Max Temming [Themming]
Documents associated with this person:
German industrialist, patron of the arts.
Career Summary
Max Temming was the proprietor of the firm Peter Temming, a cotton bleachery, flax processing and papermaking plant founded in 1911 in Glückstadt near Hamburg. His private address in 1925 was Hamburg 37, Parkallee 65. Temming was also active as a patron of the arts in Hamburg, and in the summer of 1923 founded an ensemble modeled on Schoenberg's Verein für musikalische Privataufführungen (Society for Private Musical Performances, which had been founded in Vienna in 1918 and ceased activity in 1921). A letter from Schoenberg to Temming about the ensemble, which Schoenberg refers to as the "Hamburg project," and for which Josef Rufer was his contact, dates from June 28, 1923.
Temming, Schenker, and Moriz Violin
Moriz Violin, who was living in Hamburg at the time, became acquainted with Temming in 1923, and approached him on July 13 of that year with a view to his supporting the distribution of Schenker's Der Tonwille. Temming is mentioned in several of Violin's letters to Schenker (including OC 52/644, April 21, 1925). In December 1923, a plan was mooted in which Schenker would go to Hamburg and give a recital in Temming's house before invited musicians and critics, possibly linked to Furtwängler's presence (OJ 3/6, pp. 2610, 2614). Temming caused Albert J. Gutmann in December 1924 to send one copy of each of seven issues of Der Tonwille to music-historical seminars of the universities of Berlin, Bonn, Breslau, Freiburg, Leipzig, Königsberg, Halle, Göttingen, Munich, and Frankfurt at a cost of 355 Marks (OC 52/619), and later purchased copies of issues 7, 8/9, and 10 (OC 52/643).
Correspondence with Schenker
One letter from Temming to Schenker is known to survive (OC 52/621: February 17, 1925), and two relevant invoices also survive (OC 52/619 and 643: December 3, 1924, March 15, 1925). Schenker frequently spelt his name "Thömming," "Töning," and other variants.
Sources:
- Möller, Reimer, Eine Küstenregion im politisch-sozialen Umbruch (1860–1933): Die Folgen der Industrialisierung im Landkreis Steinburg (Elbe) = Veröffentlichungen des Hamburger Arbeitskreises für Regionalgeschichte (Hamburg: Lit Verlag, 2007), pp. 264–65
- Stein, Erwin, Arnold Schoenberg: Letters (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), pp. 96–97.
- website: Sirius Ensemble
Contributors:
- Marko Deisinger, with Ian Bent