Lipsius, Marie (pen name, La Mara)
Lipsius, Marie (pen name, La Mara)
Lipsius, Marie (pen name, La Mara), German writer on music; b. Leipzig, Dec. 30, 1837; d. Schmölen, near Würzen, March 2,1927. She received her academic training from her father, Adalbert Lipsius, rector of the Thomasschule in Leipzig, and also studied music with Richard Müller in Leipzig. Through R. Pohl, she was introduced to Liszt (1856), and in Liszt’s circle at Weimar she had the happy fortune of meeting the foremost musicians of the time. Her writings on Liszt and Wagner, and on other German composers of the Romantic school, possess a stamp of authority and intimate understanding. In addition to a number of popular biographies of composers, she wrote Musikalische Studienköpfe (5 vols., Leipzig, 1868; second ed., aug., 1875–82), Musikerbriefe aus fünf Jahrhunderten (2 vols., Leipzig, 1886), Beethovens Unsterbliche Geliebte: Das Geheimnis der Gräfin Brunsvik und ihre Memoiren (Leipzig, 1909), Liszt und die Frauen (Leipzig, 1911; second ed., 1919), An der Schwelle des Jenseits: Letzte Erinnerungen an die Fürstin Carolyne Sayn-Wittgenstein (Leipzig, 1925), and her autobiography, Durch Musik and Leben im Dienst des Ideals (2 vols., Leipzig, 1917; second ed., 1925).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire