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[Leo St. Damian]

(b Liebeshain?, near Chicago, Dec 23, 1858; d Zurich, Jan 27, 1917). American pianist, pedagogue, inventor, philosopher, theologian, and physiologist, mostly active in Germany. He was, according to Rudolf Breithaupt’s Die natürliche Klaviertechnik (3/1912), the “founder of the physiological school, and especially the shoulder mechanics” and offered “the oldest scientific explanation of the modern psycho-physiological method [of piano playing].” In 1882 he married Anna Steiniger (1848–91), a prominent Prussian pianist and Ludwig Deppe’s assistant, whose partially fictitious and romanticized biography, allegedly based on her diary, he published as Iphigenia, Baroness of Styne (London, 1896).

Friedrich Adolf Steinhausen, in his Über die physiologischen Fehler und die Umgestaltung der Klavier-Tehnik (1905), states that Clark can be given “the credit and the merit of a first scientific attempt” of applying physiologically based movements. Clark thus emerges as the world pioneer in the physiological approach to piano playing and the first scholar to offer a scientific explanation and graphic illustration of the rolling movement of arm and wrist, in his ...

(b Vienna, Feb 21, 1791; d Vienna, July 15, 1857). Austrian piano teacher, composer, pianist, theorist and historian. As the pre-eminent pupil of Beethoven and the teacher of many important pupils, including Liszt, Czerny was a central figure in the transmission of Beethoven's legacy. Many of his technical exercises remain an essential part of nearly every pianist's training, but most of his compositions – in nearly every genre, sacred and secular, with opus numbers totalling 861, and an even greater number of works published without opus – are largely forgotten. A large number of theoretical works are of great importance for the insight they offer into contemporary musical genres and performance practice.

The primary source of information about Czerny is his autobiographical sketch entitled Erinnerungen aus meinem Leben (1842). In it, he describes his paternal grandfather as a good amateur violinist, employed as a city official in Nimburg (Nymburk), near Prague. Czerny's father, Wenzel, a pianist, organist, oboist and singer, was born there in ...

(b Krapinica, Croatia, Sept 11, 1874; d Zagreb, Croatia, Dec 12, 1948). Croatian composer, organist, music educator, theoretician, and writer. Dugan had his first musical experience during his choir lessons in an archiepiscopal secondary school. He then studied theology and took organ lessons with the principal organist of the Zagreb Cathedral, Vatroslav Kolander. In 1893 he started mathematics and physics studies but graduated from the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin in 1908 (composition with Robert Kahn, conducting with Max Bruch, and organ with H. Becker). He became a director of the Croatian Music Institute (1908) and was named Zagreb Cathedral’s principal organist in 1912 (the position which he held until his death). From 1897 to 1920 he also worked as a secondary school teacher, giving lessons in mathematics and physics. At the Zagreb Music Academy he taught music theory, composition, and the organ (1920–1941); here his most important contribution was amplifying the foundation of, and developing the curriculum for, the counterpoint and fugue courses. He was also active as a conductor of, among others, the Croatian Choral Society, Kolo, and he periodically wrote music reviews. He worked as an editor of the music section in the sacral music journal ...

(b Butschowitz [now Boskovice], Moravia, April 4, 1804; d Vienna, June 28, 1857). Austrian music historian, pianist, composer and teacher. He had some piano lessons as a child, and in 1822 went to Vienna to study medicine while taking instruction in the piano from Anton Halm and in composition from Seyfried. After deciding on a music career in 1827, he taught the piano for many years and in 1833 joined the staff of the conservatory of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde. Although well known in his lifetime as a pianist and composer, he is remembered chiefly as a collector and as the author of several articles and monographs, including a history of piano building (Vienna, 1853). His library, one of the great private collections of the century, contained a large number of published scores, books on music theory and music manuscripts. Most of the major composers of the 18th and early 19th centuries and many of the minor ones were represented in manuscript; the concentration of manuscript sources for the works of J.S. Bach was especially impressive, including nearly 200 cantatas. After Fischhof's death his library was bought by the Berlin music dealer Julius Friedlaender, who sold most of it to the Berlin Royal (now State) Library....

(Clopton)

(b Macon, GA, Feb 3, 1842; d Lynn, NC, Sept 7, 1881). American poet, writer, flautist and composer. Descended from a family of musicians associated with the English court of the late 16th and early 17th centuries, he became proficient on many instruments as a child, later proclaiming himself self-taught in most musical matters. He graduated from Oglethorpe University in 1860, served in the Confederate Army and then spent several years in business ventures, but ultimately resolved to devote his time and energy to literary and musical pursuits.

Lanier is best known for his sensitive poetry, much of which has been set to music, but he also produced significant books and scholarly essays on music, a translation of Wagner’s Das Rheingold and a libretto for Dudley Buck’s cantata The Centennial Meditation of Columbia (1876), and lectured on music and literature at Johns Hopkins University. As a flautist he was known particularly for his facile technique and skill in sight-reading; his appointment to the Peabody Orchestra in Baltimore, as well as brief visits to New York, introduced him to the repertory and the progressive musical thought of the late 19th century. His compositions are generated more by idiomatic instrumental qualities than by a mature grasp of musical composition....

(b Kuče, Croatia, March 31, 1889; d Zagreb, Croatia, March 16, 1972). Croatian composer, organist, music theorist, and educator. He finished his education in 1909 at the music school of the Croatian Music Institute in Zagreb, where he acquired compositional and theoretical knowledge in music and developed his organ playing skills; he also simultaneously finished teacher-training school. From 1918 to 1927 Lučić was a district prefect of Turopolje County, where he initiated significant cultural and educational progress. He became an organ professor and taught counterpoint at the Zagreb Music Academy (1921–61) and was appointed a dean (1944–5; 1952–61). On his initiative a private music school, called Polyhymnia, was founded in Zagreb and Lučić was named its head principal (1932–41). He occasionally played the organ at the Zagreb Cathedral. Lučić’s oeuvre comprises orchestral pieces, chamber and vocal music, sacred works, and pedagogical instrumental exercises, but his most notable contribution as a composer lies in his organ music, where he presented his mastery of the laws of counterpoint, composing many fugues, fantasias, preludes, and the like. Lučić is also considered to be one of the first Croatian composers (together with Dora Pejačević) to create larger symphonies in a modern sense (Symphony in f-minor, ...

[ Karol ]

( b Chernivtsi, [now in Ukraine], Oct 20, 1819; d Lviv, Ukraine, May 21, 1897). Armenian-Polish-Romanian pianist, composer, folklorist, and teacher .

He studied the piano in Paris with Frédéric Chopin and composition with Anton Reicha (1844–7). He toured as a concert pianist in Austria, France, Italy, and Russia. He was a professor at and head of the Lviv Conservatory from 1858 to 1888. He then founded his own school. Among his students were the Romanians Ciprian Porumbescu, Paul Ciuntu, and Constantin Gros, but also the musician pianists of Lviv that would be his disciples—Raoul Koczalski, Moriz Rosenthal, and Aleksander Michałowski. He collected, notated, and processed Romanian and Polish folk songs (1848–54). He published a 17-volume critical edition of Chopin’s work (Leipzig, 1879). He used several verified sources, most of which were written or corrected by Chopin himself. His editions of Chopin’s works were first published in America in ...

[Smyth]

(b North Cheam, Surrey, Jan 5, 1823; d London, July 2, 1895). English music historian, composer, teacher and pianist. Baptized at Morden church in the name of Rackstraw, he used an older form of his surname from 1846. His first teacher was the blind organist John Purkis and he received tuition in composition and piano from William Sterndale Bennett. His earliest work to be performed in public was the song Soon shall chilling fear assail thee, sung by Joseph Staudigl at Franz Cramer's farewell concert in London on 27 June 1844. From 20 May 1845 to 24 June 1846 he studied at the Leipzig Conservatory with Mendelssohn (composition and piano), Moritz Hauptmann (theory) and Louis Plaidy (piano).

On his return to London Rockstro gave lessons in piano and singing, and was the regular accompanist at the Wednesday Concerts. In the early 1860s he moved to Torquay and in ...

(b Tallmadge, OH, Dec 17, 1870; d Adelphi, MD, Jan 19, 1961). American organist, pianist, teacher and musicologist. He studied music at Oberlin College and Conservatory (BA 1896, MusB 1904, MA 1924) and the piano with Leschetizky in Vienna (1896–8) and Josef Lhévinne in Berlin (1913–14). He taught the piano at Oberlin Conservatory (1894–1936) and served as organist at the Calvary Presbyterian Church, Oberlin (1903–18). His interest in contemporary American art song led to his major and probably most enduring work, the revision and expansion of O.G.T. Sonneck's Bibliography of Early Secular American Music, first published in 1905 and still central to American scholarship. His biographies of A.P. Heinrich and W.H. Fry have not been superseded. In 1945 Oberlin College awarded him an honorary doctorate in music.

(b Leipzig, Feb 23, 1848; d New York, Jan 15, 1918). American pianist, teacher, and composer of German origin. From 1862 he trained at the Conservatory of Leipzig, where he studied with Moscheles, Reinecke, and Hauptmann (Helbig Prize in composition in 1864). Upon graduating in 1866, he toured Germany for two years before moving to the USA and settling permanently in New York. In December 1868 he made a successful début at one of Theodore Thomas’ Classical Soirées. Lacking the ambition to become a virtuoso, or simply because of disinterest in certain repertoires, he failed to secure a prominent position among other pianists who had also settled in New York at that time. He nonetheless retained prestige as a scholarly pianist. For the next four decades he appeared often as accompanist and in chamber music concerts, often collaborating with Thomas and with Leopold Damrosch. Those concerts gave momentum to a form that was still rather unappreciated by general audiences. A sought after teacher, he instructed Frank and Walter Damrosch. In ...

(b Alzey, Rheinhessen, Germany, Dec 14, 1834; d Deal Beach, NJ, July 30, 1907). American pianist, teacher, conductor, and composer of German origin. He studied with Aloys Schmitt in Frankfurt, making his début there in 1848. Later he studied with Vincenz Lachner and toured Bavaria. After a two-year stay in London, he moved to the United States in 1854, settling in Philadelphia. A scholarly performer, for the next twenty years he gave annual series of chamber music concerts and piano recitals, introducing many classical works to American audiences. He gave recitals devoted entirely to the piano music of Chopin and Schumann, a rare feat at the time. In 1866–7 he performed the complete piano sonatas of Beethoven in a series of matinées in New York. In 1873 he moved to Chicago, where he gave momentum to the musical life of the city and founded the Beethoven Society choir. His goal being education through the works of the masters, he gave several “historical” recitals with programs designed chronologically, from Couperin to Brahms. Fannie Bloomfield Zeisler was one of his pupils....

(Markovich )

(b Kiev, 8/Nov 21, 1905; d Moscow, Sept 20, 1976). Russian musicologist, violinist and teacher . Son of the cellist Mark Il′ich Yampol′sky (1879–1951), he studied at the Moscow Conservatory and in 1930 graduated from the violin class of his uncle, Abram Il′ich Yampol′sky. He took the kandidat degree in 1940 with a dissertation on violin fingering. He taught the violin at the Music Academy (1931–58), the Central Secondary Music School (1931–46), and at the Moscow Conservatory (1934–49), where from 1939 he also lectured on the history and theory of the violin. He was appointed a senior lecturer at the conservatory in 1940. He held several important editorial posts and in 1953 became a music critic for the Soviet Information Bureau. Yampol′sky contributed more than 1000 articles to Russian and foreign journals. He was known particularly for his book on the history of violin playing in Russia, ...

(b Kharkov, 10/June 22, 1877; d Saratov, Nov 26, 1942). Russian musicologist, music educator and pianist of Polish descent . He graduated from the Kiev College of Music, having specialized in the piano with Pukhal′sky (1894–8); he also studied mathematics at Kiev University, 1897–8. He then attended the Moscow Conservatory (1898–1903), studying the piano (with N.Ya. Shishkin) and composition (with Ippolitov-Ivanov and Taneyev) and attending Smolensky's course in the history of Russian church music. From 1921 to 1931 he was a member of the State Academy of Artistic Studies (later the State Academy of Arts), and in 1941 he was awarded an honorary doctorate.

Yavorsky's career embraced an extremely wide variety of activities. From 1903 onwards he took an active role in the Music-Ethnography Commission, which promoted the collection, study and teaching of folksong. He took a special interest in music education: he was a founder of the Moscow (...