Publication year 2020
Catalogue no. DCM.016
Klaverstykker
(1847)
(1847)
Publication year 2020
Catalogue no. DCM.016
Emma Hartmann (1807–51) grew up in a wealthy and cultivated home, which was frequently visited by cultural figures such as the composers C.E.F. Weyse and Friedrich Kuhlau. She is primarily known as a composer of romances; during the last years of her life she composed and published a number of romances and songs under the pseudonym Frederik H. Palmer. The publication of her piano music thus draws attention to works which are relatively unknown and the genesis of which is more or less not documented.
A collection of dance pieces makes up the main part of Emma Hartmann’s music for piano and was published privately as a facsimile edition by her youngest son, Frederik (Frits) Hartmann, in 1907 – the centenary of her birth. The dances comprise three genres: tarantella, gallopade, and Viennese waltz, and some of them are dated – these are primarily from, or from around, 1840. A correspondence from 1844 between Emma and her husband, the Danish composer J.P.E. Hartmann, leaves the impression that the dances were used as entertainment at home for the benefit of the children and guests of the house. The letters also indicate a mutual understanding concerning her compositions, which also makes sense considering the fact that two of her pieces were published in a collection for The Student’s Society in February 1841 next to a piece by J.P.E. Hartmann. In addition to the collection of dances, there are a few previously unpublished piano pieces among her extant manuscripts in The Royal Library.
This edition was originally published by the Danish Centre for Music Publication of the Royal Library, now available as part of Edition·S’ DCM (Danish Classical Music) series.