Ruth Schönthal was a pianist

Pianist

A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...

 and contemporary composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

.

Early years

Ruth Schonthal was born in Hamburg of Viennese parents. At the age of five she began composing and became the youngest student ever accepted at the Stern'sches Konservatorium

Stern conservatory

The Stern Conservatory was a private music school in Berlin with many notable tutors and alumni.-History:It was originally founded in 1850 as the Berliner Musikschule by Julius Stern, Theodor Kullak and Adolf Bernhard Marx. Kullak withdrew from the conservatory in 1855 in order to create a new...

 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...

 . In 1935, Schonthal and her family were forced to leave Nazi Germany on account of her Jewish heritage. She later studied at the Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in Stockholm, where at the age of fourteen, she had her first Sonatina published. At the RAM she studied composition with Ingemar Liljefors

Ingemar Liljefors

Ingmar Kristian Liljefors was a Swedish composer, pianist, writer on music, and music educator. Born in Gothenburg, Liljefors was the son of composer and conductor Ruben Liljefors. His own son, Mats Liljefors, is a successful conductor and violinist.In 1933 Liljefors co-founded Fylkingen, a...

 and piano with Olaf Wibergh. Then, she was once again forced to flee as a result of the rising political tension, and eventually traveled to a variety of places: first the USSR, then Japan, and then Mexico City

Mexico City

Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...

, where at the age of 19 she gave a very widely acclaimed piano performance of her own compositions, including her First Piano Concerto, at the Palacio de Bellas Artes. Among the audience members was the noted American composer Paul Hindemith, obtained a scholarship for her to study with him at Yale in 1946. She was one of the only students to graduate from the Conservatory with honors.

She married the painter Paul Seckel in 1950 and settled in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, eventually moving to New Rochelle, where she lived for most of her life

Ms. Schonthal has received commissions for chamber music, operas, symphonic compositions, as well as works for organ and piano. In 1994 she received the International Heidelberger Kunstlerinnen Preis and was honored with an exhibition of her life and works at the Museum in Heidelberg. She is also the recipient of many prizes in the US, among them ASCAP and Meet the Composer grants and awards. She has been a finalist in the NY City Opera competition and in the Kennedy-Friedheim Competition with her In Homage of...(24 Preludes). She also has received the Certificate of Merit for outstanding service to music from the Yale University School of Music Alumn Association and Outstanding Musician Award from New York University as well as of local New York chapters of the Council of the Arts. Schonthal taught composition and music theory at NYU until 2006 when deteriorating health forced her to resign. One close student of hers, between 2003 and 2005, was a then unknown Stephanie Germanotta Lady Gaga

Lady GaGa

Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta , better known by her stage name Lady Gaga, is an American singer and songwriter. Born and raised in New York City, she primarily studied at the Convent of the Sacred Heart and briefly attended New York University's Tisch School of the Arts before withdrawing to...

, who went on to great fame in the pop music world.

Her works are widely performed in the US and abroad, but her music is perhaps most well known in her native land of Germany. Her music is published by Oxford University Press, Southern Music Co, Carl Fischer, G. E. Schirmer, Sisra Press, Fine Arts Music Co, Hildegard Music Publishing Co, nd Furore and recorded on LP on the Capriccio, Crystal, Leonarda, Opus One and Orion Labels, many of them reissued on CDs on the Leonarda and Cambria labels

A full length biography and analysis of her works by Dr. Martina Helmig, Ruth Schonthal: A Compositional Development in Exile, was published in 2007. Chapters about her life and works appear in many books on contemporary music and composers.

Schonthal used her music to support herself and her family throughout her life—she wrote for television and commercials, played the piano in various bars and clubs, and taught privately in New York.

Awards

She was the recipient of several prestigious awards, including the Internationaler Kunstlerinnen Preis of the City of Heidelberg

Heidelberg

-Early history:Between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago, "Heidelberg Man" died at nearby Mauer. His jaw bone was discovered in 1907; with scientific dating, his remains were determined to be the earliest evidence of human life in Europe. In the 5th century BC, a Celtic fortress of refuge and place of...

, and was extensively honored at the Prinz Carl am Kommarkt Museum there. In the USA, she received several Meet the Composer grants and ASCAP awards, and a Delta Omicron International award for her first string quartet. She received a Certificate of Merit from Yale for Outstanding Service to Music, and an Outstanding Musician Award from New York University. Amazingly, she also reached the finalist stage in the New York City Opera

New York City Opera

The New York City Opera is an American opera company located in New York City.The company, called "the people's opera" by New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, was founded in 1943 with the aim of making opera financially accessible to a wide audience, producing an innovative choice of repertory, and...

 Competition (“The Courtship of Camilla”), as well as in the Kennedy-Friedheim Competition with her 24 Prelude set, entitled “In Homage of . . .” Her music is widely performed, recorded, and very popular.
Her style is vaguely classified by New Grove Music Online as “impressionist”, with a greater emphasis on the fact that it strived to break free of Hindemith’s influence. In reality, her style is a fusion of several different techniques, both traditional and contemporary. Her compositions are meant to reflect the concerns of today’s world (Composer’s Bureau). New Grove records her as being “isolated” from her composing contemporaries. However, this enabled her to break free of so-called “modern” trends of composition and really allow her to develop a very distinct and beautiful voice, stemming from her “classical-romantic heritage” (Composer’s Bureau). Her learning process, extending over several continents, certainly contributed to her diverse music as well. She died in 2006.

Interviews

• "Composer Interview: Ruth Schonthal," by Selma Epstein with introduction by Deborah Haye as published in the IAWM Journal, February 1994, pp. 5-8.
• Ruth Schonthal interview by Bruce Duffie

Selected works

Opera

• The Courtship of Camilla (1979/80), A.A. Milne
• Jocasta (1996/97), text by Helene Cicoux
• Princess Maleen (1988/89)

Orchestra

• Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No.2 (1977)
• Evening Music, Nocturnal Fantasy with Oceanwaves
• Music for Horn and Chamber Orchestra (1978)
• The Beautiful Days of Aranjuez (1982, rev. 1983)
• Soundtrack for a Dark Street (1994)
• 3 Celebrations "Happy Birthday Variations" for children's concerts
• The Young Dead Soldiers for choir and chamber orchestra (1987)

Chamber music

• Duo for clarinet or viola and cello (2002)
• Four Epiphanies for unaccompanied viola (1976)
• Improvisation for solo cello (1994)
• Sonata Concertante for cello or viola or clarinet and piano (1973)
• String Quartet No.1 (1962)
• String Quartet No.2 "in the Viennese Manner" (1983, revised 1996)
• String Quartet No.3 "In memoriam Holocaust" (1997)
• Tango for Two for clarinet and cello (2002)
• Two Duets for violin and viola (2002)

Piano/Harpsichord

• The Canticles of Hieronymus (1986).
• Fiestas y Danzas (1961).
• Fourteen Inventions (1984).
• From the Life of a Pious Woman (1999).
• Heidelberger Fanfare with Variations.
• In Homage of... (24 Preludes).
• Japanese Sketches, Book I (Junior), Book II (Lower Intermediate), *Book III (Intermediate).
• Nachklange (Reverberations) (1967–74) for piano with added timbres.
• Sonatensatz (1973),
• Sonata Breve (1973),
• Sonata quasi un 'Improvisazione' (1964).
• Sonatina in A (1939).
• Three Elegies (1982).
• Toccata and Arietta (1989)
• 65 Celebrations (1993/94)
• Gestures (1978/79), eleven short piano pieces
• Self-Portrait of the Artist as an Older Woman for piano (1991)
• Variations in Search of a Theme for piano (1974)
• Bird Calls (1981)
• Educational piano music (collections, grade 1-2)
• Miniatures, study and recital pieces for the Early Grades Vol.1, 2,3 for piano (grade 1-3).
• Potpourri/Minuscules for piano
• Near and Far (Adult beginners)
• Pentatonics for piano
• From North and South of the Border

Organ

• The Temptation of St. Anthony (1989/90)

Discography

Character Sketches

• Solo Piano Works by 7 American Women by Gwyneth Walker, Judith Lang Zaimont, Tania Leon, Victoria Bond, and Jane Brockman (1995)

Sunbursts

• Solo Piano Works by 7 American Women by Emma Lou Diemer, Dianne Goolkasian Rahbee, Vivian Adelberg Rudow
  Vivian Adelberg Rudow
  *Vivian Adelberg Rudow is an American composer, performance artist, conductor and concert producer. She composes in the genres of acoustic and electroacoustic music with works ranging from solo to full orchestra...
  
  , Ruth Schonthal, and Sheila Silver (1998)
• Jewish String Quartets by Steven Doane, Abraham Wolf Binder, Darius Milhaud, Ruth Schonthal, and Sholom Secunda (2006)
• Reverberations: Adina Mornell Plays Ruth Schonthal by Ruth Schonthal and Adina Mornell (2002)
• Margaret Mills Plays Piano by Lowell Liebermann, Ruth Schonthal, and Margaret Mills (1994)
• Vive la Différence: String Quartets by 5 Women from 3 Continents by Amy Marcy Cheney Beach, Priaulx Rainier, Sarah Aderholdt, Ruth Schonthal, and Lucie Vellere (1997)
• Margaret Astrup Sings Ruth Schonthal by Schonthal and Astrup (2007)
• Songs by Women by Elizabeth R. Austin, Elisenda Fabregas, Ruth Schonthal, Joyce Suskind, and Marcia Eckert (2003)

External links

• Ruth Schonthal interview by Bruce Duffie
• Biography on Vox Novus