Ruth Schönthal

Ruth Schonthal (* June 27, 1924 in Hamburg, † July 11, 2006 in Scarsdale, New York City ) was a German -American composer, pianist and professor at New York University and the Westchester Conservatory of Music.

Life

Ruth Schonthal ( since 1946 also: Schonthal ) was born as the daughter of Jewish parents who came from Vienna. My father owned a welding and soldering operation in Berlin and used a variety of cultural interests. Schonthal began at the age of five years to compose and was in Berlin in the 1930s as a child prodigy. She studied from 1930 to 1935 piano, music theory and composition at the Stern Conservatory in Berlin. In 1935, she was expelled by the Nazis with all the other Jewish fellow students from the Conservatory.

Emigration

In 1938 she emigrated with her family to Stockholm, where she enrolled at the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. There she published in 1940 for the first time a composition, their Sonatina for piano. 1941, the political situation was too uncertain in Sweden. The family fled to Moscow and Vladivostok to Mexico. She studied composition from 1941 to Manuel M. Ponce in Mexico City and celebrated as a composer and pianist with great success. She met Paul Hindemith, than this went on a tour of Mexico. He was impressed by her talent so that he gave her a scholarship to study at Yale University. From 1946 to 1948 she studied with Paul Hindemith at Yale University in New Haven / USA. After graduating from Yale in 1948, she earned first living with the compositions of advertising jingles and pop songs.

Composer, pianist and professor of composition

With the increasing success as a composer, she put her career as a concert pianist, but appeared regularly as an interpreter of his own works. Ruth Schonthal was a lecturer at the Westchester Conservatory of Music. Until recently, she was active as a professor of composition at the New York University. She lived for many years in New Rochelle, most recently in Scarsdale, New York.

42 years after their emigration, the composer in 1980 traveled for the first time to Germany, she gave a concert and participated in a panel discussion in Berlin. As a result, she undertook numerous concert and lecture tours through Germany. A permanent return did not come into consideration for them. Since 1997 the Kassel Furore Verlag Schonthal moved compositions.

In 1999, the Berlin Academy of the Arts, Ruth - Schonthal archive with letters, photos and documents one, which was opened in the presence of the composer. Also her artistic estate was according to your last will now be handed over to the Berlin archive. The catalog raisonné Already valley includes more than 100 pieces of music, including three operas, numerous orchestral works, ballet music and songs, including the Whitman - cycle By The Roadside and the String Quartet Tribute to the Holocaust. At the Jewish Museum in Vienna Schonthal is listed on a blackboard with other Jewish musicians who had emigrated during the Nazi era. In addition to their name, a button is attached, by its pressure you can hear their first Sonatine.

The New York Times described her music style as an eclectic mix of European musical tradition of Mexican folk music, aleatoric and minimalist music.

Ruth Schonthal is survived by her husband, the painter Paul Seckel, with whom she had been married since 1950, and the three sons Alfred, Bernard and Ben Seckel.

Awards

Works (selection)

• The Courtship of Camilla (1979 /80), libretto by AA Milne
• Jocasta (1996/ 97), libretto by Helene Cicoux
• Princess Maleen (1988 /89)

• Concerto No.2 for Piano and Orchestra ( 1977)
• Evening Music, Nocturnal Fantasy with Ocean Waves
• Music for Horn and Chamber Orchestra (1978 )
• The Beautiful Days of Aranjuez (1982, rev., 1983)
• Soundtrack for a Dark Street ( 1994)
• 3 Celebrations "Happy Birthday Variations " for childrens concerts
• The Young Dead Soldiers for chorus and orchestra (1987 )

• Sonatina in A for Piano (1940 ), ISMN M -50012-843-4
• Sonata quasi un ' Improvisazione for piano (1964 ), ISMN M -50012-159-6
• Echoes ( Reverberations ) for prepared piano ( 1967-74 ), ISMN M -50012-156-5
• Sonata Breve for Piano (1973 ), ISMN M -50012-842-7
• Three elegies for piano (1982 ), ISMN M- 50012 - 160-2
• Sonata in two movements for cello and piano (1989 ), ISMN M- 50012 - 176-3
• 65 Celebrations (1993 /94), ISMN M -50012-163-3
• The Wall Before and After for chamber ensemble (1994 ), the reunification of Berlin
• Bells of Sarajevo for clarinet and prepared piano (1997)

Discography

• Character Sketches: Solo Piano Works by 7 American Women by Gwyneth Walker, Judith Lang Zaimont, Tania Leon, Victoria Bond, and Jane Brockman (1995 )
• Vive la Différence: String Quartets by 5 Women from 3 Continents by Amy Marcy Cheney Beach, Priaulx Rainier, Sarah Holdt vein, Ruth Schonthal, and Lucie vellere (1997)
• Toccata / Austrian Piano Music: Josef Mayr ( piano) plays works by Ruth Schonthal ( Toccata and Arietta ), Krenek, Takács, tusks, etc., extra plate 588-2 (2003)