Zumsteeg, Emilie

Zumsteeg, Emilie

- Marcia J. Citron
(b Stuttgart, Dec 9, 1796; d Stuttgart, Aug 1, 1857). German composer, pianist, singer and teacher . The youngest of seven children born to the composer Johann Rudolf Zumsteeg, she studied the piano with Schlick and theory with Wilhelm Sutor. Gifted with a fine alto voice, she was soon singing and performing on the piano (e.g. at the Stuttgart Museumskonzerte). As an adult Zumsteeg mixed with leading musicians and poets. The literary ties reflected her interest in the lied, which formed the basis of her creative reputation. She also wrote several piano works, such as the early Trois polonaises, published in 1821 and favourably reviewed in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, and sacred choral music. She occupied a central position in the musical life of Stuttgart as a teacher of voice and piano and as a leading member of the Verein für Klassische Kirchenmusik.
Zumsteeg’s lieder were still known in the late 19th century (Michaelis) but have not remained in the repertory. She composed about 60 songs. The six lieder of her op.6 received a brief but laudatory notice in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung in 1842. An earlier collection, Sechs Lieder op.4 (Mainz, n.d.), includes mainly simple, strophic songs, but occasionally reveals an italianate flair, as in the second song, Morgenständchen (in Citron). Zumsteeg’s originality further surfaces in Neun Lieder (Bonn, n.d.): for example, the hint of fantasy in Ich denke Dein and the chamber-like setting of Des Freundes Wunsch. Two of her lieder appear in the series Frauen komponieren (ed. E. Rieger and K. Walter, Mainz, 1992). A full evaluation of her compositions must await further research into her life and the republication of more of her music.
Bibliography
- AMZ, 23 (1821), 479–80; xxiii (1821), 816; xxxi (1829), 747; xxxvi (1834), 484; xliv (1842), 935–6
- A. Michaelis: Frauen als schaffende Tonkünstler: ein biographisches Lexicon (Leipzig, 1888)
- H.J. Moser: Das deutsche Lied seit Mozart (Berlin and Zürich, 1937, 2/1968)
- K. Haering: ‘Emilie Zumsteeg’, Schwäbische Lebensbilder, 2 (1941), 537–44
- M.J. Citron: ‘Women and the Lied, 1775–1850’, Women Making Music: the Western Art Tradition, 1150–1950, ed. J. Bowers and J. Tick (Urbana and Chicago, 1986), 224–48
- M. Riepl-Schmidt: ‘Emilie Zumsteeg, die “männliche” Musikerin’, Wider das verkochte und verbügelte Leben: Frauenemanzipation in Stuttgart seit 1800 (Stuttgart, 1990), 70–79
- M. Rebmann: ‘“Wie Deine Kunst, so edel war Dein Leben”: ein Werkverzeichnis der Stuttgarter Komponistin Emilie Zumsteeg’, Musik in Baden-Württemberg, 2 (Stuttgart, 1995), 51–74
- M. Rebmann: ‘“Die Thatkraft einer Männerseele”: der Stuttgarter Komponistin Emilie Zumsteeg zum 200. Geburtstag’, Viva voce, no.40 (1996), 29–33