Martha (von) Sabinin (Russian: Marfa Stepanowna Sabinina, 1831-1892) was born in Denmark, grew up in Germany, was socialized in European culture, spent half her life in Russia and died in the Crimea. Music determined the first half of her life, service to the next the second, and her multifaceted and unusual biography unfolded between the cornerstones of Weimar and Odessa. Martha Sabinin took advantage of the manifold suggestions that the cultural Weimar offered her: lessons at the painting school founded by Goethe, singing lessons with tenors Heinrich Theodor Knaust (1805-1865) and Franz Götze (1814-1888), participation in the Singverein, in their own and Foreign music evenings and at soirees at court, but above all piano and theory lessons with Gustav Kellner (1809-1849) and the Hummel student Johann Gottlob Töpfer (1791-1870) gave her a varied basic musical education, which soon turned towards the piano deepened:
In 1850 the 19-year-old traveled to Leipzig and Düsseldorf to take lessons with Clara Schumann and with Robert Schumann’s assistant Julius Tausch (1827–1895). In Weimar, Franz Liszt of-fered her in 1853 to receive lessons from him and his pupil Peter Cornelius (1824–1874). In par-allel, she gave piano lessons herself, both privately and at the Weimar Sophien-Stift (an institute for noble young girls), and also worked as a piano teacher at the Weimar court, where she re-ceived the title of Weimar court pianist. First concerts in Germany and Russia showed that Mar-tha Sabinin was determined to pursue a career as a professional musician.
Her connection to the highest aristocracy then opened up a different, more or less second life for her: in 1860 she was appointed music teacher and educator at the St. Petersburger Zarenhof for eight years. As great as this honor was – working for the Russian ruling family meant the end of her public concerts because she was not allowed to practice as a lady-in-waiting. From then on, religious, charitable and social engagement took the place of the artistic: from 1866 to 1868 Sab-inin, alongside Tsarina Maria Alexandrovna (1824–1880), campaigned for the establishment of a Russian section of the Red Cross and in 1868 joined her Rulers founded orders of the Sisters of Mercy.
During the Franco-Prussian War, the Empress sent her to the affected areas in 1870/71, sent her to Belgrade in 1876 to set up a field hospital, and to Romania during the Russian-Turkish War in 1877/78, where Martha Sabinin looked after hospitals and outpatient clinics volunteered for war nursing and received a total of six medals.
The retreat of her friend Baroness Maria Frederiks’ estate in the Crimea. Here Martha Sabinin initiated the construction of a hospital and a church, headed the associated community, grew wine and wrote memoirs.
After the murder of her mother and her four sisters in 1892, she died of a stroke in December 1892, as the last member of her large family.
Martha Sabinin published a total of 22 songs and a ballad for voice and piano (op. 1 to 4 and two single songs based on texts by the Russian poet Fjodor Tjutschew) as well as a collection of eleven piano pieces. Further manuscripts and the drafts of an opera must be considered lost to-day. Whatever appeared in the print was accepted without exception.
