Fromm-Michaels, Ilse

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(b Hamburg, Dec 30, 1888; d Detmold, Jan 22, 1986). German pianist and composer. She studied in Berlin, first at the Hochschule für Musik (1902–5), then at the Sternsches Konservatorium (1905–8) with James Kwast (piano) and Pfitzner (composition); from 1911 she studied at the Rheinische Musikschule in Cologne with Carl Friedberg (piano) and Fritz Steinbach (composition). As a pianist she promoted contemporary music from an early age and at 18 played Reger’s Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Bach, one of the first to do so. As a soloist with orchestra she performed with Nikisch, Abendroth, Furtwängler and Schoenberg. From 1933, during the Third Reich, she had to curtail her concert-giving because her husband was Jewish according to Nazi laws. From 1946 to 1959 she taught the piano at the Hochschule für Musik in Hamburg, and was professor there from 1957. In 1961...