Artur Schnabel

Artur Schnabel ( born April 17, 1882 in Kunz village near Biala (Galicia ); † August 15, 1951 in Axenstein near Morschach, Canton of Schwyz, Switzerland ) was an Austrian pianist and composer.

Life

Artur Schnabel was born into a Jewish family and was the youngest of three children. His parents were Isidor Schnabel, a textile merchant, and his wife Ernestine Dove ( born Labin). He had two sisters. He grew up in poverty. As a child he moved to Vienna, where he was a pupil of Hans Schmidt and Teodor Leszetycki. There he had his debut in 1890. 1900 Schnabel moved to Berlin in 1905 where he married the contralto Therese Behr - Schnabel ( 1876-1959 ), with whom he appeared in numerous recitals. In 1911 he played with the violinist Karl Klingler, cellist Arthur Williams and the Berlin Philharmonic, the Triple Concerto by Ludwig van Beethoven, which brought him international attention.

He established close friendships with Ernst Krenek and Eduard Erdmann. In a performance of Schoenberg 's Pierrot lunaire Schnabel played the piano part. 1933, immediately after Hitler came to power, Beak emigrated with his family to the UK. From 1933 to 1939, the family lived in the beak summer in Tremezzo on Lake Como at Villa Ginetta. There was also the beak - school. This was led by Peter Diamand, who later became director of the Holland Festival. Artur Schnabel taught the pianist, his wife Therese, the singer and dismissed by the Nazis as concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Szymon Goldberg, the violinist. These summer classes were attended by about fifty master students. 1939 the family emigrated to the United States beak. With its made ​​there symphonies Artur Schnabel had a strong influence on the American new music, notably in Roger Sessions.

The mother Artur Schnabel had not left Austria in 1938. She was deported from Vienna to Theresienstadt in August 1942 and died on October 4, 1942, to the terrible conditions in the ghetto. After the war, Schnabel returned to Tremezzo.

Schnabel was as a performer, a staunch advocate of faithfulness. He devoted himself mainly compositions, Schnabel, " are better than you can perform them." However, he played almost exclusively the old classical repertoire. Arnold Schoenberg commented in a letter to Carl Engel: " His point of view seems to me not only silly, but almost criminal. I mean, it is the first duty of a true artist to play contemporary music. Had all artists behaved as he did, so the works of the greatest masters would still not the public's ear. " Schnabel's emphasis on the works of Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Schumann and Mozart, which he also edited part. In the twenties, he played the entire cycle of Beethoven sonatas. He is also regarded as the discoverer of the then underrated piano sonatas of Schubert. No composer, Schnabel, "be closer to God than just Schubert ".

Even as a piano teacher beak was of paramount importance. His students included, among many others Lili Kraus, Clifford Curzon, Claude Frank, Dinu Lipatti, Leon Fleisher and Wladyslaw Szpilman. Konrad Wolff has published over interpretation theory and practice of his teacher firsthand.

As a composer, Schnabel was strongly influenced by Arnold Schoenberg. His extensive compositional oeuvre includes three symphonies, five string quartets and numerous chamber music works. Interpretive sat especially the American violinist and conductor Paul Zukofsky for a beak works. Since 2001, most compositional autographs are kept in the Berlin Academy of Arts. Here, it came in the same year to a series of concerts with the beak works.

Schnabel's recordings are an integral part of the discography repertoire. From him comes the first standard-setting complete recording of the 32 Beethoven piano sonatas on LP, recorded in the years 1932-1937 for His Master's Voice. As an example also his Schubert recordings are. With his son, pianist Karl Ulrich Schnabel (1909-2001), Schnabel played a numerous piano duet works. Another son was the actor Stefan Schnabel ( 1912-1999 ).

On 8 May 1905, he took on fifteen piano pieces for the Welte-Mignon reproducing piano, certainly the oldest of his traditional shots.

Compositions ( in chronological order )

  • Concerto for Piano and Orchestra ( 1899)
  • Many early songs for voice and piano
  • Piano Quintet (1915 /16)
  • Notturno for voice and piano, on a text by Richard Dehmel
  • String Quartet No. 1 in D minor (1917 )
  • Sonata for solo violin (1919)
  • Dance Suite for Piano ( 1921)
  • String Quartet No. 2 ( 1921)
  • String Quartet No. 3 (1922 )
  • Piano Sonata (1923 )
  • String Quartet No. 4 (1930 )
  • Sonata for cello solo ( 1931)
  • Sonata for Violin and Piano ( 1935)
  • String Trio (1935 )
  • Rhapsody for Orchestra
  • Symphony No. 1 (1938 )
  • String Quartet No. 5 (1940 )
  • Symphony No. 2 ( 1941-43 )
  • Piano Trio ( 1945)
  • Seven Piano Pieces
  • Symphony No. 3 (1948 )
  • Duodecimet (1950), posthumously edited by René Leibowitz

Discography

In the classical label cpo appeared in 2011 his String Quartet No. 1 and his ' Notturno for Alto and Piano' on a CD. 2013 released on a double CD also cpo the Piano Quintet, the three piano pieces op 15, the piano sonata of 1923, Three Fantasy Pieces for Piano, Violin and Viola, as well as the songs op 11 and op 14

The Chandos Records began in 1996 a CD with a beak composed by himself on piano sonata.

There are also plates or discs that grossed Schnabel during his lifetime itself:

  • Published in 2004 a 20- CD box "Piano Emperor " in which he is named as a "great pianist " in fourth place and received its own CD. In this CD he plays the piano sonatas of Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Schubert.
  • Published in 2005 a 4- CD box " Artur Schnabel plays piano concertos " (recordings from 1936-1950 )
  • Published in 2005 " Artur Schnabel - The 1946-47 HMV solo recordings"
  • The label EMI in 2009 brought out a box of 8 CDs, the recordings (all piano solo) originated from 1932 to 1950.
  • 2011 published a CD " Artur Schnabel plays piano concertos " (recording of 1944/45, with the New York Philharmonic under George Szell and Alfred Wall Einstein)

Writings

  • Reflections on Music. Manchester 1933 (German in Music and the Line of Most Resistance )
  • Music and the Line of Most Resistance. Princeton 1942. Hofheim New edition 2007, ISBN 978-3-936000-51-1
  • Music and the Line of Most Resistance (Eng. translator's of Hermann J. Metzler ), Hofheim 2007, ISBN 978-3-936000-50-4
  • You'll never be a pianist (Eng. translator's of Hermann J. Metzler ), 2nd expanded edition Hofheim 2009, ISBN 978-3-936000-52-8
  • Music, Wit, and Wisdom. The Autobiography of Artur Schnabel. ( expanded new edition of My Life and Music), Hofheim 2009, ISBN 978-3-936000-53-5
Wilmersdorf Triple Concerto (Beethoven) Adolf Hitler Johannes Brahms Neue Deutsche Biographie Integrated Authority File
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