Music

From the left, top: Leonie Stämpfli, wife of Wilhelm Stämpfli, publisher in Bern, Mia Hesse, wife of Hermann Hesse, Hanni Brun, wife of Fritz Brun. In the middle: Ilona Durigo, Hungarian singer, Caroline Lauterburg-Diedel, wife of Albert Lauterburg, Hermann Hesse, Gustav Gamper, writer, painter and musician, Albert Lauterburg, merchant and Member of the Municipality of Bern. Bottom: Othmar Schoeck, Fritz Brun, Alphonse Brun, violinist (not related to Fritz Brun).

Music had had an important role in Hesse's life since his childhood. His mother played the piano and sang, the children learnt to play an instrument and together performed concerts at home. Hermann was devoted to violin until he was 15, then passed the instrument to his brother Hans. His active relation to music stopped, however he remained a keen listener all his life. His first wife, Mia, played the piano, so already at the time of Gaienhofen the family could enjoy music even without a gramophone or radio.
Until the end of the twenties, in Basel and Bern, Hesse made friends with many musicians, composers and singers. Together they listened to numerous concerts. He talked with them about music and composers and appreciated them as travelling companions during his trips to Italy.

His most important musician friends were: Othmar Schoeck, Fritz Brun, Alphonse Brun, Volkmar Andreae, Ilona Durigo and Hermann Suter. In the following years, when Hermann Hesse's life became more sedentary with aging, radio concerts became increasingly important.

Even though in The Steppenwolf there is a reference to the radio as capable of broadcasting only a «disgusting mucilage» of sounds, Hesse consciously enjoyed his favourite music pieces, in particular on holidays such as Easter, Pentecost and Christmas.

When he was young he appreciated Chopin, as well as Brahms and Wagner, though later in his life he stopped listening to these latter two composers, in particular to Wagner.

All his life he loved Schubert, Schumann, Händel and especially Mozart and Johann Sebastian Bach.
Among the composers who set music to Hesse's poems, he admired and praised only his friend Othmar Schoeck.