Karl Schnabel

Karl Ulrich Schnabel was a German-American pianist of Jewish origin and a music teacher. He was born in Berlin, Germany, on August 6, 1909, and died in Danbury, United States, on August 27, 2001. He was the son of the pianist Artur Schnabel and the singer Therese Behr.

Schnabel studied at the Berlin Academy of Music with Leonid Kreutzer and Paul Juon. In the 1930s he lived in England and Italy with his parents, and from 1939 onward he lived in the United States. He accompanied his mother, especially in songs by Franz Schubert, and also performed in a duo with his father.

In 1939 he married the pianist Helen Fogel, with whom he later gave concerts together. He taught at music colleges in New York, and his students included Richard Goode, Murray Perahia, Ursula Oppens, and Peter Serkin.

In the 1940s Schnabel founded one of the first electronic music laboratories in the United States. He was especially known as a piano teacher and had begun teaching at the age of 13 as an assistant to his father. In 1940 he became head of all instrumental departments at the New York Dalcroze School.

Beginning in 1947, he revived a family tradition of annual international summer master's courses at Lake Como in Italy. He also taught master classes in England, Scotland, France, Italy, Germany, Austria, Spain, Israel, Brazil, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and throughout the United States, including at the Ravinia Festival.

In 1985 he joined the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music and continued teaching there until his retirement in 2000. After his death, he was buried in the family plot in Schwyz, Switzerland, beside his parents and his wife.

Connections

This figure has 1 connection in the Music Lineage catalog.