Maria Herz, nee Bing, was born in 1878 in Cologne. By the 1920s, she became to be recognized as a dynamic element of the contemporary music scene. New music's 'chief theoretician', Theodor W. Adorno, became interested in her works and their style, which was rooted in Late Romanticism and aimed at Modernism by way of Expressionism, New Objectivity, and Neo-Baroque, all while retaining it's playful, charming air. She was close to a veritable Who's-Who of contemporary musicians, including the Budapest String Quartett, Gregor Piatigorsky, Emanuel Feuermann, Hermann Abendroth, Otto Klemperer, and Hans Rosbaud.
"The Orchestral Pieces, Op.8 espouse a toughly-hewn late-Romanticism and owe something to Reger and Schreker, perhaps. They’re well characterised, and include nocturne-like elements as well as sinewy, powerful dissonance. One can see that a work as sharply defined and athletic as this would have interested someone like Abendroth. The Cello Concerto, Op.10 is her most overtly Jewish work. Its clotted cello ascent and dour orchestration may be initially forbidding but it’s clear that the music plays out questions of striving, and seemingly failing, to reach a natural harmonic resolution. It’s only when a Mahlerian gong is heard and a freilach breaks out that the music dances wildly for a while, the cello’s ascending line accompanied by a melange of orchestral colour, notably high winds – the cello concerto is a tricky beast to balance sonically – before a fugato swiftly brings the revels to a close." -MusicWeb International
