Arma Senkrah (Anna
Loretta Harkness) was an American violinist born (in Williamson, New York) on
June 6, 1864. She had an extraordinary
but very short career (1882-1888) and, as did Patricia Travers much later,
stopped playing and dropped out of sight altogether quite suddenly. Nevertheless, a 1750 G.B. Guadagnini violin (which
Isaac Stern owned and played for more than fifty years) is named after her and
that alone will ensure she is forever remembered. If not for that, then there are also very
famous photos of her and Franz Liszt playing together. In fact, she participated in duo recitals
with several of Liszt’s pupils on several occasions. Her career was spent entirely in Europe. According to almost all sources, her life
ended tragically in Weimar, Germany. Her
mother was her first violin (and piano) teacher. At age 9, she went to Europe with her in
order to pursue more advanced instruction.
(At that time, the U.S. had not yet established a solid framework of
advanced music schools which Americans could rely on to further their
education. The very few American
orchestras then in existence were made up almost entirely of European
musicians.) Between 1873 and 1875,
Senkrah studied in Leipzig with Arno Hilf and, in Brussels, with Henryk
Wieniawski. It is not clear whether
Senkrah was actually enrolled as a student at the Leipzig Conservatory (where
Hilf was a teacher) or the Brussels Conservatory where Wieniawski taught. It is far more likely that, due to her young
age, she studied privately with both teachers.
She is also said to have studied with Henri Vieuxtemps – Vieuxtemps was
teaching at the Brussels Conservatory at the time. From 1875 to 1881, she studied at the Paris
Conservatory with Joseph Lambert Massart and received a first prize in
1881. She was 17 years old. She began almost immediately to concertize
all over Europe, still using her birth name - Harkness. On November 25, 1882, she made her London
debut at the Crystal Palace, playing Vieuxtemps’ fourth concerto, the one in d
minor. The reviewers praised her
highly. It was written that the concerto
was “wonderfully interpreted,” that her tone “was clear and soulful,” and that
“her mastery of the technical possibilities of her instrument left nothing to
be desired.” Wherever she played, the
reviews were just as enthusiastic, if not more.
In Germany, she achieved even greater success. It may have been in the autumn of 1883 that,
at the urging of her German agent, she changed her name to Senkrah. On December 28, 1883, she played the
Mendelssohn concerto at a new theatre in Leipzig. On January 3, 1884 she played at the
Gewandhaus (Leipzig.) And so it went. She was compared to Italian violinist Teresina
Tua who was touring England and Germany at about the same time. Some reviewers made it a point to mention
that Senkrah was Tua’s equal in technique but not in good looks. Ironically, Tua and Senkrah both stopped
playing publicly at about the same time.
On September 30, 1884, she made her debut with the Berlin Philharmonic
with the Vieuxtemps d minor concerto. On
November 13, 1884, she again played with the same orchestra, this time playing
the Wieniawski concerto in d minor. A
critic in 1885 mentioned that she overcame any difficulty “with the greatest of
ease.” In the summer of that year, she
met Franz Liszt. She was welcomed into
his circle of friends and professional colleagues. She was 21 years old. Senkrah and Liszt played Beethoven’s Kreutzer
Sonata (and some of Liszt’s music transcribed for violin and piano) on July 20,
1885. I do not know whether it was a
private or public recital. Several
sources say that Liszt was very fond of her and that they gave many public
concerts together. Her handling of the
violin was then described as “incomparable.”
She also undertook several tours of Austria and Hungary with pupils of
Franz Liszt. In 1886, she was in Russia
and met Tchaikovsky. In 1888, she was
appointed chamber virtuoso to the court of the Grand Duke (Charles Alexander
Augustus John) of Saxony. Karl Halir was the concertmaster of the Grand Ducal Court Orchestra (in Weimar) at the time. On September
5, 1900, the New York Times reported that Arma Senkrah had committed suicide
the previous day. Another source gives
the date of her suicide as September 3.
She was 36 years old. Be that as
it may, it was accepted as fact that she had indeed committed suicide with a
pistol, although it was never confirmed.
In the autumn of 1888, she had met and soon after married a Weimar
attorney surnamed Hofmann (or Hoffman) – nobody seems to know his first name. She had henceforth not played in public. Some sources say her brief marriage was happy
but that she suffered from a disorder of the brain which supposedly rendered
her emotionally unstable. Other sources
say her marriage was unhappy because she suspected her husband of infidelity
and was chronically and hysterically jealous, which eventually resulted in her
ending her life in despair. One source
states that she shot herself through the heart.
Whether it might be true that her husband at one time was infatuated
with an actress is anyone’s guess. One
source claims that to be the case. Senkrah
owned a 1685 Stradivarius violin which bears her name. I do not know who owns it now. She also played the previously-mentioned
Guadagnini. Her mother was forced to
sell both instruments (and perhaps others) when she later became
destitute.
