One of the foremost piano virtuosi of her time, Fannie Bloomfield-Zeisler reliably filled Carnegie Hall. As a ""new woman,"" she simultaneously embraced family life and forged an independent career built around a repertoire of the German music she tirelessly championed. Yet after her death she faded into obscurity. In this new biography, Beth Abelson Macleod reintroduces a figure long, and unjustly, overlooked by music history. Trained in Vienna, Bloomfield-Zeisler significantly advanced the development of classical music in the United States. Her powerful and sensitive performances, both in recital and with major orchestras, won her followers across the United States and Europe and often provided her American audiences with their first exposure to the pieces she played. The European-style salon in her Chicago home welcomed musicians, scientists, authors, artists, and politicians, while her marriage to attorney Sigmund Zeisler placed her at the center of a historical moment when Sigmund defended the anarchists in the 1886 Haymarket trial. In its re-creation of a musical and social milieu, Fannie Bloomfield-Zeisler paints a vivid portrait of a dynamic artistic life.

Examines the contributions of women instrumentalists, composers, teachers, and conductors to American music, and suggests why they have gone unnoticed in the past.

This essential reference focuses on the lives, careers, and musical contributions of over 150 American pianists from early days of the nation until the present day. Richard Masters spotlights both modern and historical pianists—including women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ pianists who either never had the opportunity to win widespread acclaim but were top notch performers or who achieved important careers against heavy odds but were soon forgotten after their deaths, such as Augusta Cottlow, George Copeland, and Natalie Hinderas. This volume also gives attention to important collaborative pianists—none of whom have ever appeared in any volume on classical pianists—and influential pedagogues, some of whom never had significant performing careers but produced important students. Each entry explores an individual pianist’s life and career—from relevant biographical details to impact on American musical culture—and includes a selected list and brief discussion of existing and available recordings, if any. Additionally, an introduction situates these pianists into historical trends. Overseen by a blue-ribbon editorial board, Encyclopedia of American Classical Pianists: 1800s to the Present provides a comprehensive view of the depth and breadth of American pianistic achievement and serves as the most up-to-date work for students, piano departments, music libraries, researchers, and interested pianophiles.

This book explores the experiences of women from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who pursued careers as public performers, charting a new course in an era when women's musical activities were generally consigned to the parlor. Certain instruments had historically evolved as "appropriate for women," and the flamboyant personalities and extroverted emotionalism of Romantic virtuosos and conductors were the antithesis of those qualities traditionally admired in women. However, this work presents an unusual group of young women who nonetheless became noted virtuosos, studying abroad as teenagers and touring North America upon their return. Detailed profiles are given of three remarkable musicians from among that unusual group: Fannie Bloomfield-Zeisler (1863-1927)--virtuoso pianist, wife and mother; Ethel Leginska (1886-1970)--pianist, conductor, and 1920s "new woman"; and Antonia Brico (1902-1989)--conductor and transitional figure to the late twentieth century. A concluding chapter contrasts the experiences of women classical musicians in the late nineteenth and the late twentieth centuries. Included are a number of photographs and drawings which impart the perceptions of audiences and critics of the stage presence of these performers.

It's difficult to imagine Franz Liszt performing in Peoria, but his contemporary and foremost rival, Sigismund Thalberg, did just that. During the mid-nineteenth century, Americans in more than a hundred cities--from Portland, Maine to Dubuque, Iowa to Mobile, Alabama--were treated to performances by some of Europe's most celebrated pianists. From Paris to Peoria deftly chronicles the visits of five of these pianists to the America of Mark Twain. Whether performing in small railroad towns throughout the Midwest or in gold-rush era California, these five charismatic pianists--Leopold de Meyer, Henri Herz, Sigismund Thalberg, Anton Rubinstein, and Hans von Bülow--introduced many Americans to the delights of the concert hall. With humor and insight, R. Allen Lott describes the glamour and the drudgery of the touring life, the transformation of American audiences from boisterous to reverent, and the establishment of the piano recital as a viable artistic and financial enterprise. Lott also explores the creative and sometimes outlandish publicity techniques of managers seeking to capitalize on prosperous but uncharted American markets. The result of extensive archival research, From Paris to Peoria is richly illustrated with concert programs, handbills, caricatures, and maps. A companion website, www.rallenlott.info, includes a comprehensive list of repertoires and itineraries, audio music examples, and transcriptions of selected primary sources. Certain to delight pianists, musicologists, and historians, From Paris to Peoria is an engaging, thoroughly researched, and often funny account of music and culture in nineteenth-century America.

Women & Music now features even more women composers, performers, and patrons, even more musical contexts, and an expanded view of women in music outside Europe and North America. A popular university textbook, Women & Music is enlightening for scholars, a good source of programming ideas for performers, and a pleasure for other music lovers.