Sophie Menter was the favorite student of Franz Liszt, who held master classes in Weimar every summer between 1869 and 1886. Called "the incarnation of Liszt" for her robust, electrifying playing, she was considered one of the greatest piano virtuosos of her time. Her playing style was described as "a blend of virtuosity and elegance; a great, round and full Lisztian tone; a fiery temperament; a thoroughly distinguished craftsmanship of form and shape in which soul, spirit and technique are fused in harmony."
Sophie Menter was born in Munich on July 29, 1846, the daughter of the cellist Joseph Menter. She received her first piano lessons from Sigmund Lebert, who worked in Munich at the time and later founded the Stuttgart Music School. After her father's death in 1857, she studied at the Royal Conservatory with Rheinberger, Leonhard and Julius von Kolb, and finally privately with Friedrich Niest until her successful debut on November 24, 1862, in a concert at the Munich Academy of Music - she played Carl Maria von Weber's Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, conducted by Franz Lachner.
[Sophie Menter]
Sophie Menter's first concert appearances took her to Stuttgart, Frankfurt, and Switzerland, and in 1867 she won acclaim for her interpretation of Liszt's piano music at the Leipzig Gewandhaus. In Berlin, Menter met the famous pianist Carl Tausig; after studying with Tausig and Hans von Bülow, she became a student in Liszt's master class in 1869. Liszt considered Sophie Menter to be the best pianist of her time. Liszt especially admired her "singing hand".
On June 3, 1872, she married the cellist David Popper (1843-1913) in the Vienna City Hall, with whom she had a daughter. Prior to their marriage, the two had performed together regularly for several years. Their marriage lasted until 1886. In 1881, Sophie Menter made her first appearance in England and two years later was made an honorary member of the Royal Philharmonic Society (the first woman to be admitted).
From 1883 to 1887 she was a professor at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. During this time she established close contacts with Tchaikovsky, Rubinstein and Rimsky-Korsakov. From 1887 to 1902, Sophie Menter lived at Schloss Itter in Tyrol, which she had purchased in 1884, and from 1905 in Stockdorf near Munich. There, in 1903, she built a villa in the style of a Russian farmhouse, popularly known as the "Cat Villa" because of her pets.
Because of her popularity, Menter had success with music that no other pianist would touch. This included Liszt's First Piano Concerto, which she played in Vienna in 1869, 12 years after its disastrous premiere. One of her recital specialties was a piece called Rhapsodies. This was a composite of three of Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsodies-Nos. 2, 6, and 12-along with fragments of several others. She also composed various pieces for piano in a brilliant style. These were mostly waltzes, mazurkas, etudes, and other short pieces.
She wrote one piece for piano and orchestra: the Hungarian Gypsy Melodies. This work has also been attributed to Liszt, but that is wrong - Liszt at most gave her some help in editing her sketches, just as Tchaikovsky seems to have helped her with the orchestration of the second piano part. The concerto was premiered in Odessa in 1893 with Tchaikovsky conducting. It is fresh and engaging music.
Listen to Sophie Menter's Hungarian Gipsy Melodies on YouTube.