Fidelis Zitterbart Jr. (April 8, 1845 – August 30, 1915) was an American composer.
Life and works
edit
Zitterbart was born in Pittsburgh in 1845. His father, Fidelis Zitterbart Sr. had emigrated from Austria, and was a career violinist and conductor, who taught his son music from an early age. At the age of 16 the young Zitterbart went abroad to Dresden, where he studied with Francois Schubert and Julius Rühlmann, to complete his musical studies there. Upon his return to the US, he worked as a violinist and violist in NY until 1873[1] when he returned to Pittsburgh and took a teaching position at the Andrew Williams American Conservatory of Music until the closure of the Conservatory compelled him to start his own music school, the Zitterbart Conservatory.[2] In 1868 he married Catherine Riedl of Worcester, MA (1850-1913)[3] and together they had 4 children.[4]
His father, who had composed as well, tore up his compositions upon seeing that the compositions of his son outshone his own.[5] Zitterbart composed more than a thousand compositions, nearly all of them remained unpublished during his lifetime. In 1930, his son Ralph Zitterbart donated the manuscripts to the University of Pittsburgh following suggestions from Dr. Theodore M. Finney, a musicologist and Dr. Alexander Silverman, a chemist who had studied violin with Zitterbart.[6] The digitized collection is available online.[7]
His compositions included several large-scale works, including "symphonies, concertos, operas, sonatas, 125 string quartets (plus 100 earlier quartets he had thrown away) and dozens of overtures, particularly on Shakespearean themes - Macbeth, Iago and Richard III".[6]
He also composed several works for viola, including, in 1875, the first known American viola sonata, and another 12 more after that.[8] Wikipedia's list of compositions for viola has a partial listing of these compositions for viola.
External links
editReferences
edit- ^ Schmalz, Robert F. (1979). "The Zitterbart Collection—A Legacy Unevaluated". College Music Symposium. 19 (2): 77–88. ISSN 0069-5696. JSTOR 40374019.
- ^ Baynham, Edward Gladstone (1970). History of Pittsburgh music, 1758-1958. University of Pittsburgh. p. 150.
- ^ "Catherine Helen Riedl Zitterbart (1850-1913) -..." www.findagrave.com. Retrieved 2020-04-23.
- ^ "1 Sep 1915, Page 4 - The Piqua Daily Call at Newspapers.com". Newspapers.com. Retrieved 2020-04-23.
- ^ Stein, Herbert (31 July 1960). "Pittsburgh's Forgotten Music Man". Pittsburgh Press and Sun-Telegraph.
- ^ a b Holmberg, Michael (22 May 1960). "Music Treasures Hidden Here". Pittsburgh Press.
- ^ "Fidelis Zitterbart Manuscripts Digital Pitt". digital.library.pitt.edu. Retrieved 28 June 2020.
- ^ Bynog, David M. (2012). "The Viola in America: Two Centuries of Progress". Notes. 68 (4): 729–750. doi:10.1353/not.2012.0070. hdl:1911/70934. ISSN 1534-150X. S2CID 162031958.