Lily Reiff

Lily Sertorius Bamberger Reiff (21 June 1866 - 8 May 1958) was a German composer and pianist who spent much of her life in Switzerland. A patron of the arts as well as a musician, she helped found Switzerland’s first chamber orchestra. Her music was composed under the name Lily Bamberger Sertorius through opus 11 and later under the name Lily Reiff. Biography Reiff was born in Bamberg, Germany. She studied at the Music Academy in Munich for two years before moving to Weimar in 1883 to study with Franz Liszt for a year. She also studied with Ludwig Thuille in Munich and with Max Conrad and Friedrich Hegar in Zurich. As a student, Reiff presented concerts for charity with the violinist Adolf Busch, who was a friend of her family. Reiff toured as a concert pianist from 1885 to 1888, when she married professor Eugen Bamberger. In 1891, she married the manufacturer and cellist Hermann Reiff. The Reiffs hosted weekly tea recitals at their home, where young musicians performed and networked. They also managed a concert series at the Lilienberg retirement home in Affoltern am Albis, sometimes performing themselves. A 1951 Zürcher Woche magazine profile of Reiff focused on her patronage of