Maria Schüppel (28 May 1923 – 27 June 2011)
was a German composer, educator, pianist and pioneering
music therapist
Music therapy, an allied health profession, "is the clinical and evidence-based use of music interventions to accomplish individualized goals within a therapeutic relationship by a credentialed professional who has completed an approved music ...
who composed works for
lyre
The lyre () (from Greek λύρα and Latin ''lyra)'' is a string instrument, stringed musical instrument that is classified by Hornbostel–Sachs as a member of the History of lute-family instruments, lute family of instruments. In organology, a ...
and voice, and experimented with
electronic music
Electronic music broadly is a group of music genres that employ electronic musical instruments, circuitry-based music technology and software, or general-purpose electronics (such as personal computers) in its creation. It includes both music ...
.
Schüppel was born in
Chemnitz
Chemnitz (; from 1953 to 1990: Karl-Marx-Stadt (); ; ) is the third-largest city in the Germany, German States of Germany, state of Saxony after Leipzig and Dresden, and the fourth-largest city in the area of former East Germany after (East Be ...
. After her father’s death, her family moved to
Görlitz
Görlitz (; ; ; ; ; Lusatian dialects, East Lusatian: , , ) is a town in the Germany, German state of Saxony. It is on the river Lusatian Neisse and is the largest town in Upper Lusatia, the second-largest town in the region of Lusatia after ...
, where she studied piano with
Eberhard Wenzel. She later studied music in Dresden, Breslau, and Weimar, and passed her state examination in Weimar in 1945. She worked as a music teacher and at Weimar Radio, composing art songs and folk songs. In 1950, Schüppel found a job in East Berlin, where she gave harpsichord and clavichord recitals and studied the
trautonium
The Trautonium is an electronic synthesizer invented in 1930 by Friedrich Trautwein in Berlin at the Musikhochschule's music and radio lab, the Rundfunkversuchstelle. Soon afterward Oskar Sala joined him, continuing development until Sala's de ...
(an early electronic synthesizer) with
Oskar Sala. She worked at the German University of Music (today the
Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin) until 1957 when she moved to West Berlin to focus on music therapy. She traveled throughout Europe and studied or collaborated with Hans-Heinrich Engel,
Karl König
Karl König (25 September 1902 – 27 March 1966) was an Austrian paediatrician who founded the Camphill Movement, an international movement of therapeutic intentional community, intentional communities for those with special needs or disabilitie ...
, Anny von Lange, Hermann Pfrogner, Edmund Pracht, Gotthard Starke, and Rudolph Treichler.
Together with Hildegard Prym,
Schüppel developed the
anthroposophical music therapy (AnMt) training course in Berlin at the Musiktherapeutische Arbeitsstätte (Center for Music Therapy) in 1963 and directed it until 1993.
AnMt was based on an approach developed by
Rudolph Steiner to address the patient’s spiritual health as well as his or her physical health. In 1994, the German Society of Music Therapy awarded Schüppel with honorary membership for her work in developing the field of music therapy.
Maria Schüppel died in Berlin.
Schüppel’s compositions included:
Chamber
*''Mercury Bath'' (lyre)
*''Music in Three Movements in the Baroque Style'' (lyre)
*''Suite'' (lyre)
*''Zweistimmige Fassung der Festmusiken'' (soprano and alto lyres)
*''Trio in C-Dur'' (soprano recorder, treble recorder and guitar), composed in 1953, edited by Bruno Henze in "Das Gitarrespiel", vol. 15a (
Friedrich Hofmeister Musikverlag, Leipzig 1964)
Vocal
*art songs
*“Auf dem Mond” (voice and lyre)
*folk songs
*“Solve et Coagula: Raunendes Feuer” (voice and electronics; text is Feuerlied from the Celtic myth “Die Kinder des LIr”)
References
External links
Listen to music by Maria Schüppel
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schuppel, Maria
German women composers
Music therapists
1923 births
2011 deaths