Three Female Pianists of the Nineteenth Century
Marie Wieck, Fanny Bloomfield-Zeisler and Neally Stevens.
Sep 23, 2008
Who was Marie Wieck? The sister of Clara Schumann, she was extremely gifted in the musical arts and received her early piano training, as did Clara, with their father, the pianist Friedrich Wieck (1785-1873).
Marie was born at Leipzig, Germany, on January 17,1832, where she and Clara and their other sister Cecilia were prepared for the concert stage by Friedrich. Marie's first public appearance was in 1842, where she and Clara performed at a concert in Dresden. She later performed with her father at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, and in other towns in Germany.
German Music
Marie espoused German music and did much to bring those works to the attention of the public, especially in London, England, where she performed publicly for five seasons. She also gave singing and piano lessons in London, and at times sang at her sister Clara's concerts. Marie also performed with Joseph Joachim's wife, the singer Amalie Weiss.
She was appointed Court Pianist for the chamber concerts of the Prince of Hohenzollern. A composer too, Wieck published several piano works, etudes for the piano and studies for the voice. Marie died in 1916.
Fanny Bloomfield-Zeisler
This pianist was born in Berlitz, Austria, in 1865, and was taken to the United States at the age of two, where the family made their home in Chicago, Illinois. She showed remarkable musical talent from an early age, and was pronounced a prodigy by those who heard her play at the Beethoven Concerts in Chicago.
At the age of thirteen she played for Annette Essipova ( Celebrated Women Pianists of the Past ) who urged her to go to Vienna for study with Theodore Leschetizky, Essipova's husband. She did go to study with Leschetizky, and after five years made her professional debut in Vienna to enthusiastic critical acclaim.
Bloomfield-Zeisler then came back to America in 1884, where she performed with the Beethoven Society Orchestra, the Milwaukee Orchestra, the Boston Orchestra under Gericke, and gave recitals in New York City, Chicago, St.Louis and Baltimore. She was said to have astonishing finger technique and octave playing, which showed the beauty and power of her performances. Bloomfield-Zeisler died in 1927.
Neally Stevens
A beautiful picture on the concert stage, Neally Stevens was born in Illinois in the year 1861. Her early studies took place in Germany in 1879 with Hans von Bulow and the next year found her with Theodore Kullak, with whom she stayed until his death. In 1879 and 1883 she also went to Weimar to consult with Franz Liszt and the year before she returned to America she finished her studies with the pianist Moritz Moszkowski.
She performed in Illinois and was very successful. In 1887 she made her debut in Boston and toured for many years afterward. However, she is not noted in any of the main music dictionaries and is virtually forgotten today.
These women who were so celebrated in their lifetimes are no longer remembered, and part of the reason is that we have no recordings to judge their worth for ourselves. But if the critical acclaim they enjoyed is any criterion, it is a shame that they have dissolved into the far reaches of the past.
Source
Celebrated Pianists Past and Present A. Ehrlich, Theodore Presser, Philadelphia, 1894
For further reading about pianists see Three Female Pianists of the Past
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