Talk:Artur Schnabel

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Nice article, Camebert. Just stumbled across it. Schnabel is another musician I admire. And another musician admired by many of his contemporaries...  ;-)

-- 
Viajero 19:12 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I'm certainly not going to argue about that one :-) Thanks--Camembert

Very gratifying to read the words of other Schabel enthusiasts! I totally agree with you. Schnabel is still for many people (certainly for me) the last word in musical profundity. My old professor, Ilse Graham (a German Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany), told me in the mid-1970s how her brother, Kurt Appelbaum, had studied the piano under Schnabel back in Berlin in the early 1930s. Ilse knew Schnabel well and told me that "one always had the feeling that he was on the side of Life" and that the most remarkable thing about his playing (in her view) was "the remarkable balance between intellect and intuition" which characterised it. I would agree with that! She also mentioned how he was an extremely witty man, and was equally "the neatest man I ever met" in terms of his dress sense. She also told me how powerfully he played Beethoven's Emperor Concerto (she heard him give a performance of this at the Royal Albert Hall, I think). But I always feel that Schnabel was at heart a mystic: music for him was his way of accessing a deep spiritual realm, a realm created from a mysterious and divinely vibrating intangible substance, called sound, and he was able to attune himself to those higher spiritual dimensions. His own compositions also always contain, in their slow movements, a sense of mystery, the sense of entering a strange new world. Anyway, I once asked Ilse whether Schnabel was a religious man, and she replied: "music was his religion". She further said that he "always gave the impression that he had a special line 'up there'" (meaning to the Divine). Does anyone else feel that this is so true? I still have not heard a better performance - more profound and utterly spiritual - than his two recorded performances of Beethoven's last piano sonata (Opus 111). Also, his four recordings of Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto are so filled with rippling vitality, power and are utterly entrancing. As you can see, I am intoxicated with Schnabel's life-filled and deeply penetrating playing. Personally, I think he stands alone - perhaps matched by Cortot in a different repertoire, or Fischer. I hope these reminiscences of my old professor (long dead) might be of interest to followers of the great Artur Schnabel! - Tony (Dr. Tony Page) TonyMPNS

[edit] looking for music

Hello! I too enjoyed this article very much. A friend of mine is looking for the score of Schnabel's "Notturno für Singstimme und Klavier, nach einem Text von Richard Dehmel." I've had no luck finding it in on World Cat (which probably means that no North American library has it). Does anyone have any ideas about how to obtain it? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Skrebs (talk • contribs) 17:30, 18 January 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Place of birth?

The Schnabel Music Foundation's biography of Schnabel (viewable here) says that Schnabel was born in Lipnik, Moravia. There is a town known as Lipník nad Bečvou in the Czech Republic's Olomouc Region (and the Wikipedia entry for the latter says that the Olomouc region corresponds to "the historical region of Moravia"). Could an authoritative source for identifying the birthplace as Lipnik, Poland, rather than Lipník nad Bečvou please be given? Some clarification would be appreciated. Reihe (talk) 20:18, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

I think much of the confusion about Schnabel's birthplace stems from the rather complicated changing geo-political history of that part of Central Europe in the 19th to 20th Century (which, I hasten to add, I am not an expert on).

Anyway, it is what is now Lipnik, a borough of what is now Bielsko-Biala in Poland. But which in Schnabel's time was "Kunzendorf" in "Bielitz" in the Silesian part of the Austrian (or Austro-Hungarian) Empire, in the region then also known as Galicia.

Hence the violinist Carl Flesch, who was a close friend of Schnabel, wrote in his memoirs that Schnabel was born "in Bielitz, in a corner of Galicia". Or, for the ultimate in authoritative sources, let's hear it from Schnabel himself (edited extract from "My Life and Music" - autobiographical lectures given at the University of Chicago, 1945; Dover/Smythe edition, 1988):

"I was born in a small Austrian village, which belonged to the Austrian part of Poland... my birthplace [Kunzendorf/Lipnik] was tiny and rather poor - a kind of suburb to a small town. This small town [Biala] was the twin to a larger town [Bielitz] which one reached over a bridge. The other town [Biala] belonged to the Austrian province of Silesia. Bielitz was the name of the largest, as long as it belonged to Austria; after the First World War it came to Poland and is now named Bielsko."

The Artur Schnabel exhibition at the Academie der Kuenste in Berlin in 2001 stated that Schnabel was born "in Lipnik in Bielitz in the Silesian part of the Austrian Empire (now Bielsko-Biala in Poland)". (Which is the correct summary, except that the German name for Lipnik was Kunzendorf, as it was called at the time of his birth. As Schnabel pointed out with Bielitz, the German placenames were changed over when it became Poland after the First World War with the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.)

Hope that helps. --Whimsical Oracle (talk) 20:47, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Just to add, the current article version says "today Lipnik, Moravia, Czech Republic" which is incorrect. I've edited it to revert back to "today Lipnik, Poland" or more precisely to "today Lipnik, Biala-Bielsko, Poland" (as I explained above).--Whimsical Oracle (talk) 22:10, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Article in need of improvement

I think the current article version is a good general essay on Schnabel, but there are some inaccurancies or misleading statements, eg.;

"Schnabel studied piano from the age of seven in Vienna under Theodor Leschetizky"

Actually, he had his first piano lessons at age 4, then at age 6 he was taught by a Professor Hans Schmitt in Vienna. He began studies with Leschetizky at aged 9, in 1891.

"...rather than playing the showy virtuoso pieces by composers like Franz Liszt which were popular in the late 19th century, he chose to concentrate on Germanic classics..."

This gives the impression to readers that he didn't play Liszt etc. Actually he did play Liszt in his prime before the war, until the 1930s when he dropped them from his repertoire to concentrate on the core Austro-Germanic classical composers. Arrau and Horowitz recalled hearing Schnabel performing the Liszt B minor sonata, the Mephisto waltz, the E-flat piano concerto (Schnabel himself mentions that in My Life And Music), as well as in other composers such as Chopin, Schumann, Weber, before the war. And Schnabel himself said, he was regarded as a Brahmsian before he was regarded as a Beethovenian.

"disregard his own technical limitations in pursuit of his musical ideals"

While it is true that, as with other great pianists, technical accuracy was less important to him than the bigger musical picture, the popularly held view that Schnabel was technically limited is debateable. This myth seems to have gained currency due to the well-known quip by Rosenthal that Schnabel had "no fingers", and also from his recordings of the 30s and 40s when he was past his prime. Arrau recalled Schnabel as being "flawless" before the 1930s, a view supported by Horowitz who heard Schnabel in a performance of the Chopin piano sonata no.2 and was mightily impressed by his technique in the final movement. A number of reasons have been suggested for Schnabel's evident deterioration in technique after the 1930s; eg. Arrau believed that it was because Schnabel was psychologically traumatized by being uprooted from his Germanic nourishing ground when he fled Germany in 1933 due to the rise of Nazism, while Horowitz thought Schnabel damaged his technique when he started playing too much Beethoven to the exclusion of everything else.

I hope people don't mind if I rewrite the article to take account of the above points, as well as expand on the biography (with references of course).--Whimsical Oracle (talk) 23:53, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

• Hello Whimsical Oracle. Thanks for your excellent comments. I think that what you are proposing (in order to improve the article) is very good indeed - especially your points about Schnabel's technique. I personally think his technique was in many instances unique - especially the manner in which he could create a legato that was so perfect that all the notes seem to blend into one flow of sound - extraordinary achievement on a piano! I have never, ever, heard any other pianist manage this feat so successfully. I think that the quip about "no fingers" hints at this: it was as if Schnabel was not playing individual notes with individual fingers (in the faster passages), but was passing his whole hand across an unbroken scan of notes that melt into each other. Yes, when he was younger, he was apparently a real virtuoso (in the usual sense) and could stagger people with his Liszt, etc. Also, even in the recordings, his playing has such unique vitality, such life - it is as if music is not "just music" any more: it is a living, breathing, "speaking" organism, communicating its emotions directly to us. With Schnabel, music becomes Life itself! I find that some pianists simply don't "get" Schnabel: they hear him rush and hit a few wrong notes, and they think his technique is terrible. But what they fail to appreciate is that he rushes because he is swept away on a flood-tide of excitement. He lives the music. When we are excited, we don't maintain a monotonous tone or same speed of speech - we speed up! He is not some sterile, bookish pedant. He IS the music he performs - and the rushing and note-fluffs are part and parcel of life, which is never perfect - always striving for something higher. Again (as I said in my much earlier comments above), Schnabel was essentially a mystic. It is the communicated spirit of the music that mattered far more to Schnabel than mere technical perfection. But after all this is said and done, his technique was remarkable - even in his final recordings (the Schubert Impromptus). Listen (again!) to the pearling legato in some of those cascading passages. He remains unrivalled to this day (do you sense that I am a Schnabel fan?!). Best wishes to you. From Tony. TonyMPNS (talk)

• Hello Tony, many thanks for your very interesting comments. I didn't realize the Rosenthal quip could be interpreted as a compliment - I see what you mean! I agree with your views and points made, which I think can be summed up, or was what was meant, by Leschetizky's oft-quoted remark that he was "a musician", not (merely) a pianist. Certainly I think there should be a subsection written about his technique and repertoire, as well as his legacy and influence on modern pianism (which is one of the reasons he remains much admired by pianists and pianophiles). I hope to do some editing of the article soon when I have the time, in the spirit of Wikipedia, and I hope you (and anyone else for that matter) will also contribute the benefit of your knowledge. Kind regards--Whimsical Oracle (talk) 17:15, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

• Thanks, Whimsical Oracle, for your nice comments. I appreciate your words and what you are trying to do here. More power to you! All the best. From Tony. TonyMPNS (talk)

• Thank you again, Whimsical Oracle, for the major improvements that you have now made to the Schnabel entry. It reads much better now. Thanks again. All the best. From Tony. TonyMPNS (talk)

Thanks Tony for your appreciation. I plan to do a lot more on it, but that's just a start. Kind regards, --Whimsical Oracle (talk) 14:53, 8 April 2008 (UTC)