26 FEBRUARY 2019

MARIA BACH - AUSTRIA   

DIED 26 FEBRUARY

Maria Bach was born in Vienna, Austria, on March 11, 1896. Her parents were Robert Bonaventura Michael Wenzel von Bach and Eleonore Josepha Maria Theresia Auguste Bach. In 1897, she moved with her family to the castle, Leesdorf, in Baden, Austria. Bach's father, Robert, was an attorney, painter, and violinist. Her mother, Elenore, was both a singer and composer who has performed under the conductors Gustav Mahler and Johannes Brahms. 

Maria Bach began studying composition at the Vienna Academy of Music with Joseph Marx in 1919. Under the tutelage of Marx, Bach wrote four-part fugues, brief piano scores, and analysed the music of Chopin, Debussy, and Stravinsky. Marx would later help Bach develop her own personal style of composing.  She made her debut as a composer in 1921 with Narrenlieder für Tenor und Orchester, a song cycle which was later printed by Schott in Vienna.

  

During the war, the Nazi party established music prohibitions in Austria. Due to their preference for classical music, which was considered conservative and traditional, "modern" compositions were not allowed to be performed. However, Bach's compositions were deemed both conservative and traditional among Nazi standards and were deemed acceptable to be performed.

♫ LISTEN

Silhouetten: II. 1. Satz Garufalia (Grieche) by Maria Bach

ESTHER ROFE - AUSTRALIA
DIED 26 FEBRUARY

Esther Rofe was born in Melbourne in 1904 and studied with Alberto Zelman jnr, Fritz Hart and A.E. Floyd. A talented violinist and pianist, she worked as an accompanist, and performed with small ensembles and the original Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. In the early 1930s Esther enrolled at the Royal College of Music and studied with, amongst others, Gordon Jacob, Ralph Vaughan Williams and R.O. Morris. She was there at the same time as Peggy Glanville-Hicks, Miriam Hyde, John Tallis, and later with Dulcie Holland. It was at the College that she committed herself to composition.

During World War II Rofe worked at the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC), and the Colgate-Palmolive Radio Unit in Sydney where she began arranging and composing music. Rofe began composing for ballet in 1943. The Esther Rofe Songbook was published in Melbourne in December 1999.

Rofe and her sister Edith moved to Southport where Rofe lived and worked for twenty years by the sea. She never married, but fostered a child. She died in February 2000 and her ashes were scattered in Southport Bay.  The Esther Rofe Award was established in her honor at the University of Melbourne in Australia.

♫ LISTEN

Dinah's Song by Esther Rofe

►FIND SCORES BY ESTHER ROFE