William Steinberg
William Steinberg (born August 1, 1899 in Cologne ; died May 16, 1978 in New York City ; born as Hans Wilhelm Steinberg ) was an American conductor of German origin.
Life
Steinberg first studied piano and violin and then orchestral conducting with Hermann Abendroth at the Cologne Conservatory . In 1924 he became Otto Klemperer's assistant at the Cologne Opera . From 1925 to 1929 he was musical director of the German State Theater in Prague . From 1929 to 1933 he moved to the Frankfurt Opera , where, among other things, he conducted the world premiere of Schönberg's From Today to Tomorrow and some of the museum concerts there. From 1933 he suffered as a Jew under the reprisals of the National Socialists , who limited his appearances to concerts for the Jüdischer Kulturbund ; he therefore had to emigrate in 1936.
Together with the violinist Bronisław Huberman , he founded the Palestine Symphony Orchestra (today: Israel Philharmonic Orchestra ) in 1936 and was its first chief conductor for two years. In 1938 Arturo Toscanini brought him to the USA, where he was initially deputy conductor of the NBC Symphony Orchestra. The other stations of his career were: Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra (1945 to 1952), Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (1952 to 1976), London Philharmonic Orchestra (1958 to 1960) and the Boston Symphony Orchestra (1969 to 1972).
During his conducting career he performed Aaron Copland's ballet suite Billy the Kid (1940), Lukas Foss ' Symphony of Chorals (1958) and Roger Sessions ' Symphony No. 8 (1968) for the world premiere and Paul Hindemith's Pittsburgh Symphony (1959) for the US premiere.
literature
- Alain Pâris: Lexicon of Performers of Classical Music in the 20th Century . dtv / Bärenreiter, Munich / Kassel 1992, p. 698, ISBN 3-423-03291-X .
- Steinberg, William , in: Joseph Walk (ed.): Short biographies on the history of the Jews 1918–1945 . Munich: Saur, 1988, ISBN 3-598-10477-4 , p. 351
- Steinberg, William , in: Werner Röder; Herbert A. Strauss (Ed.): International Biographical Dictionary of Central European Emigrés 1933–1945 . Volume 2.2. Munich: Saur, 1983 ISBN 3-598-10089-2 , p. 1113
Web links
- Works by and about William Steinberg in the catalog of the German National Library
- William Steinberg at Discogs (English)
- Short biography on the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra website
- Biography on the website of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra ( Memento from December 29, 2002 in the Internet Archive )
- Lily E. Hirsch, Sophie Fetthauer: William Steinberg in the dictionary of persecuted musicians of the Nazi era (LexM)
Individual evidence
George Henschel (1881–1884) | Wilhelm Gericke (1884–1889) | Arthur Nikisch (1889-1893) | Emil Paur (1893–1898) | Wilhelm Gericke (1898–1906) | Karl Muck (1906–1908) | Max Fiedler (1908–1912) | Karl Muck (1912–1918) | Henri Rabaud (1918–1919) | Pierre Monteux (1919–1924) | Sergei Alexandrowitsch Kusewizki (1924–1949) | Charles Münch (1949–1962) | Erich Leinsdorf (1962–1969) | William Steinberg (1969–1972) | Seiji Ozawa (1973-2002) | James Levine (2004-2011) | Andris Nelsons (since 2014)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Steinberg, William |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Steinberg, Hans Wilhelm (real name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American conductor of German origin |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 1, 1899 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Cologne |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 16, 1978 |
| Place of death | New York City |