Ilona Eibenschütz

Eibenschütz was introduced to music by her cousin

Eibenschütz heard Brahms play his own music on various occasions, and in 1926, she wrote (as Mrs. Carl Derenburg) for The Musical Times, "[Brahms] played as if he were improvising, with heart and soul, sometimes humming to himself, forgetting everything around him. His playing was altogether grand and noble, like his compositions."

In the summer of 1893, Brahms privately premiered his piano pieces, Opp. 118 and 119, to Eibenschütz. She later wrote, "It was of course the most wonderful thing for me to hear these pieces as nobody yet knew anything about them. I was the first to whom he played them."

Bibliography

• Ehrlich, A: Celebrated Pianists, past and present, p. 93. Edition unclear.
• Musgrave, Michael, "Early trends in the performance of Brahms's piano music." In Musgrave, M., and Sherman, B.D., editors, Performing Brahms: early evidence of performance style (Cambridge University Press, 2003, pp. 302–326.)
• "Pupils of Clara Schumann," Pearl CDS 9909; booklet notes by Jerrold Northrop Moore.
• Derenburg, Mrs. Carl (aka Ilona Eibenschütz), "My Recollections of Brahms." The Musical Times 67/101 (July 1926), pp. 598–600

References