Fanny Basch-Mahler (27 July 1854 – 11 November 1942), was an Austro-Hungarian pianist and music teacher. A native of Budapest, she was a celebrated Viennese concert pianist. A student alongside Claude Debussy and a familiar of composers Johannes Brahms and Karl Goldmark, Basch-Mahler was a recognized and respected talent of the late 19th century Austrian-Hungarian music community. In 1928 she was awarded an honorary title by the President of Austria.
Early life
Fanny (or Fanni as her name appears on her birth certificate) was born in Budapest on 27 July 1854 to Leopold and Therese Mahler. "[She] enjoyed her mother's musical instruction at an early age and showed a joyful affection for music. When, towards the end of the sixties, Brahms, Clara Schumann, Sophie Menter and A Rubinstein gave concerts in their hometown, it gave her a powerful exemplary stimulus".Fanny's first recorded performance was at the Musikverein on 23 March 1871 at the tender age of sixteen. The hall had only opened fourteen months earlier. It was the last performance of the season and she performed Mendelssohn's Die schöne Melusine as a piano duet which was met with lively applause.
Vienna Conservetoire
In 1871 Fanny travelled to Vienna where she auditioned for a place in the Vienna Conservatoire, one of the most prestigious music schools in the world. She was accepted for private piano tuition by Professor Julius Epstein. A famous concert pianist himself he became a professor at the Conservertoire in 1867 and taught until 1901. Four years later he would teach Gustav Mahler.
Epstein taught Fanny privately for the first half of the year. For the remaining four months she was marked excellent for her diligence, progress and behaviour. At the end of the year she won first prize in the exams.
Paris Conservetoire
After attending the Vienna Conservertoire she went to Paris "to broaden her artistic perspective" under the tuition of Antoine Mamontel. One of the other 33 students taught by Mamontel that year was Claude Debussy.
Career
Basch-Mahler became a celebrated pianist within the late 19th century Austro-Hungarian musical community. Her first big break came at the beginning of 1876 when she was twenty one and invited to perform with Adolf Wallnofer and Joseph Hellmesberger at the Musikverein, in what is now called the Brahmssaal. At that time the musicians performed in the centre of the room and lit from the skylight above, rather than the stage on which concerts are performed today. Wallnorfer and Fanny "were both well received with lively well-deserved applause". The Fremden-Blatt critic went as far to say she was a "young, very talented pianist who, in addition to being very fluent, lets me praise many of her musical virtues".
A couple of months later she would perform in the Bosendorfersaal, the first of over forty concerts that she would perform in the venue. Fanny performed a new sonata by Jakob Fischer "to much applause".
In the Autumn of 1877 she travelled to Salzburg for a concert celebrating the Emperor's name day. In front of a large audience at the Kursaal she performed Beethoven's concerto in E flat which received a glowing review."This number was undoubtedly the highlight of the concert. The gifted pianist has a brilliant technique, her stroke is concise, her piano playing full of mildness and softness, the performance safe and correct. But we already know that based on our perception of other pianists that have emerged from the excellent school of Professor Epstein in Vienna. What Fraulein Mahler particularly emphasises is the objectivity of her game....We are convinced that the amiable artist is ahead of her colleagues, even the audience... and she fully deserved the thunderous and repeated applause which accompanied each of her performances."In the Spring of 1878 she accompanied the elderly opera singer Gustav Holzl in his last ever performance. Her reputation was growing and when at the end of the year she performed a benefit concert in aid of military invalids the advanced notices described her as a "piano virtuoso".
Touring with the First Austrian Ladies Quartet
In 1879 she teamed up with the First Austrian Ladies Quartet for a European tour. The Quartet consisted of three sisters—Fanni, Amalija and Maria—and a fourth singer called Marianne Gallowitsch, and were managed by their mother Ivanka Campa. Initially the Quartet exclusively sang Slovenian folk songs but in later years they broadened their repertoire.
For two months they toured Moravia, Prussia, Silesia and Northern Germany before finishing the tour in Graz, Austria.