Leonid Kreutzer (13 March 1884 in

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

– 30 October 1953 in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...

) was a classical pianist.

Life and career

Kreutzer was born in St. Petersburg into a Jewish family. He studied composition under Alexander Glazunov and piano under

Anna Yesipova Anna Yesipova (born ''Anna Nikolayevna Yesipova'' '' russian:_Анна_Николаевна_Есипова.html" ;"title="/nowiki>russian: Анна Николаевна Есипова">/nowiki>russian: Анна Николаевна Есипов� ...

. He was a highly influential piano teacher at the Berlin Academy of Music (Berliner Hochschule für Musik), together with

Egon Petri Egon Petri (23 March 188127 May 1962) was a Dutch pianist. Life and career Petri's family was Dutch. He was born a Dutch citizen but in Hanover, Germany, and grew up in Dresden, where he attended the Kreuzschule. His father, a professional vio ...

. Amongst Kreutzer's students were

Władysław Szpilman Władysław Szpilman (; 5 December 1911 – 6 July 2000) was a Polish pianist and classical composer of Jewish descent. Szpilman is widely known as the central figure in the 2002 Roman Polanski film '' The Pianist'', which was based on Szpilman ...

, Hans-Erich Riebensahm, Vladimir Horbowski, Karl-Ulrich Schnabel, Franz Osborn, Boris Berlin, Ignace Strasfogel,

Franz Reizenstein Franz Theodor Reizenstein (7 June 191115 October 1968) was a German-born British composer and concert pianist. He left Germany for sanctuary in Britain in 1934 and went on to have his teaching and performing career there. As a composer, he succ ...

and

Grete Sultan Grete Sultan (born Johanna Margarete Sultan) (June 21, 1906June 26, 2005) was a German-American pianist. Born in Berlin into a musical Jewish family, she studied piano from an early age with American pianist Richard Buhlig, and later with Leonid ...

. Leonid Kreutzer also gave musically and technically demanding solo recitals, mostly dedicated to specific composers or themes. At some of these, notably in June 1925, he performed works of contemporaries or modern,

avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...

composers of his time or of the recent past such as

César Franck César-Auguste Jean-Guillaume Hubert Franck (; 10 December 1822 – 8 November 1890) was a French Romantic composer, pianist, organist, and music teacher born in modern-day Belgium. He was born in Liège (which at the time of his birth was pa ...

, Claude Debussy,

Paul Hindemith Paul Hindemith (; 16 November 189528 December 1963) was a German composer, music theorist, teacher, violist and conductor. He founded the Amar Quartet in 1921, touring extensively in Europe. As a composer, he became a major advocate of the ' ...

and

Paul Juon Paul may refer to: *Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name) *Paul (surname), a list of people People Christianity * Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chri ...

Memorial to Leonid Kreutzer - Tokyo University of the Arts - DSC08873

The

Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in N ...

targeted him prominently as a cultural enemy: Together with Frieda Loebenstein he is the one of two pianists whose name appears in a list of "tidy-up tasks" ("Aufräumungsarbeiten") compiled by Rosenberg's "Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur" (Battle-Union for German Culture). He emigrated in 1933 to Tokyo, Japan. He is also known as editor of Chopin's works at the

Ullstein-Verlag The ''Ullstein Verlag'' was founded by Leopold Ullstein in 1877 at Berlin and is one of the largest publishing companies of Germany. It published newspapers like '' B.Z.'' and '' Berliner Morgenpost'' and books through its subsidiaries ''Ullstein ...

. He wrote one of the first works on systematic use of the piano pedal ("Das normale Klavierpedal vom akustischen und ästhetischen Standpunkt", 1915). One of his students was the deaf pianist Ingrid Fuzjko Hemming. There are pianos which are built under his name in Japan. Kreutzer married one of his pupils; his daughter is the soprano Ryoko Kreutzer.

References

Sources

Wolfgang Rathert Wolfgang Rathert (born 17 July 1960) is a German musicologist born in Minden. Life and career Born in Minden, Rathert passed the C-examination as church musician during his school time and acquired the Abitur at the Herder-Gymnasium Minden. ...

and Dietmar Schenk (eds.). Pianisten in Berlin: Klavierspiel und Klavierausbildung seit dem 19. Jahrhundert. Hochschule der Künste Berlin Archiv, vol. 3. Berlin, 1999.

Bibliography

* Bredow, Moritz von. 2012. "Rebellische Pianistin. Das Leben der Grete Sultan zwischen Berlin und New York." (Biography). Schott Music, Mainz, Germany. (Contains previously unpublished image of Leonid Kreutzer and important references to his work as Professor of Piano in Berlin). {{DEFAULTSORT:Kreutzer, Leonid 1884 births 1953 deaths 20th-century classical pianists 20th-century Japanese male musicians Classical pianists from the Russian Empire German classical pianists German male classical pianists Japanese classical pianists Japanese male classical pianists German emigrants to Japan Jewish classical pianists Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany Jews from the Russian Empire Musicians from Saint Petersburg Pupils of Anna Yesipova