1872–1948 · Germany · 20th century
Clara Mathilda Faisst (1872–1948) was a pianist, composer and poet from Karlsruhe who studied with Max Bruch. She earned her living through composing, teaching and performing, and wrote mostly songs for voice and piano, along with choral works and sonatas for violin and piano. For pianists today, her songs offer an accessible way into late-nineteenth-century German Romantic song.
Clara Mathilda Faisst was born on 22 June 1872 in Karlsruhe, in the state of Baden, to August and Emma Faisst, the youngest of their six children; she was one when her father died. People who knew her remembered her as a quiet, dreamy girl who was often seriously ill in her childhood. Her musical education began as soon as she started school. Later she became known not only as a pianist and composer but also as a writer. What came next in her life was a period of study — first in her home city, and then in Berlin.
Until 1894 she trained at the Grand Ducal Conservatory in Karlsruhe. At the age of seven she was taken on as a pupil by the concertmaster Carl Will, becoming the youngest student he ever taught. She then moved to Berlin, to the Royal Academy of Music (the Royal Music School), where she studied until 1896.
Her teachers in Berlin included the pianist Ernst Rudorff (1840–1916), a pupil of Clara Schumann; the composer Woldemar Bargiel (1828–1897), Schumann's half-brother, who gave her lessons in counterpoint and composition theory; and Robert Kahn (1865–1951), who gave her piano lessons and taught her music theory. The most important of her teachers was Max Bruch (1838–1920): she studied composition with him and kept up a correspondence with him almost until the end of his life. It was to his words that she wrote the music of "Five Songs for a Voice with Pianoforte." In these same student years she also began writing poetry of her own.
Right after finishing her studies, in 1896, Faisst set out on an extended concert tour through Germany and Switzerland, performing both her own compositions and works by other composers.
In 1901 she returned to her home city of Karlsruhe, where she lived for the rest of her life, earning her living by composing, teaching, writing poetry and giving concerts as a pianist. Audiences took notice of her playing and of her own compositions, and before the Second World War her vocal and instrumental pieces were performed in public around Karlsruhe. By the time she came back to her home town she had already completed her professional training, first at the Karlsruhe conservatory and then in Berlin, and she returned there as a performer and teacher.
Her music was marked by expressive melodies and rich harmony in the late-Romantic style. Most of it she published herself, with several Karlsruhe music shops distributing her scores and commissioning new pieces from her. Twenty of her songs first appeared not as separate editions but as sheet-music supplements in magazines, which gave them wider circulation. Most of her output was written by 1930, and in her later years she turned mainly to instrumental music.
Both her contemporaries and later reference sources describe her in several roles at once — as a pianist, a composer and a music teacher.
During the Second World War, Faisst held house concerts. Over her lifetime she was a prolific composer, writing more than a hundred separate works — besides songs, these included choral works, ballads, and sonatas for violin and piano.
Friendships with notable contemporaries occupied a significant place in Faisst's life. She corresponded with the physician, theologian and musician Albert Schweitzer, and that friendship lasted until her death. Her other acquaintances included the painter Hans Thoma, who from 1899 headed the Karlsruhe Kunsthalle, the musicians Wilhelm Furtwängler and Willy Rehberg.
She never married. In her final years her health declined markedly, and on 22 November 1948 she died in Karlsruhe at the age of 76. Having no family of her own, most of her personal belongings were simply thrown away after her death; only some of her letters and music survived by chance and were preserved. Her surviving manuscripts and printed scores are kept today in the Baden state library. Few recordings or modern editions of her works have survived to this day.
Faisst wrote mainly songs for voice and piano; her melodies are described as expressive and her harmony as rich, in the style of late Romanticism. Besides songs, her works included choral pieces and ballads, together with sonatas for violin and piano — in total she wrote more than a hundred separate pieces. Her published collections include Sieben Lieder aus des Knaben Wunderhorn (Op. 10) and Vier Lieder für eine Singstimme mit Pianoforte, published as two opus numbers, Op. 16 and Op. 17; in 1924 her text Hörst du den Ton? was published.
She published most of her music herself, with several Karlsruhe music shops distributing her scores; twenty of her songs first appeared as sheet-music supplements in magazines, which helped them reach a wider audience. The site's collection of her songs for voice and piano ranges from intermediate-plus to advanced level — a student starting out with Faisst might begin with Wanderlied, Letzter Wunsch or Lied aus Bosnien, then move on to a more demanding piece such as Reiterlied.
Only her songs for voice and piano are collected here. Her wider output also includes other genres — choral pieces and ballads, together with sonatas for violin and piano — which are not represented on the site; anyone wanting to know Faisst beyond this collection of songs should keep that in mind.
All the scores available on the site are songs for voice and piano, which makes them useful above all as a way to combine work on the accompaniment with work on phrasing and text. Among the thirty songs published here are both simpler pieces and more extended concert numbers, so a student can build up gradually from easier to harder.