Artur Schnabel - Biography
Artur Schnabel the great Austrian pianist and estimable Avant Garde composer was born on April 15th 1882 Bieletz Galacia (then part of the Austrian Empire and now part of Poland) and died on August 15th 1951 in Aksenstein Switzerland. Schnabel came from a middle class Jewish family; his father was a textile merchant who moved the family to Vienna when Artur was two. He developed his musical talent at a very early age and first studied at the Vienna Conservatory and then at nine was to become a pupil for six years between the age of nine and fifteen of the foremost piano pedagogue of his time Theodore Leschetitzky also the teacher of Paderewski, Rosenthal, Gabrilowitsch an Ignaz Friedman. Schnabel in his adolescence became part of Leschetitzky’s circle which included Brahms. Schnabel made his formal debut in Vienna at fifteen and was soon touring throughout the Austrian Empire and Germany. Schnabel moved to Berlin at the turn of the century where he often gave concerts with the Berlin Philharmonic under their renowned conductor Artur Nikisch. He also concertized with his future wife contralto Theresa Behr (their sons were Karl Ulrich a noted pianist and Stefan a well known actor who was on the soap opera ‘The Guiding Light’ for many years). Schnabel also played a lot of Chamber Music, Trios with his friend violinist Carl Flesch and three different cellists, Quartets with great names like violinist Huberman, violist Hindemith and cellist Piatagorsky. Schnabel was not drafted into the German Army in the First World War (fellow pianist and wit Mauritz Rosenthal quipped that Schnabel who had a fallible technique was rejected for “no hands”). Schnabel by the 1920’s had cemented his reputation as the foremost pianist of the Austro/German repertoire of Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Brahms. Schnabel edited a standard edition of the Beethoven Piano Sonatas and revived the virtually unknown mature Schubert Piano Sonatas to be the masterpieces they are. Schnabel was also a famed teacher and taught renowned pianists Clifford Curzon, Lilli Krauss, Rudolf Firkusny and later on in America Leon Fleisher and Claude Franck. Schnabel actually during this time performed a considerable amount of Chopin and Liszt and Schumann which remained in his repertoire. He also performed and recorded Bach that he felt could suitably be played on the piano.
Schnabel left Germany with the ascent of Hitler in 1933 he left for Switzerland. His friend the great conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler evidently asked him naively to stay as a representative of Germanic culture, but Schnabel was adamant. During this time he was to start the project that his posthumous fame was to rest on; the EMI recordings of the 32 Beethoven Piano Sonatas, 5 Piano Concertos and Variations. Schnabel during this period also recorded piano music of Schubert and Brahms along with some Mozart Piano Concertos. Evidently recording was an excruciating experience for Schnabel in these pre tape days when recordings were made in four minute increments. Some of his nervousness was responsible for the technical slipups that would occur when Schnabel would take a challengingly fast tempo. These faults pale into insignificance next to his incomparable intellectual grasp of style and structure. Schnabel particularly in the slow movements of Beethoven and Schubert (his reading of the Adagio of Beethoven’s Op. 111 Piano Sonata is a great spiritual experience) seem to suspend time. Schnabel at the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 moved to America and become a citizen in 1944. This was a difficult time for him because he was very much a Central European and was not at ease. Some of the recordings both live and commercial from this period show a technical instability which went beyond his earlier technical problems. Besides concerts he taught at The University of Michigan After the war’s end Schnabel moved back to Switzerland. He continued to make recordings for EMI in England of Mozart, Weber, Schumann and Brahms. He recorded four of the Beethoven Piano Concertos and made superb recordings of the Beethoven Cello Sonatas with cellist Pierre Fournier. Schnabel died of a heart attack in Switzerland on August 15th 1951.
Artur Schnabel was one of the great pianists of the 20th Century what is not well known was that he was a significant modernist composer who wrote in the atonal style of his friend Arnold Schoenberg Many of these works are now getting a hearing. He could be severe to the point of arrogance, sometimes when performing a Mozart Concerto he would confer with individual wind players in the orchestra on the phrasing he wanted ignoring the enraged conductor. He also had a self deprecating humor that belied his intellectual severity, he once said that the difference between him and other pianists was the “second part of his recitals were as boring as the first part” It is a tribute to him that the recordings he made more than seventy years ago are still in circulation.
