial struggles.[4][6] Some of the New Friends of Music papers are in the Ira Arthur Hirschmann collection at the New York Public Library.[30]

In the novel Fifty-Seventh Street (1971), by Joseph Machlis, the pianist character "Judith Conrad" is partly based on Monath in her later years.[31]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Some sources give 1904 as her birth year.
  2. ^ "Obituary for Clara Gotthelf Husserl". The Commercial Appeal. 1952-09-23. p. 27. Retrieved 2023-10-18 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. ^ "She Wins Favor; Miss Clara Gotthelf Abroad". The Commercial Appeal. 1898-12-12. p. 5. Retrieved 2023-10-18 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. ^ a b Bernstein, Seymour (2002). Monsters and Angels: Surviving a Career in Music. Hal Leonard Corporation. pp. 75–80. ISBN 978-0-634-07837-8.
  5. ^ a b "Civic Music Association Will Open Season Thursday Night at Augustana College". Quad-City Times. 1936-11-01. p. 15. Retrieved 2023-10-18 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. ^ a b c "Hortense Monath, Pianist, Dies; Directed New Friends of Music; Concert Performer Studied With Schnabel--Made Her Town Hall Debut in 1931". The New York Times. 1956-05-22. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-10-18.
  7. ^ "Music of the Day". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. 1930-11-18. p. 20. Retrieved 2023-10-18 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. ^ "Hortense Monath, Soloist on NBC Symphony Concert". The Cincinnati Post. 1941-03-15. p. 5. Retrieved 2023-10-18 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. ^ "New York Philharmonic Program". New York Philharmonic Shelby White & Leon Levy Digital Archives. June 29, 1949. Retrieved 2023-10-18.
  10. ^ "Hortense Monath". Discography of American Historical Recordings. Retrieved 2023-10-18.
  11. ^ Loving, Bob (1938-03-13). "Hortense Monath, Charlotte Symons, Josef Hofmann Guest Stars on the Air". Bristol Herald Courier. p. 15. Retrieved 2023-10-18 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. ^ "Hortense Monath Guest Artist". The New York Times. 1936-01-13. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-10-18.
  13. ^ "Pianist to Play Schumann Concerto with Orchestra". The Los Angeles Times. 1936-03-22. p. 54. Retrieved 2023-10-18 – via Newspapers.com.
  14. ^ "Civic Music to Present Hortense Monath". Jefferson City Post-Tribune. 1939-01-12. p. 3. Retrieved 2023-10-18 – via Newspapers.com.
  15. ^ a b Inge, William (1943-12-18). "Hortense Monath Has Upset Musical Tradition". The St. Louis Star and Times. p. 11. Retrieved 2023-10-18 – via Newspapers.com.
  16. ^ "Hortense Monath, Pianist, to Give Concert in Civic Music Series". The Kilgore Herald. 1940-02-21. p. 5. Retrieved 2023-10-18 – via Newspapers.com.
  17. ^ "Orchestra Has Piano Soloist; Hortense Monath on Armistice List". The Philadelphia Inquirer. 1938-11-06. p. 60. Retrieved 2023-10-18 – via Newspapers.com.
  18. ^ Weber, Daniel B. (December 1983). "The New Friends of Music: Democracy, Chamber Music and the Mass Audience". The Journal of American Culture. 6 (4): 44–48. doi:10.1111/j.1542-734X.1983.0604_44.x. ISSN 1542-7331.
  19. ^ "Music: Music's New Friends". Time. 1937-11-15. ISSN 0040-781X. Retrieved 2023-10-18.
  20. ^ a b Feisst, Sabine (2011-03-10). Schoenberg's New World: The American Years. OUP USA. pp. cxcv. ISBN 978-0-19-537238-0.
  21. ^ Selby, John (1942-12-18). "'New Friends of Music' Reverses Order". The Evening Sun. p. 27. Retrieved 2023-10-18 – via Newspapers.com.
  22. ^ "It's the Music that Matters Says New Friends' Society". The Ottawa Journal. 1943-11-27. p. 10. Retrieved 2023-10-18 – via Newspapers.com.
  23. ^ Berger, Arthur (2002). Reflections of an American Composer. University of California Press. pp. 228–229. ISBN 9780520232518.
  24. ^ "Anyway, Her Name is Hortense". The Standard Union. 1931-10-21. p. 20. Retrieved 2023-10-18 – via Newspapers.com.
  25. ^ Taylor, Helen S. (1931-11-08). "Hortense Monath Plays Tomorrow; Young Woman Pianist Has a European Tour in Concert to Back Her Reputation". The Baltimore Sun. p. 56. Retrieved 2023-10-18 – via Newspapers.com.
  26. ^ "Prodigy Musician Epidemic Appals Hortense Monath" (PDF). The Jewish Herald. December 31, 1937. p. 1. Retrieved October 18, 2023.
  27. ^ Donnelly, Antoinette (1938-02-05). "Beauty Laurels Today Go to Well Bred Air". Orlando Evening Star. p. 7. Retrieved 2023-10-18 – via Newspapers.com.
  28. ^ "Ex-presidential envoy dead at 88". The Daily Times. 1989-10-11. p. 14. Retrieved 2023-10-18 – via Newspapers.com.
  29. ^ "Hortense Monath, Pianist, is Married; Bride of Ira A. Hirschmann, Vice President of Saks-5th Ave.--Mayor Officiates". The New York Times. 1937-11-24. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-10-19.
  30. ^ "Ira Arthur Hirschmann papers". New York Public Library Archives. Retrieved 2023-10-19.
  31. ^ Ball, Robert J. "Joseph Machlis and the Enjoyment of Music: A Biographical Appreciation of a Great Teacher" The Musical Quarterly 95(4)(Winter 2012): 613–643.
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