Maria Hofer

Maria Hofer was born on 6 June 1894 in Amstetten (Austria). Her parents were not professionally into music, but noticed and supported the talent of Maria Hofer. In 1912 she enrolled at the Royal Academy of Music in Vienna and completed a teacher education course under Ernst Ludwig, Richard Stöhr and Franz Schmidt in just one year, which was half of the scheduled time. During World War I she worked as a music teacher and played the organ at the St. Stephen's Cathedral. At that time Maria Hofer also began to compose music, naturally with an emphasis on organ works. A few of these compositions were performed by August Weirich, the cathedral's kapellmeister. In 1917 Maria Hofer again enrolled at the Royal Academy of Music to study organ with Rudolf E. Dittrich. Not even a year later she quit because she did not get along well with him. In her biography Maria Hofer writes that she instead connected with Arnold Schönberg and sent him her compositions. Unfortunately no documents could be found that verify this statement. 
On the other Maria Hofer's activities as a pianist are well documented. Between 1916 and 1919 she had fourteen appearances in the Wiener Konzerthaus and made her mark as a serious accompanist. In April 1919 she a concert with Karl Kraus - with him reading Shakespeare and Maria Hofer playing Bach and Reger.
In 1923 Maria Hofer became acquainted with Emil and Yella Hertzka. Emil Hertzka was the director of the publishing house Universal Edition, Yella Hertzka active in the peace and women's right movement. Both supported the career of Maria Hofer in their professional activities. Through Emil Hertzka she got connections to other composers and he supported her works and organised concert tours. Maria Hofer was also a regular guest at the house of the Hertzkas where she performed on the built-in house organ. And the Hertzkas financially backed her costly hobbies like riding, photography and motoring.
In the 1930s Maria Hofer intensively performed as an organist and became a renowned organist as least in the German speaking countries. In 1934 she successfully passed the certificate of a Domkapellmeister. After the annexion of Austria through Nazi Germany in 1938 Yella Hertzka had to emigrate to London and so the support for Maria Hofer ended. Maria Hofer moved to Kitzbühel. In 1941 she was arrested by the Gestapo because of her activities in the "Women's International League for Peace and Freedom" (for which she had composed a "Peace hymn for organ"). She was released after 4 months only through the personal intervention of Paula Hueber, the sister of Hermann Göring and a friend of Maria Hofer.
Maria Hofer returned to Kitzbühel and focused on playing organ and composing music. After World War II especially her works received immediate success and were performed on stage and broadcasted. In 1948 her only orchestral work "Totentanz" was premiered by the Wiener Tonkünstlerorchester under Robert Wagner. But the following years were nevertheless difficult for Maria Hofer to make a living. In 1959 she became prinicipal organist at the local church that provided a regular income. In 1960 Maria Hofer was awarded the Mozart Medal from the Mozarteum in Salzburg and in 1967 named professor honoris causa. 
In her final years Maria Hofer destroyed many of her early compositions, especially those "complicated" works that brought her recognition in the 1920s and 30s. In her last years Maria Hofer composed mainly music for the church service.
Maria Hofer died on 15 July 1977 in Kitzbühel (Austria).

In my possession is the autograph manuscript of an untitled composition by Maria Hofer. The work is (very likely) scored for violin, viola, cello, voice and organ and consists of two movements. The text of the first movement begins with the words "Um ihrer Kammer Fenster summten Bienen", the second part with "Die Wände, kahl und jeder Zier benommen". For both texts I could not identify an author. The instrumentation is also not certain because no title page and instrument names are included in the manuscript. The voice and organ can be surely identified, the other three instruments are scored in treble, alto and bass clef, making violin, viola and cello reasonable and most likely. The manuscript is also undated.