Pianist Arthur Schnabel Home Movie 1937 video

Filmed in 1937 by Karol Liszniewski in Cincinnati, Ohio. Arthur Schnabel (April 17, 1882 -- August 15, 1951) was a classical pianist, who also composed and taught. Schnabel was renowned for his seriousness as a musician, avoiding anything resembling pure technical bravura. He was said to have tended to disregard his own technical limitations in pursuit of his musical ideals. However, Schnabel is widely considered to be one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century, whose vitality, profundity and spiritual penetration in his playing of works by Beethoven and Schubert, in particular, have seldom if ever been surpassed. Born in Lipnik, Poland, Schnabel studied piano from the age of seven in Vienna under Theodor Leschetizky who said to him "You will never be a pianist. You are a musician." Schnabel took these words to heart, and rather than playing the showy virtuoso pieces by composers like Franz Liszt which were popular in the late 19th century, he chose to concentrate on Germanic classics by Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert. Later, Schnabel also studied composition under Eusebius Mandyczewski who was a friend of Johannes Brahms. In 1900, Schnabel moved to Berlin where he began his career as a professional pianist. He gained some fame thanks to orchestral concerts he gave under the conductor Artur Nikisch as well as playing in chamber music and accompanying his future wife, the contralto Therese Behr, in lieder. It seems that Behr had some influence over Schnabel's ...