Severin Eisenberger
Severin Eisenberger was a Polish pianist and composer, born in Krakow on July 25, 1879. He made his public debut in 1889, before his tenth birthday, performing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto in B-flat major.
He studied with the Krakow teacher Flora Grzywińska, then continued his training in Berlin with Heinrich Ehrlich and in Vienna with Theodor Leschetizky. Around the turn of the 20th century, he toured widely in Europe. In Berlin, he performed Edvard Grieg’s Piano Concerto with Grieg conducting.
Eisenberger lived mainly in Vienna, apart from a period in Krakow from 1914 to 1922, when he taught at the Conservatory of the Krakow Music Society. He performed and gave piano lessons; his students included Lili Kraus and Heinrich Kaminski. He also spent a short time composing, but later stopped writing music.
As a performer, Eisenberger was particularly associated with the works of Beethoven and Chopin. He said that his interpretations of Beethoven drew on accounts from his teacher Ehrlich, who had learned about the composer from Carl Czerny, a close associate of Beethoven. From 1928, Eisenberger lived mainly in the United States and taught in Cleveland and Cincinnati. In 1938, he performed Grieg’s Piano Concerto with the Cincinnati Conservatory Orchestra in a concert broadcast on the radio; a recording of the performance survives. He died in New York City on December 11, 1945.