Eduard Steuermann

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Eduard Steuermann (also known as Edward Steuermann in America ; born June 18, 1892 in Sambor near Lemberg , Galicia , Austria-Hungary ; died November 11, 1964 in New York ) was an Austrian - American pianist , composer , piano teacher and university teacher . He was the principal pianist of Schoenberg -Kreises and brought numerous piano and piano chamber music to premiere . In 1951 he became professor of piano at the Juilliard School in New York City.

Life

Steuermann came from a wealthy and enlightened Galician- Jewish family. His birthplace Sambor was part of Austria-Hungary and is located in today's Ukraine. The father Joseph Steuermann, who holds a doctorate in law, worked as mayor and lawyer. Steuermann had three siblings, including the actress and screenwriter Salomea (Salka) Steuermann (1889–1978) and the Polish national soccer player Zygmunt Steuermann , who was a victim of the Holocaust . Salka was married to the Viennese writer and director Berthold Viertel , the youngest sister Rosa (Ruzia) (1891–1972) to the actor, director and artistic director Josef Gielen . The conductor and composer Michael Gielen is the helmsman's nephew.

From his mother Augusta Steuermann (died 1952), b. Amstel, he received his first piano lessons. From 1904 until graduation in 1910, he received private lessons from the Lemberger Piano Professor Vilém short . He recommended him to Ferruccio Busoni , the helmsman in a Basel master class in 1910; In 1911/12 he studied in Berlin. He also took up studies in Engelbert Humperdinck's master school for composition at the Royal Academy of Arts in Berlin. In 1912 Humperdinck referred it to Arnold Schönberg because of different aesthetic views , with whom he studied in Berlin until 1914; In 1921 he briefly received lessons from Schönberg's student Anton Webern . During the First World War in 1915 he was drafted into military service. He spent the war mostly in the medical administration in Przemyśl.

After the war he moved to Vienna, where he also taught. He met his first wife Hilda Merinsky (1898–1988). He was married to her from 1922 to 1927 and had one child. From 1932 to 1936 he taught in Lwow and Krakow (Poland). He worked as a pianist and "lecturer" from 1918 to 1921 in the Association for Private Musical Performances in Vienna and played works of Viennese Modernism as well as Russian and French works. In Vienna he often accompanied Karl Kraus' recitation evenings at the piano. In 1923 he became a member of the piano trio of the violinist Fritz Rothschild and the cellist Joachim Stutschewsky . In 1912 he also joined the Vienna Pierrot Ensemble under Erwin Stein , which performed in Europe in the 1920s. From 1923 he played in concerts of the International Society for New Music a . a. at the World Music Days in Frankfurt am Main in 1927, in Prague in 1935 and in Haifa in 1954.

Eduard Steuermann gave a piano seminar in Darmstadt in 1957

In 1936 he emigrated to the USA: In May / June he traveled on board the passenger ship RMS Berengaria from Southampton to Santa Monica , California, where his older sister Salka was already living. He stayed there for two years, after which he settled in New York. From 1939 he attended the concerts of the New School for Social Research , where he taught in 1940/41. With Paul Dessau and Ernst Krenek he planned a Schönberg association. In 1940 he organized the "Contemporary Concerts" together with Roger Sessions and Mark Brunswick . In 1944 he was a lecturer in the summer course at Black Mountain College near Asheville, North Carolina. In the same year he received US citizenship . In 1948 he became a piano teacher at the Philadelphia Conservatory of Music and the Philadelphia Musical Academy . After the "Summer Sessions" in 1951 he became professor of piano at the Juilliard School in New York City. He also regularly gave master classes in Europe a. a. At the Mozarteum in Salzburg (1952/1962), Hanover and Dartington (Devon) as well as in 1954, 1957, 1958 and 1960 he taught at the International Summer Courses for New Music in Darmstadt.

His circle of students included u. a. Alfred Brendel , Lili Kraus , Georg Knepler , Theodor W. Adorno , Jerome Lowenthal , Charlotte Eisler , Andor Losonczy , Viktor Ullmann , Jacob Gimpel , Hermann Grab , Weitzmann, Charlotte Demant , Josefa Rosanska , Menahem Pressler , Natalie Hinderas , Lorin Hollander , Joseph Kalichstein , Moura Lympany , Erika Haase , Joan Rowland , Thomas McIntosh , Howard Lebow , Irwin Freundlich and Russell Sherman .

In 1949 he married his and Schönberg's former pupil, the pianist and music librarian Clara Silvers (1922–82), with whom he had two children. In 1964 Steuermann died of leukemia . The documents from his estate and those of his wife were given to the Music Division of the Library of Congress in Washington, DC for archiving. Printed music and other documents with specific reference to Arnold Schönberg and the Vienna School are now in the Arnold Schönberg Center in Vienna. In New York, the Edward Steuermann Memorial Society and the Edward Steuermann Memorial Prize were founded.

meaning

Steuermann was the main pianist of the Schönberg circle. He premiered a number of Schönberg's piano compositions, and in 1912 he was involved in the premiere of Pierrot Lunaire . In 1944 he achieved his pianistic breakthrough with the world premiere (together with the NBC Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski ) of Schönberg's Piano Concerto op. 42 . In addition, he brought works by Adorno, Berg, Webern and Eisler a . a. for the premiere. He took on the German premiere of Claude Debussy's 12 Etudes .

While the concept of the Second Viennese School is generally associated with Schoenberg's students Alban Berg and Anton Webern , Eduard Steuermann is known as a brilliant pianist, but as a composer he has remained almost unknown. Theodor W. Adorno , who was friends with Steuermann, also studied with him in 1924. Steuermann considered Adorno "one of the most original and strangest composers of our time, everything more than what one imagines as a composing pianist, the best and strictest Schönberg school, with a very unique [...] tone", whose " Music in its dark and often enigmatic intertwining, also a very deep-seated and by no means folkloristically identifiable Jewish element [...] something genuinely Kafka-like ”.

Works

Steuermann's compositions, which are still largely unprinted to this day, include numerous piano pieces, including the 1924 and 1954 revised sonata, the rediscovery of which Maria Luisa Lopez-Vito made a name for in numerous performances; Chamber music for various ensembles, orchestral variations and an orchestral suite as well as many songs, etc. a. on texts by Kafka , Hofmannsthal and Brecht . He also made piano reductions for the compositions Expectation and The Happy Hand of Schönberg and transcribed his Chamber Symphony No. 1 for piano. - Steuermann edited several volumes for the Brahms edition of the Universal Edition .

Awards

  • 1952: Schönberg Medal from the International Society for New Music
  • 1962: Honorary Doctorate from the Philadelphia Musical Academy
  • Honorary member of the Florence Academy of Music

Fonts

Record recordings

Edward Steuermann recorded two records with piano music by Ferruccio Busoni (Contemporary S 8501) and Arnold Schoenberg (Columbia ML 5216) in the USA around 1960.

CD

  • Kolja Lessing and Herbert Henck: Hommage à Eduard Steuermann, Tacet C 186 (2 CDs, 1957/2009)
  • Ravinia Trio: Trio for piano, violin and violoncello (1954), Transfigured Night (transcription for piano trio by Eduard Steuermann; composition by Arnold Schönberg), Divox 1992.
  • Bruce Brubaker: Steuermann Sonata for Piano (1926), Vital Music 1994.

literature

Lexica entries
Other literature
  • Theodor W. Adorno: Collected writings. Vol. 17, 18. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 2003, ISBN 3-518-06511-4 , pp. 311 ff., 195 ff.
    (After Steuermann's death (1964) and Eduard Steuermann's Brahms edition (1932))
  • The composers Eduard Steuermann and Theodor W. Adorno. From their correspondence. In: Adorno notes. Edited by Rolf Tiedemann . Galerie Wewerka-Edition, Berlin 1984, ISBN 3-924306-14-1 , p. 40 ff.
  • Elliott Carter : Edward Steuermann. In: The Musical Quarterly. Cary NC 52. 1966, ISSN  0027-4631 , p. 93 ff.
  • René Leibowitz : Il silenzio di Eduard Steuermann. In: L'Approdo Musicale Torino 19/20, 1965, p. 229 ff.
  • Salka Viertel: The Unteachable Heart: Memories of a life with artists in the 20th century ; translated by Helmut Degner. Eichborn, Frankfurt a. M. 2010, ISBN 978-3-8218-6235-4 .
  • Volker Rülke: The composer Eduard Steuermann (Studies and Materials for Musicology, Volume 20), Hildesheim 2000.

Web links

Commons : Eduard Steuermann  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Entry in the Central Database of the Names of Holocaust Victims at the Yad Vashem Memorial
  2. ↑ Salka Viertel: The Unteachable Heart ; P. 104.
  3. ↑ SCM WMD 1927 Frankfurt , www.iscm.org, accessed on January 7, 2018.
  4. ↑ SCM WMD 1935 Prague , www.iscm.org, accessed on January 7, 2018.
  5. ↑ SCM WMD 1954 Haifa , www.iscm.org, accessed on January 7, 2018.
  6. ↑ Salka Viertel: The Unteachable Heart ; P. 211.
  7. ↑ Joachim Kronsbein: Interview with Spiegel: “Don't count, tell!” Interview with Alfred Brendel . In: Der Spiegel . No. 31 , 2012, p. 134–136, here p. 135 ( online - July 30, 2012 ).
  8. ^ Clara Steuermann , obituary in: Österreichische Musikzeitschrift , 1982
  9. ↑ Edward helmsman Collection , www.schoenberg.at, accessed on January 29, 2019
personal data
SURNAME Helmsman, Eduard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Helmsman, Edward
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian-American composer and pianist
DATE OF BIRTH June 18, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH Sambor
DATE OF DEATH November 11, 1964
Place of death new York