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Rudolph Edward was born on July 22, 1859 in New York City, New York, United States, the son of Mary (Fairchild) and Gustav Schirmer.
The Schirmer family at Weimar came into contact with the circle of celebrities, literary and musical, that gathered around Liszt; on one occasion the two Schirmer boys took part in a children's concert that was given in honor of Liszt.
Educated in the New York public schools until 1873, Schirmer went with his mother, his younger brother Gustave (1864 - 1907), and four of his sisters to Weimar, Germany, where he spent two years in private schools and had lessons in violin and piano playing from Helene Stahr, pupil and protege of Liszt.
In 1876 Rudolph entered the College of New Jersey (later Princeton) where he was active in the musical life of the college and was one of the presidents of the glee club. After his graduation in 1880 he attended the law school of Columbia College, was graduated in June 1884.
Rudolph Edward Schirmer was admitted to the bar in 1884. For a short time he was affiliated with the law firm of Olcott, Mestre & Gonzalez in New York, but when his brother Gustave in 1885 left their father's music business to marry Grace Tilton of Boston and to found there the Boston Music Company (eminently successful later through the publication of compositions by Ethelbert Nevin and others), he abandoned the law in order to replace his brother in his father's business.
When bad health required the father to spend more time in Europe, a reconciliation between him and his son Gustave brought the latter back to the business to join with Rudolph in the management. After the father's death in 1893, when the business had been reorganized and incorporated, Rudolph became president and his brother Gustave (though retaining the independent control of his Boston business) secretary of G. Schirmer, Inc.
After the untimely death of his brilliant brother Gustave in 1907, Rudolph assumed the sole direction of the New York business. In 1910 he moved the business to 3 East 43rd St. In 1912 he established a branch in London, which was maintained for a short time only. In 1915 he founded the Musical Quarterly. He was a director of the New York Oratorio Society and of the New York Symphony Society.
His health during the last years of his life having grown extremely precarious, he moved to Santa Barbara, California, where he died.
Rudolph Edward Schirmer became president of famous publishing company, founded by his father, G. Schirmer, Inc. Besides, he founded The Musical Quarterly, the oldest academic journal on music in the U. S. Being a trustee of the Institute of Musical Art in New York, he fostered many young and promising composers.
Schirmer showed a keen appreciation of high artistic ideals and a relish for musical advance.
In 1886 Schirmer married Martha Young Barnes of New York, who bore him one child that died in infancy. On March 28, 1916, a week after a Nevada divorce from his first wife, he married Ann Swinburne, a talented concert singer and comic opera star, by whom he had a son.
