Background

Zeisler was born on July 16, 1863 in Bielitz, Austrian Silesia (now Bielsko-Biała, Poland), the daughter of Salomon and Bertha (Jaeger) Blumenfeld. Her father emigrated to America in 1866, settling in Appleton, Wisconsin, where he was joined the following year by his wife and three children, Fannie being the youngest. In 1869 the family removed permanently to Chicago.

Education

Fannie received her first instruction on the piano from her brother, Maurice Bloomfield, but her first systematic training came from Bernhard Ziehn, with whom she studied several years. In 1873 she became a pupil of Carl Wolfsohn and made her first public appearance at a concert given February 26, 1875, by the Beethoven Society with Wolfsohn conducting.

Career

On the advice of Madame Essipoff, who heard her play during her American tour of 1877, the young pianist in June 1878 went to Vienna, where she spent five years of intensive study with Leschetizky. She returned to America in the summer of 1883 and in the fall gave her first full concert in the old Hershey Hall, Chicago, with great success. Her first appearance with orchestra was in New York with Frank B. Van der Stucken, in one of his "novelty concerts. " Zeisler soon became recognized as one of the foremost pianists in America. In the fall of 1888 she went to Leschetizky again and coached with him till March 1889. Then, with a few intervening years of maturing experience, she made her first European tour in the fall of 1893, appearing with the great orchestras of Berlin, Leipzig, Dresden, and Vienna. In the latter city, after a performance which evoked unusual enthusiasm, a severe illness interrupted the tour, and she returned home. In the fall of 1894 she went back for a second tour, confined largely to Germany and Austria, and won significant triumphs wherever she played. A third European tour, made in 1898, was confined largely to England, but it included a notable performance at the Lower Rhine Music Festival at Cologne. A fourth tour was made in 1902 in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, and Paris, and a fifth in 1911-1912, covering all of western Europe. At her first Paris appearance with the Lamoureux Orchestra in 1902, a famous incident occurred. A violently hostile anti-foreign gallery claque attempted to prevent Zeisler from playing, but with characteristic courage and tenacity she held her ground, and, by her impassioned and masterly performance of the Saint-Saens C-Minor concerto, turned the noisy tumult into an overwhelming triumph. The wide range of her available repertoire was remarkable. During a tour in California in March 1912 she played eight recitals in San Francisco, with no repetitions, within the space of eighteen days. Among her public appearances in her later years two were of quite extraordinary interest. After an absence of two years from the concert stage and following a long illness, she gave a concert in Chicago in Orchestra Hall, February 3, 1920, at which she played with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra three concertos in succession - the Mozart C-Minor, the Chopin F-Minor, and the Tchaikovsky B-flat Minor. Five years later the Chicago Symphony Orchestra gave a special concert, on February 25, 1925, to celebrate her golden jubilee as an artist. On this occasion, which proved to be her last public appearance, she played the same piece, the Beethoven "Andante Favori, " with which she had begun her public career just fifty years before, and then two concertos - the Schumann and the Chopin F-Minor. She received a thrilling ovation, not merely as a personal tribute, but because of the remarkable fact that there was in the performance no suggestion of declining powers. Her death came two years later after a protracted illness.

Achievements

• Zeisler was noted for her formidable technique and extensive repertoire. As an interpreter she had full mastery of a wide range of styles, yet possibly excelled in moods demanding virile incisiveness, technical brilliance, and dramatic intensity.

Works

More photos

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  • The Great Masters of the Piano
  • Zeisler, Fannie Bloomfield: Piano Roll Recordings
  • Nocturne In D Flat Major Op.27 No.2
  • Fannie Bloomfield Zeisler Piano / Various
  • Gondoliera Op.41
  • Melody From Orpheus
  • The Masters of the Roll – Fanny Bloomfield-Zeisler

Personality

Zeisler was a woman of wide intellectual and cultural sympathies, democratic in her personal intercourse, frank and outspoken in her convictions, simple and unostentatious in her life. She wielded a large influence as a teacher, was devoted to the welfare of her students, and was as exacting a task-master with them as she had always been with herself. Lofty idealism, unremitting industry, indomitable energy, and absolute sincerity were the foundations on which her whole life and art were built.

Connections

On October 18, 1885, Zeisler was married to Sigmund Zeisler, who throughout their married life maintained a rare sympathy with and appreciation of her art. He and their three sons survived her.

Father:

Salomon Blumenfeld

Mother:

Bertha Jaeger

Spouse:

Sigmund Zeisler

References

• Bakers Biographical Dictionary of Musicians
• Great Pianists on Piano Playing
• Fannie Bloomfield-Zeisler: The Life and Times of a Piano Virtuoso (Music in American Life)