Mary Dickenson-Auner · Memoirs

Mein Musikleben

The autobiography of the violinist and composer, written in Vienna in 1963. Fourteen chapters, complete here.

On 3 October 1963 Mary Dickenson-Auner began her memoirs: the story of a four-year-old girl who wanted to become a violin virtuoso, and of a woman who started composing in earnest at almost sixty, once everything else had been taken from her.

The text leads from Dublin by way of Düsseldorf, London and Prague to Berlin and Vienna, through two world wars, to the side of Bartók and Schönberg, into the primary schools of Vienna and finally to the desk where four string quartets, four symphonies, operas and oratorios came into being.

The Auner Quartett carries her name. In the first concert of the cycle her String Quartet No. 4 is heard — played on her own violin.

Mary Dickenson-Auner. From a brochure of press reviews, library of the mdw

The chapters

Chapter I – Childhood ChildhoodDublin, Wiesbaden, Düsseldorf: the childhood of a four-year-old who wants to become a violin virtuoso. First violin lessons against family resistance, tuition with the composer Coleridge Taylor in Croydon — and a guardian who blocks her place at the Royal Academy.
Chapter II – Ireland IrelandReturn to Ireland, which she had left at the age of three. Lessons with Guido Papini, assistant at the Dublin Academy of Music, where she founds the chamber music class. Only the threat of becoming a street musician opens the way to London at nineteen.
Chapter III – Years of Study Years of StudyFour years at the Royal Academy of Music with Émile Sauret. Besides the violin, organ, harmony and counterpoint; medals for violin playing and for absolute pitch. Rather than follow Sauret to America she chooses Ševčík in Prague.
Chapter IV – Prague PragueTyphoid fever shortly after arrival, then the practice regime under Ševčík among a hundred students from all over the world. Her first published composition, an Irish love song. The debut with the Czech Philharmonic under Oskar Nedbal launches her career as a soloist.
Chapter V – Berlin BerlinThree happy years: debut with the Berlin Philharmonic, teaching at home, encounters with Max Bruch and Paul Juon. The purchase of a Stradivarius, her own violin concerto performed under the man's name Frank Dornell, and Grädener's letter after the Vienna appearance.
Chapter VI – Vienna ViennaThe move to Vienna for her mother's sake, concert tours as far as Czernowitz, the long-postponed Beethoven concerto, a device for stretching the fingers, and the meeting with Michael Auner at the Musikverein. Marriage in 1912, then the great evening at London's Queen's Hall.
Chapter VII – Transylvania TransylvaniaThree happy years in Hermannstadt, interrupted by the outbreak of war. A regiment transferred as punishment brings excellent musicians to the town; chamber music is played weekly in the large music room. The birth of her daughter Moira and son Michael, her mother's death, and finally flight from the Romanian front.
Chapter VII – Holland HollandWar years with her sister in the Netherlands: no hunger, but cold. Appearances with the Concertgebouw Orchestra, sonata recitals, concert tours to earn a living. An encounter with Rabindranath Tagore and a circle of quiet people change her view of life.
Chapter IX – Vienna (Second Period) Vienna (Second Period)A new start in Vienna: an orchestral concert at the Musikverein with the Reger concerto, membership of Schönberg's society, the Busoni sonata after nine rehearsals. In 1922 the Austrian premiere of Bartók's First Violin Sonata with Eduard Steuermann, then Salzburg with Bartók himself — and the first meeting with Karl Fisselthaler.
Chapter X – Music in the Schools Music in the SchoolsFrom 1925 the “Hörstunden”: classical music for primary school children from the first year, explained and played live. From a trial at one school in Dornbach to some seventeen Viennese schools — unpaid, against the resistance of those who would have preferred folk music.
Chapter XI – Music in the Schools (Second Period) Music in the Schools (Second Period)After March 1938 the listening lessons continue by order of the Reichsmusikkammer, now paid and in every Viennese school — but in the wrong age groups. She carries on with a family quartet until a denunciation over the omitted Hitler salute ends her work.
Chapter XII – Creative Work Creative WorkAt almost sixty she begins to compose in earnest; the pent-up notes break forth. Four string quartets, the Irish Symphony, a violin and a cello concerto. In 1945 the flight to the Kreuzberg, bombs, Russian troops — and score pages used by soldiers to wrap their shoes.
Chapter XIII – Homecoming HomecomingBack in the Reisnerstraße: the Lord's Prayer, the Second Symphony, her own harmonic path through four-, five- and six-part chords. Performances at the British Council and on radio, the clarinet quintet, the opera after Yeats — and the symphony that is broadcast only after six months and corrected parts.
Chapter XIV – Continued Creative Work Continued Creative WorkThe late work: Fourth Symphony with the Coronation Hymn, an American Symphony, piano pieces, the opera “The Seven Ravens” which cannot fly for want of copies, and the oratorio “Lux in Tenebris”. At the end a small prayer of thanks for four-part boys' choir.