The chamber music of Johanna Müller-Hermann is distinguished by its focus on pure melody, which often gives the music a lyrical character, but which she...

The chamber music of Johanna Müller-Hermann is distinguished by its focus on pure melody, which often gives the music a lyrical character, but which she is quite willing to interrupt with stringent use of rhythm and contrast. The Austrian composer Johanna Müller-Hermann (1868-1941) was born in Vienna on January 15, 1868, to government official Alois von Hermann and Antonia Freiin von der Decken zu Himmelreich, who was eighteen years his junior. Known in her girlhood as Johanna von Hermann, she was the second of three children. The growing family enjoyed the life of the upper middle class in the inner city of Vienna. Johanna Hermann learnt the piano with Heinrich von Bocklet, who was later made Professor. She attended the Vienna Conservatory, studied musicology with Carl Navratil and historical counterpoint with Josef Labor, took violin and piano lessons, and participated in the exercises of Guido Adler.

Müller-Hermann also enrolled for the composition class of Josef Bohuslav Foerster. She published her first opus in 1903, “Seven Lieder for solo voice and piano”. The premiere of one of these songs the following year drew public attention to Müller-Hermann, and her Violin Sonata was first performed in 1905, attracting a good deal of positive comment. Critical interest was increased by the publication of her String Quartet op. 6, which celebrated its premiere six years later. The quartet was written during a period of instruction from Alexander von Zemlinsky. There is no known evidence of this teaching, nor are there any drafts, but the quartet is dedicated to Zemlinsky “in gratitude”. Public recognition came in 1917, when she was appointed Professor at the Vienna Conservatory in succession to her former teacher Josef Foerster. Her public profile benefited from her two orchestral works and even more from her choral works with orchestral accompaniment.