Emilie Zumsteegaus romantic

Emilie Zumsteeg (* 9 December 1796 in Stuttgart; † 1 August 1857 ibid.) was a German composer, music teacher, choir director, pianist and music writer.

Life

Emilie Zumsteeg’s parents were Johann Rudolph Zumsteeg, concertmaster at the Württemberg court, and his wife Luise, née Andreä (1760-1837), a doctor’s daughter. It is assumed that Luise Zumsteeg was descended from the Stuttgart court pharmacist Maria Andreae. Emilie Zumsteeg was the seventh and last child of the couple. Only three of Emilie Zumsteeg’s siblings survived infancy.

Until the early death of her father in 1802, when she was five years old, Emilie Zumsteeg grew up carefree. Her parents kept company with the middle-class families that formed the cultural centre of Stuttgart. These included the families of the merchant Gottlob Heinrich von Rapp and the painter Johann Heinrich Dannecker and the Hartmann and Reinbeck families. At gatherings in the houses of these families, readings were held, literature and the fine arts were discussed and music was also performed. From 1802, the widow Luise Zumsteeg had to earn a living for herself and her four children. With the help of the publishers Breitkopf and Härtel, she founded a music shop (Zumsteegs Witwe), in which her daughter worked. In 1825 Luise Zumsteeg handed over the trading business to her son Gustav Adolf Zumsteeg, who had trained as a businessman.

Emilie Zumsteeg’s interest and talent for music became apparent at an early age. She received early lessons in piano, singing, basso continuo and score playing. Her teachers were Gottlob Schick (1776-1812) (piano and score playing) and choir director Wilhelm Sutor (singing, basso continuo). She showed particular talent for playing the score. Zumsteeg began composing in her youth. For example, the song Der erste Dezember (EZ 54) was written in November 1814, when she was 18 years old. From 1817 onwards, she published songs and piano works in independent booklets – with Simrock in Bonn, with Schott in Mainz as well as in her own publishing house Zumsteeg – as well as in music journals.

Emilie Zumsteeg performed both as a singer and a pianist in 1821 and 1822. Her performances were part of the subscription concerts of the royal court orchestra, which took place in the Redoutensaal of the palace as well as in the then museum of Stuttgart in the winter half-year, usually as a cycle of twelve concerts. Her beautiful alto voice was praised in reviews. These performances ended for unknown reasons after only two years. After that she was only active as a conductor, choir director and music teacher. She earned her living primarily with music lessons. She worked as a private music teacher, later also – the beginning of this activity is not known – as a music teacher at the Königin-Katharina-Stift.

From 1820 onwards, Emilie Zumsteeg held “Sunday musicals” in her house. For this, she enlisted respected artists. Various choral works were also rehearsed at these events, including Handel’s Messiah oratorio in 1826. Zumsteeg conducted the choral works from the piano. In 1847, these meetings developed into the “Verein für klassische Kirchenmusik” (Society for Classical Church Music), which Zumsteeg thereby helped to found. The association, from which the “Oratorienverein Stuttgart” emerged, developed into one of the leading German choirs of church music. The piano teacher and composer Immanuel Faißt took over the official direction, but the choral pedagogical work was done by Emilie Zumsteeg.

Zumsteeg also played a major role in other musical performances in private homes in Stuttgart. She prepared public choir performances as choirmaster and conductor and rehearsed the voices primarily with the female singers. At the actual performance, male conductors stood at the podium, as for example at a performance of the Messiah in 1832. With her choral pedagogical work, the rehearsal and performance of operas and oratorios that had not been known to the general public in Stuttgart until then, Zumsteeg had a taste-forming effect and had a lasting influence on the repertoire of Stuttgart’s concert offerings.

Emilie Zumsteeg founded the first “Frauenliederkranz” in Württemberg, which later became part of the “Stuttgarter Liederkranz”. Since her women’s choir developed from private circles, the foundation cannot be dated exactly, but there is evidence of rehearsals for the performance of works for mixed voices from the 1820s onwards. At that time, women-only choirs had the problem of finding suitable rehearsal rooms. Men’s choirs often used inns, which women could only visit in the company of male acquaintances or relatives, so as not to jeopardise their reputation. Zumsteeg’s women’s choir therefore rehearsed in the town hall or the Bürgermuseum. Through her music lessons, Zumsteeg succeeded in training singers for a women’s choir. In 1836, her choir, for which she recruited her singing students, already consisted of 30 singers. The “Stuttgarter Liederkranz”, which was founded in 1824 by Emilie Zumsteeg’s brother Gustav Adolf Zumsteeg, among others, was initially a male-only singing society, but it cooperated with Zumsteeg’s women’s choir. The female singers played a special role in the annual Schiller celebrations of the Liederkranz. They took part dressed in white, which was considered the colour of purity and reason. For the “Liederkranz” it was a prestige gain to have female singers in the association. This was considered a sign of progressiveness and a refined cultural level. Many of the female singers in Stuttgart came from the Liberal environment. The Stuttgart Women’s Choir eventually prompted associations in other cities to admit women, such as in Tübingen in 1841.

Emilie Zumsteeg’s recognition as a musical authority is also shown by her collaboration with the Musikalisches Volksblatt, which Alois Schmitt, the director of the Stuttgart Liederkranz, had founded in 1842. Her brother Gustav Adolf Zumsteeg, on the other hand, although a music dealer and long-time member of the Liederkranz, was not involved, which further underlines her influence on Stuttgart’s musical life. King Wilhelm I of Württemberg honoured their musical activities with an annual salary in 1841. Zumsteeg’s family book contained entries by several well-known writers and musicians of her time, including the librettist Helmina von Chézy and the writers Gustav Schwab, Nikolaus Lenau, Justinus Kerner and Eduard Mörike.

After a long and painful illness, Emilie Zumsteeg died in Stuttgart on 1 August 1857. The “Liederkranz” honoured her with a funeral service. The funeral at the Hoppenlauf Cemetery was attended by what was noted at the time as an “unusually large number of people”. Almost six months after her death, on 28 January 1858, the “Liederkranz” and the “Verein für klassische Kirchenmusik” held a memorial service at which works by Emilie Zumsteeg and her father were performed. In addition to her choir, the best singers of the Royal Court Theatre took part. The proceeds of the celebration were used to erect a monument on her grave, which was executed according to a design by the architect Christian Friedrich Leins and inaugurated on 1 August 1858.

Works

Emilie Zumsteeg’s surviving complete works consist of 56 songs with piano or guitar accompaniment, 10 works for piano, 5 duets for women’s voices, 3 cantatas, about 20 choruses for men’s, women’s and mixed voices with or without accompaniment as well as instrumental and vocal arrangements. Zumsteeg’s first songs were still rococo in style and the influence of her father’s songs was noticeable. From 1830 onwards, the tonal language became more romantic. The importance of text declamation and musical word interpretation increased.

The choruses and cantatas were mostly composed on the occasion of public Stuttgart events such as the Schiller Festival, which was held annually by the “Liederkranz”. Some were probably composed for weddings of schoolgirls and girlfriends or as pieces for Zumsteeg’s women’s choir. Zumsteeg also arranged works by other composers for public occasions – for example, a song by Friedrich Wilhelm Kücken – which she arranged for the “Stuttgarter Liederkranz”. With her piano works, however, it was rarely possible to determine an occasion for which they were written. One exception is the piano song Obzusiegen wähnt die Zeit (EZ 39), which was written in 1819 as a musical obituary for the popular Queen Katharina.

44 of her works were published during her lifetime, a few of them several times. The song Ulrichs Lied in der Nebelhöhle (EZ 37) (“From the tower where I have often seen”) from Lichtenstein by Wilhelm Hauff found wide circulation through its inclusion in commers books. Other songs printed several times are Gut’ Nacht! (EZ 9), Don’t cry! Weine nicht, du mein süßes Leben (EZ 8) and Sehnsucht der Liebe (EZ 16). After her death, her songs were rarely published.

From the 1830s onwards, Emilie Zumsteeg composed very little. The reasons for this are probably her activities as a private music teacher and as a music teacher at the Königin-Katharina-Stift and her great commitment to working with choirs, which left her little free time.
Source Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emilie_Zumsteeg