Obscure Music Monday: Bauer's Elegie

Marion Bauer (Aug. 15, 1882 - Aug. 9, 1955) was an American composer, music critic, teacher, and writer. Born in Walla Walla, Washington, she was the youngest of seven children. Her father noticed her musical inclinations and she began studying piano with her elder sister Emilie, who was 17 years older than her.

After finishing high school, Bauer traveled to New York City to be with her sister Emilie, and focus on composition. She also studied with Henry Holden Huss and Eugene Heffley, and through some other connections, Bauer went to Paris to study with Nadia Boulanger. In return for composition lessons, Bauer taught her English. Bauer came back to America after a year in Paris, and continued to study with Heffley, and also began teaching piano and music theory on her own. Just a few years after that she returned again to Europe, this time to study with Paul Ertel in Berlin. She also studied later on with Andre Gedalge at the Paris Conservatory, who had also taught Maurice Ravel and Darius Milhaud. Bauer would go on to teach and lecture at New York University, Juilliard, and Columbia University. She also helped found the American Music Guild, the American Music Center, and the American Composer's Alliance.

Bauer's Elegie for solo piano is solemn and dark, which is expected; an elegy is funeral music. The left hand plays a consistent rhythm, while the right hand plays the melody, which is predominantly a single line, with no additional harmony from the right hand. This writing, though beautiful, creates a sense of stark emptiness, which is very fitting for such a piece.