Leopold Spielmann

Leopold Spielmann (born August 5, 1881 in Vienna , † December 10, 1941 in the Theresienstadt ghetto ) was an Austrian pianist and conductor .

origin

He was the oldest of the six children of Cäcilia born. Neustadtl (March 23, 1859 - May 4, 1902) and Moriz Spielmann (August 23, 1849 - October 20, 1924). Moriz was editor of the illustrated Wiener Extrablatt , literary critic and employee of other magazines. Leopold's siblings were the chess master Rudolf (1883-1942), the actresses Melanie (1885-1927) and Jenny (1889-1964), the clerk and medical student Edgar (1887-1917) and the actress Irma (1894-1939). At first the family lived in modest circumstances and frequently changed homes.

career

When Leopold Spielmann was three years old, Cäcilia recognized his musical talent and had him take lessons from piano teachers. He was soon considered a pianistic prodigy. The pianist Anton Rubinstein introduced Spielmann into the family of the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph , where he was supported by Archduchess Marie Valerie . He gave concerts for members of the imperial family, for example in the summer of 1890 at Lichtenegg Castle . On January 4, 1891, he gave a concert in the Bösendorfer Hall in Vienna . Among the pieces was the Valerie Serenade he composed himself and dedicated to Marie Valerie on the occasion of her marriage. She had announced that she would attend the concert, but did not appear. In August 1891 Spielmann performed in the Kaiservilla in Ischl. On August 7th, in the presence of his mother, he played a one-hour program with pieces by Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, Stephen Heller and again the Valerie Serenade . The audience included Marie Valerie with her lady-in-waiting, Countess Kornis, Gisela of Austria and her husband Leopold of Bavaria and their four children Elisabeth , Auguste Maria Luise of Bavaria, Georg and Konrad . A lost painting by Moritz Ledeli depicts Leopold playing in front of Gisela, Marie Valerie, Emperor Franz Joseph I , Auguste, Elisabeth and Georg in the imperial villa in the presence of his mother on August 10th .

After a long break, Spielmann gave a concert on February 12, 1895 with works by Chopin, Bach, Brahms, Schumann, Grieg and a composition of his own, in which the maturity of his playing technique, his performance and his musical conception was striking. He appeared together with Melanie, who performed several dramatic recitations and at the time had already played children's roles at the Vienna Burgtheater .

Leopold went on a concert tour through Europe with his mother, which took them to Russia. He did not accept the offer to do a tour in the USA afterwards because he had to look after his siblings after their mother was seriously ill.

Spielmann studied at the Vienna Conservatory with Adolf Prosniz , at the Royal Academy of Music in Munich with Bernhard Stavenhagen and finally with Ferruccio Busoni in Berlin. Spielmann was a valued virtuoso and often performed in duo concerts with the violinist Bronisław Huberman , around February 17, 1910 in Alexandria .

Spielmann married his piano student Gertrud Lüdtke in Berlin. Both had five children in total. Leo, who died shortly after his birth, Helmuth (1912–1991) and Irmgard (born 1913) were born in Berlin.

After the end of the First World War, the Spielmann family moved to Gothenburg , where Leopold worked as the conductor of the symphony orchestra . The youngest daughters were Lilly (born 1922) and Ilse (born 1928). In 1928 the family returned to Berlin.

Escape

In 1934 Leopold and his family left Germany because of the National Socialist persecution of the Jews. They fled to Prague without valid passports . There he had to make a living through private lessons. Rudolf, who had left Austria since 1935 and was mostly in Holland, also came to Prague in 1938 after his passport had become invalid due to the " Anschluss of Austria " to the German Reich . While Robert was able to flee to Sweden shortly before the annexation of the Czech Republic , Leopold planned to emigrate to Toronto , from where he had a job offer from the Conservatory . The English Quaker Tessa Rowntree , who organized the departure of refugees in Prague, happened to meet Mary Horder, sister of Ruth Mott, wife of the physicist Nevill Mott , in London . The Motts vouched for Lilly and Ilse, who were able to escape to England on one of the last train trains and despite invalid passports, and were taken in by the Motts until the end of the war. Leopold was hidden by Gertrud in Prague and could not leave the apartment. In autumn 1939 he was arrested by the SS . Gertrud, who opposed Leopold's arrest, and Helmuth were also arrested. Leopold was sent to the Flossenbürg concentration camp in 1941 . He died on December 10, 1941 in the Theresienstadt ghetto. Helmuth was also sent to a concentration camp , where he suffered a physical handicap due to forced labor . Jenny and Irma, who lived in Holland and worked as managers of a hotel, were also deported to a concentration camp after the German attack. While Irma was murdered in October 1939, Jenny survived but suffered from depression throughout her life .

Rudolf had lived in Stockholm since 1939 , from where he maintained correspondence between Gertrud and her children. He worked there on his memoirs and hoped to be able to emigrate to America, but met with rejection from some pro-Nazi members of the Swedish Chess Federation. He died on August 20, 1942 under circumstances that were not fully understood.

Afterlife

In 1949 Lilly married the British naval officer Michael Gill (d. 1965), with whom she had three sons. In the mid-1990s, with the support of Nevill Mott, she tried unsuccessfully to clarify the whereabouts of Ledeli's painting.

When Rudolf-Spielmann-Platz was inaugurated on July 10, 2011 in Vienna , u. a. Leopold's granddaughter Leonie Christenson also attended with her family.

literature

• Michael Ehn : The Spielmann family - an Austrian tragedy in Ders. (Ed.): Rudolf Spielmann, Portrait of a Chess Master , Fink, Koblenz 1996, other versions:
  • Rudolf Spielmann - an Austrian tragedy, Schach-Report 5, 1996, pp. 70–74.
  • Rudolf Spielmann Platz opened in Vienna , commemorative speech by Michael Ehn, Austrian Chess Federation , July 12, 2011 (with illustrations).
• Elisabeth Lebensaft:  Spielmann Leopold (Poldi). In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 13, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 2007–2010, ISBN 978-3-7001-6963-5 , p. 25.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Concerte, Deutsche Kunst- und Musikzeitung , Issue 3, 1891, pages 26-27
2. ↑ Illustrated Wiener Extrablatt , August 11, 1891, based on M. Ehn: The Spielmann Family - an Austrian Tragedy, online version ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked . Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
3. ↑ An illustration based on Ledeli's painting and a report were published in the Illustrated Wiener Extrablatt on November 8, 1891 on the title page. Michael Ehn assumes that dates and places were confused in this report, M. Ehn: Die Familie Spielmann - an Austrian tragedy, online version ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . 
4. ^ Otto von Kapff, Concerte, Deutsche Kunst- und Musikzeitung , No. 5, 1895, page 63
5. ↑ Alexander S. Ruppa: Huberman in Egypt - the artist and the man, The Strad , February 1934, online version
6. ↑ ^{a b} Lilly Gill: A Miraculous Escape, in: Edward A. Davis (Ed.): Nevill Mott, Reminiscences and Appreciations , Taylor & Francis, London 1998, pp. 24-27
7. ↑ M. Ehn: The Spielmann family - an Austrian tragedy, online version ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
8. ↑ Martin Broszat, Elke Fröhlich (ed.): Bavaria in the Nazi era II. Rule and Society in Conflict, Part A , Oldenbourg, Munich 1979, page 461
9. ↑ On Lilly Gill's search for the painting, an article published on March 4 and 15, 1996 in the London Times .