Daniel Gottlieb Steibelt (October 22, 1765), was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 pianist and composer who died in Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

, Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

.

Life and music

Daniel Steibelt was born in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

, and studied music with Johann Kirnberger

Johann Kirnberger

Johann Philipp Kirnberger was a musician, composer , and music theorist. A pupil of Johann Sebastian Bach, he became a violinist at the court of Frederick II of Prussia in 1751. He was the music director to the Prussian Princess Anna Amalia from 1758 until his death. Kirnberger greatly admired J.S...

 before being forced by his father to join the Prussia

Prussia

Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...

n army. Deserting, he began a nomadic career as a pianist before settling in 1790 in Paris. Here his dramatic opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 entitled Romeo et Juliette, which was later highly regarded by Hector Berlioz

Hector Berlioz

Hector Berlioz was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts . Berlioz made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. He specified huge orchestral forces for some of his works; as a...

, was produced at the Théâtre Feydeau in 1793. This is held by many to be his most original and artistically successful composition.

Steibelt began to share his time between Paris and London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, where his piano-playing attracted great attention. In 1797 he played in a concert of J. P. Salamon

Johann Peter Salomon

Johann Peter Salomon was a German violinist, composer, conductor and musical impresario.-Life:...

. In 1798 he produced his Concerto

Concerto

A concerto is a musical work usually composed in three parts or movements, in which one solo instrument is accompanied by an orchestra.The etymology is uncertain, but the word seems to have originated from the conjunction of the two Latin words...

 No. 3 in E flat containing a Storm Rondo

Rondo

Rondo, and its French equivalent rondeau, is a word that has been used in music in a number of ways, most often in reference to a musical form, but also to a character-type that is distinct from the form...

characterised by extensive tremolo

Tremolo

Tremolo, or tremolando, is a musical term that describes various trembling effects, falling roughly into two types. The first is a rapid reiteration...

s, which became very popular. In the following year Steibelt started on a professional tour in Germany; and, after playing with some success in Hamburg

Hamburg

-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

, Dresden

Dresden

Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....

, Prague

Prague

Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...

 and Berlin, he arrived in May 1800 at Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

, where he challenged Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...

 to a trial of skill at the house of Count von Fries.

Accounts of the contest record it was a disaster for Steibelt; Beethoven reportedly carried the day by improvising at length on a theme taken from the cello part of a new Steibelt piece—placed upside down on the music rack. Following this public humiliation Steibelt quit his tour. In 1808 he was invited by Tsar Alexander I

Alexander I of Russia

Alexander I of Russia , served as Emperor of Russia from 23 March 1801 to 1 December 1825 and the first Russian King of Poland from 1815 to 1825. He was also the first Russian Grand Duke of Finland and Lithuania....

 to Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

, succeeding François-Adrien Boieldieu

François-Adrien Boïeldieu

François-Adrien Boieldieu was a French composer, mainly of operas, often called "the French Mozart".-Biography:...

 as director of the Royal Opera in 1811. He remained there for the rest of his life.

He generally ceased performing in 1814, but returned to the platform for his Concerto No. 8, which was premiered on March 16, 1820, in Saint Petersburg, and is notable for its choral finale. This was four years even before Beethoven's Symphony No. 9

Symphony No. 9 (Beethoven)

The Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, is the final complete symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven. Completed in 1824, the symphony is one of the best known works of the Western classical repertoire, and has been adapted for use as the European Anthem...

, and was the only piano concerto ever written (excluding Beethoven's Choral Fantasy) with a part for a chorus until Henri Herz

Henri Herz

Henri Herz was a pianist and composer, Austrian by birth, and French by domicile.Herz was born Heinrich Herz in Vienna...

's 6th concerto, Op 192 (1858) and Ferruccio Busoni

Ferruccio Busoni

Ferruccio Busoni was an Italian composer, pianist, editor, writer, piano and composition teacher, and conductor.-Biography:...

's Piano Concerto

Piano Concerto (Busoni)

The Piano Concerto in C major, Op. 39 , by Ferruccio Busoni, is one of the largest works ever written in this particular genre. The concerto is in five movements, the last of which also utilizes a male chorus singing words from the final scene of the verse drama Aladdin by Adam Oehlenschläger.The...

 (1904).

Besides his dramatic music, Steibelt left behind him an enormous number of compositions, mostly for the piano. His playing was said to be brilliant, though lacking the higher qualities which characterized that of such contemporaries as Cramer

Johann Baptist Cramer

Johann Baptist Cramer was an English musician of German origin. He was the son of Wilhelm Cramer, a famous London violinist and musical conductor, one of a numerous family who were identified with the progress of music during the 18th and 19th centuries.-Biography:Johann Baptist Cramer was born in...

 and Muzio Clementi

Muzio Clementi

Muzio Clementi was a celebrated composer, pianist, pedagogue, conductor, music publisher, editor, and piano manufacturer. Born in Italy, he spent most of his life in England. He is best known for his piano sonatas, and his collection of piano studies, Gradus ad Parnassum...

. Grove describes him as 'extraordinarily vain, arrogant, discourteous, recklessly extravagant and even dishonest.' But his playing and compositional skills enabled him to maintain a respectable career and reputation in his time.Such harsh moral judgements are not justified by the facts of Steibelt's life as they have come down to us. These and similar attacks on his character must be viewed with suspicion if a correct image of Steibelt's personality is never to be reconstructed.

At his best Steibelt is an imaginative composer with strong individuality. His operas Cendrillon (1810) and Romeo et Juliette (1793), all his piano concerti, his chamber music, a selection of his numerous sonatas (notably Op. 64 in G - 1809) and some piano pieces (caprices and preludes, studies Op. 78) are of sufficient musical worth to be performed and enjoyed today.

Selected list of his works

1) Stage

• Romeo et Juliette, 3 acts (1793)
• Albert et Adelaide, 3 acts (1798)
• Le retour de Zephyre, 1 act ballet (1802)
• Le jugement de Berger, 3 acts ballet (1804)
• La Belle Laitière, ou Blanche Reine de Castille (1805)
• La Fête de Mars, intermezzo (1806)
• La Princesse de Babylone, 3 acts opera (1812)
• La Fête de l'Empereur, ballet (1809)
• Der Blöde Ritter (1810)
• Sargines, 3 acts, opera (1810)
• Cendrillon, 3 acts opera (1810)
• Le jugement de Midas (1823?)

2) Orchestral

• Concerto No. 1 for Piano and Orchestra in C (1796)
• Concerto No. 2 for Piano, Violin and Orchestra in E minor (1796)
• Concerto No. 3 for Piano and Orchestra in E "L'orage" (1799)
• Concerto No. 4 for Piano and Orchestra in E (1800)
• Concerto No. 5 for Piano and Orchestra in E "À la chasse" Op. 64 (1802)
• Concerto No. 6 for Piano and Orchestra in G minor "Le voyage au mont Saint-Bernard" (1816)
• Concerto No. 7 for Piano and Orchestra in E minor "Grand concerto militaire dans le genre grec", with 2 orchestras, (1816)
• Concerto No. 8 for Piano and Orchestra in E "with bacchanalian rondo, acc. chorus" (1820), not published.

• Harp Concerto (1807)
• Ouverture en Symphonie (1796)
• Marches and Waltzes

3) Chamber

• 3 String Quartets, Op. 17 (1790)
• 3 Quintets for Piano and Strings, Op. 28
• 3 String Quartets, Op. 49 (1800)
• 3 Violin Sonatas, Op. 69
• 1 Quartet for Piano and Strings
• 26 trios for piano and strings
• 6 trios for harp and strings
• 115 duos for piano and violin
• 6 duos for Piano and Harp (or for two pianos)
• 6 sonatas for harp
• 36 bacchanals and 12 divertissements for Piano, tambourine and triangle ad lib.
• 77 sonatas for piano solo
• 45 rondos
• 32 fantasias
• 21 divertissements
• 12 caprices or preludes
• 20 pots-pourris
• 2 series of serenades
• 25 series of variations
• 16 sonatas for piano 4 hands
• Descriptive pieces (Triumph, sieges, marches funebres...)
• Waltzes, danses.
• Studies, Op. 78

4) Methode de Pianoforte (1805)

5) Songs

• 6 romances (1798)
• Air d'Estelle (1798)
• 30 songs, Op. 10 (1794)

External links