Therese Behr-Schnabel

Therese Behr. Photo from 1903.

Therese Behr-Schnabel (born September 14, 1876 in Stuttgart , † January 30, 1959 in Lugano ) was a German contralto and singing teacher. She is considered one of the leading song and concert singers of her time.

She was first a student of Julius Stockhausen in Frankfurt am Main and of Franz Wüllner in Cologne before she moved to Berlin in 1898 in order to be able to take lessons from Elka Gerster . She made her debut in the same year and had her first great success in 1899 with Alfred Reisenauer (student of Franz Liszt ) as a companion. Inspired by her dark alto voice, Richard Strauss dedicated the song Dream through the Twilight to her . Strauss, Reisenauer and her husband Artur Schnabel (married in 1905) were frequent piano accompanists at their performances. She later performed very often with her son Karl Ulrich Schnabel .

During her time in Berlin, the Schnabels' house was a popular meeting place for the music scene. Her husband owes much of his career to the support of his wife, who patronized him and insisted that he appeared as her piano accompanist. Her second son, Stefan Schnabel (1912–1999), became an actor best known in the USA.

After the Nazis came to power, she emigrated to Great Britain with her family . From 1933 to 1939 the Schnabel family lived in Tremezzo on Lake Como in the Villa Ginetta during the summer . The Schnabel School was also located there . This was directed by Peter Diamand, who later became the director of the Holland Festival . Her husband Artur Schnabel taught the pianists, Therese the singers and Szymon Goldberg, who was dismissed by the Nazis as concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic , the violinists. These summer classes were attended by about fifty master students.

In 1937 or 1939 the Schnabel family emigrated to the USA (New York), where they took citizenship in 1944. After the war the family returned to Tremezzo. Therese Behr-Schnabel died in Lugano 8 years after the death of her husband . The family grave is located in the city of Schwyz / Switzerland.

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personal data
SURNAME	Behr-Schnabel, Therese
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German singer
DATE OF BIRTH	September 14, 1876
PLACE OF BIRTH	Stuttgart
DATE OF DEATH	January 30, 1959
Place of death	Lugano