Erwin Stein

Erwin Stein (7 November 1885 – 19 July 1958) was an Austrian musician and writer, prominent as a pupil and friend of Schoenberg, with whom he studied between 1906 and 1910.[1]

For another person, see Erwin Stein (footballer).

Career

Stein worked as a conductor before the First World War.[2] In 1918 Schoenberg founded the Society for Private Musical Performances, which presented modern compositions (from Mahler to the present day). Stein was one of his principal assistants in this project which ran for a few years until encountering financial problems. The works performed often needed arrangement for the reduced forces available to the Society. Stein undertook arrangements, for example, in 1921 he arranged Mahler's Symphony No. 4 for 15 musicians.[3] With Hanns Eisler and Karl Rankl he also arranged Anton Bruckner's Seventh Symphony for chamber ensemble, but the Society closed down before it could be performed.[4]

In 1924 it was Stein to whom Schoenberg entrusted the delicate as well as important task of writing the first article – Neue Formprinzipien ('New Formal Principles') – on the gradual evolution of what was soon to be explicitly formulated as 'twelve-tone technique'.[1][5]

Until 1938 he lived in Vienna, working for the music publisher Universal Edition[6] and respected as a music teacher and conductor as well as a writer active on behalf of the music and composers he valued. At Universal one of his tasks was to complete a vocal score of the unfinished third act of Alban Berg’s Lulu.[7]

After the Anschluss during the course of Aryanization, Stein was forced to sell his stockholdings in Universal Edition.[6] He fled to London to escape the Nazis and worked for many years as an editor for the music publisher Boosey & Hawkes. His focus was mainly on Mahler, Schoenberg and Britten (all three of whom he knew personally) as well as his colleagues within the Schoenberg circle, Alban Berg and Webern.[1]

Legacy

His books include Orpheus in New Guises (a collection of writings from the period 1924–1953)[5] and Form and Performance (1962).[8]

He was the editor of the first collection of Schoenberg's letters (Germany 1958; UK 1964). He was also instrumental in setting up the modern music periodical Tempo in 1939.[2]

In 2020 his arrangement of Mahler's Symphony No. 4 was revived by the Berlin Philharmonic during the COVID-19 pandemic. The orchestra was unable to play Mahler's original version, as had been scheduled, because of the restrictions of social distancing.[3]

Personal life

Stein married Sophie Bachmann (1883?–1965),[9] and their daughter, the pianist Marion Stein, married successively George Lascelles, 7th Earl of Harewood and the Liberal politician Jeremy Thorpe.[10]

See also

References
  1. Basil, Douglas. Obituary, The Musical Times, Vol. 99, No. 1387 (September, 1958), p. 501
  2. Harewood. Erwin Stein 1885 – 1958. Tempo, New Ser., No. 49 (Autumn, 1958), pp. 35–36. Accessed via JSTOR, subscription required
  3. "European Concert". Digital Concert Hall. 2020. Retrieved 9 May 2020.
  4. Thomas Christian Ensemble, MDG CD 603 1313-2 (2004), reviewed at MusicWeb International
  5. Erwin Stein on Schoenberg, extract from Orpheus in New Guises (1953), p. 47–54
  6. Erwin Stein at Universal Edition
  7. Carner, Mosco. 'Stein, Erwin', in Grove Music Online (2001)
  8. Reviewed in Music and Letters, Volume 43, Issue 3, July 1962, Pages 279–280
  9. Erwin Stein and his wife Sophie Bachmann in their flat in Kensington, London, 21st July 1949. Getty Images
  10. Amis, John. Marion Thorpe obituary, The Guardian, 7 March, 2014
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