Marya Naomi Henschel

New York Times May 24, 1966. p. 42

MARYA FREUND, 89 A MEZZO-SOPRANO

Early Interpreter of modern Music Dies in Paris

Special to the New York Times PARIS, May 23

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Marya Freund, mezzo-soprano who helped introduce the works of Mahler, Schoenberg, Satie and Falla, dies here Saturday morning. She was 89 years old. Miss Freund's career formed a link between Brahms, who was a friend of her family's, and the musical world of to- day. For the last 30 years she taught singing her. Among her pupils were Germaine Lu- bin and Jennie Tourel. She also gave annual courses in song in- terpretation until recently. The former Marya Henschel was born in Wroclaw, Poland, then called Breslau. Miss Freund early moved to Berlin and Paris. She was married to the late Walther Freund. She studied voice with Julius Stockhausen and violin with Pablo de Sarasate, then became a friend and performer of mod- ern music, being the first to sing some of the earliest pieces written in the 12-tone scale. She was a Chevalier of the Le- gion of Honor. She gave reci- tals in the United States in the early nineteen-twenties. Miss Freund's son, Doda Con- rad, a singer and impresario, recounts that during the war she was arrested for deporta- tion from Paris. She escaped from an infirmary ward by feigning insanity and walking past the guards.