Eduard Steuermann
Eduard Steuermann (June 18, 1892 in Sambor, Austro-Hungarian Empire – November 11, 1964 in New York City) was an Austrian (and later American) pianist and composer.
Steuermann studied piano with Vilém Kurz at the Lemberg Conservatory and Ferruccio Busoni in Berlin, and studied composition with Engelbert Humperdinck and Arnold Schoenberg.[1] He played the piano part in the first performance of Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire and premiered his Piano Concerto. He continued his association with Schoenberg as a pianist for the composer's Society for Private Musical Performances in Vienna, and made an arrangement for piano trio of Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht. He performed in the radio premiere of Schoenberg's "Ode to Napoleon Bonaparte" with the New York Philharmonic under Artur Rodziński on November 26, 1944. In 1952 he was awarded the Schoenberg Medal by the International Society for Contemporary Music. He taught at the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik at Darmstadt.
Steuermann, whose parents were non-practising Jews,[2] emigrated to the United States in 1938[1] to escape the anti-Semitic policies of Nazi Germany. He was famed for his Beethoven recitals of the 1950s and was a distinguished teacher, teaching at the Juilliard School from 1952 to 1964.[1] In America he was known as Edward Steuermann. Among the prominent performers who studied with Steuermann are Alfred Brendel, Jakob Gimpel, Moura Lympany, Menahem Pressler, Stephen Pruslin, Avraham Sternklar, Russell Sherman, and Beatrice Witkin. He also taught philosopher Theodor W. Adorno, composer Gunther Schuller and theorists Edward T. Cone and David Lewin.
In 1964 he died of leukemia. In 1989, the University of Nebraska Press published a collection of Steuermann's writings entitled, The Not Quite Innocent Bystander: Writings of Edward Steuermann (ISBN 0803241917). The book was co-edited by Clara Steuermann, David H. Porter and Gunther Schuller.
A major work by Steuermann, Variations for Orchestra, is published (large score available) by Philharmusica Co., New York.
The actress and screenwriter Salka Viertel was his sister. The footballer Zygmunt Steuermann was his younger brother.[3] Steuermann married Clara Silvers, a pianist and noted music librarian, in 1949.[1]
Notes
- ^ a b c d Edward and Clara Steuermann collection, 1922-1981 Library of Congress
- ^ "Eduard Steuermann", Lexikon verfolgter Musiker und Musikerinnen der NS-Zeit, Institut für Historische Musikwissenschaft, University of Hamburg (in German)
- ^ Melnyk, Lidia (2021). "Steuermann, Gimpel, Baller – Between the Vienna Dream and Hollywood Reality: World-Famous Jewish Pianists and Their Routes From Galicia to Vienna and the USA". In Pijarowska, Aleksandra (ed.). Music – The Cultural Bridge: Essence, Context, References (PDF). Wrocław: Karol Lipiński Academy of Music. p. 113. Retrieved 30 June 2022.
Further reading
- Elliott, Carter (1966). "Edward Steuermann". The Musical Quarterly (52). Cary, North Carolina: 93ff. ISSN 0027-4631.
External links
- 1892 births
- 1964 deaths
- People from Sambir
- Austrian classical pianists
- American classical pianists
- Male classical pianists
- American male pianists
- Austrian classical composers
- American male classical composers
- American classical composers
- Jewish classical pianists
- Second Viennese School
- Lviv Conservatory alumni
- Jewish emigrants from Austria to the United States after the Anschluss
- Pupils of Arnold Schoenberg
- 20th-century classical composers
- 20th-century classical pianists
- 20th-century American pianists
- 20th-century American composers
- 20th-century American male musicians