Germaine Schnitzer

Germaine Schnitzer (May 28, 1888 — September 18, 1982) was a French-born pianist based in New York.

Germaine Schnitzer
Germaine Schnitzer, from a 1920 publication.
Born
Germaine Alice Schnitzer

May 28, 1888
Paris
DiedSeptember 18, 1982
New York City
NationalityFrench, American
Occupationpianist

Early life

Germaine Alice Schnitzer was born in Paris and studied music at the Conservatoire de Paris, with further training under Raoul Pugno and with Emil von Sauer at the Vienna Conservatory.[1] She was sometimes referred to as "Viennese",[2] and while in Vienna won a prize for music from the Austrian government.[3]

Musical career

Schnitzer was a pianist with a busy concert career in North America and Europe.[4][5] She played in New York with the Russian Symphony Orchestra and the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra,[6] toured Holland,[7] and toured in Russia until she sprained her ankle,[8] all during 1908 and 1909. She played a dual recital with American violinist Francis MacMillen at Carnegie Hall in 1916.[9] She gave a series of recitals in New York in 1920,[10] before embarking on a European tour. The tour was cut short when she returned to New York to be with her husband during a hospitalization.[11] She toured in Europe again in 1922.[12][13]

She received wide critical praise for her technique and interpretation of the romantic composers, especially Robert Schumann.[14][15] Another reviewer was less enthusiastic, calling her "solid and substantial" performance "massive even ponderous and lacking an emotional basis".[16] She affirmed that technique was her emphasis: "I do not believe that a public performer is best served by giving himself up entirely to the emotional phase of his expression, since he is almost surely to fall into rhythmic and other excess which may mar the more worthy element of clarity," she told an interviewer in 1920.[11] She was interviewed for a chapter in Harriette Moore Brower's Piano Mastery (1915).[17] Schnitzer recorded several piano rolls for Ampico.[18]

Later incidents

In 1931, Schnitzer's career ended when she was badly injured in a traffic accident in New York, and remained partially paralyzed. She won a judgment of $150,000 after suing the taxi company in 1934, though it is unlikely she was ever paid.[19] In 1944 she admitted her part[20] in a conspiracy to violate the Export Control Act,[21] to help her brother Georges Schnitzer, a banker in Belgium, access his frozen accounts during World War II.[22] She pleaded guilty, testified for the government, and was eventually fined $5000.[23][24] Her donation to the New York Times Neediest Cases Fund in 1979 was noted by the paper, because of her advanced age.[25]

Personal life

Germaine Schnitzer married Leo Buerger, a pathologist, in 1913. She sued him for divorce in 1927.[26][27] She had a son, Gerald Henri Buerger (later known as Gerry Kean, an actor, playwright, and director),[28][29] and a daughter, Yvonne Sarah Buerger Jones (1920-1942). Yvonne's godmother was Schnitzer's friend, actress Sarah Bernhardt.[11] Yvonne's husband at the time of her death was actor Henry Burk Jones. Germaine Schnitzer died in 1982, aged 94 years, in New York.[1] Her gravesite is with her daughter's, in Ridgefield, Connecticut. Theatre administrator Robert C. Schnitzer (1906-2008), also based in Connecticut, was her nephew, the son of her brother Louis Schnitzer.[30][31]

References
  1. "Germaine Schnitzer, Pianist in Early 1900s" New York Times (September 22, 1982): D25. via ProQuest
  2. "Germaine Schnitzer's Second Tour" Musical Courier (1908): 28.
  3. "A Parley with a Pianist" Musical Courier (October 14, 1908): 38.
  4. "Germaine Schnitzer Demanded All Over United States" Music News (June 2, 1916): 25.
  5. Abbie Stephens Fridenberg, "Mme. Schnitzer Does Not Accept" Music News (June 23, 1916): 18.
  6. "Soloists with the Dresden Philharmonic" Musical Courier (October 7, 1908): 18.
  7. "Schnitzer's Holland Tour" Musical Courier (October 14, 1908): 29.
  8. "Germaine Schnitzer Now in Germany" Musical Courier (December 16, 1908): 17.
  9. Abbie Stephens Fridenberg, "Mme. Schnitzer in Dual Recital with Mac Millen" Music News (February 18, 1916): 28.
  10. "Germaine Schnitzer, Pianist" Musical Courier (March 25, 1920): 41.
  11. "Germaine Schnitzer Abandons European Tour" Musical Courier (April 22, 1920): 28.
  12. "Mme. Schnitzer Plays" Musical Courier (December 28, 1922): 7.
  13. "Germaine Schnitzer to Play in Stockholm" Musical Courier (August 10, 1922): 17.
  14. "Germaine Schnitzer 'a Wonder of Technic'" Musical Courier (March 11, 1920): 53.
  15. Abbie Stephens Fridenberg, "Germaine Schnitzer Functionates as Interpreter of the Romantics" Music News (January 28, 1916): 28.
  16. H. F. P., "Schnitzer Warmly Greeted at Return" Musical America (November 22, 1919): 28.
  17. Harriette Moore Brower, Piano Mastery: Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers (Frederick A. Stokes Company 1915): 215.
  18. Great Female Pianists Vol 6: Masters of the Piano Roll series audio CD (Dal Segno 2007).
  19. "Injury Suit Won by Mme. Schnitzer" New York Times (June 6, 1934): 22. via ProQuest
  20. "Woman Admits Plot on Assets" Daily News (October 25, 1944): 152. via Newspapers.com
  21. "Ex-Pianist Testifies in Frozen Fund Case" New York Times (February 7, 1945): 17. via ProQuest
  22. "Pianist Admits Plot to 'Unfreeze' Funds" New York Times (October 25, 1944): 23. via ProQuest
  23. "Pianist Indicted in Money Shifting" New York Times (September 27, 1944): 8. via ProQuest
  24. United States v. Moran, 151 F.2d 661 (2d Cir. 1945), at Justia.
  25. Joan Cook, "Woman, 92, Donates to Neediest; Another Hails Work by the Fund" New York Times (December 27, 1979): B13. via ProQuest
  26. Joseph Cowan, "Mrs. Buerger Cites Other Loves of Noted Surgeon" Daily News (December 20, 1927): 337. via Newspapers.com
  27. Joseph Cowan, "Blonde Proves Unlucky; Surgeon's Wife Names Her in Divorce Trial" Daily News (April 14, 1928): 62. via Newspapers.com
  28. Nona Footz, "The Woman with the Red Leather Gloves" Venu (January-February 2013): 56-57.
  29. "Home... to Hollywood" Daily News (August 9, 1938): 174. via Newspapers.com
  30. Robert C. Schnitzer and Marcella Cisney Papers, Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.
  31. "Robert C. Schnitzer, 101" Westport Now (January 14, 2008).
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