In this new biography, Beth Abelson Macleod reintroduces a figure long, and unjustly, overlooked by music history. Trained in Vienna, Bloomfield-Zeisler significantly advanced the development of classical music in the United States. Her powerful and sensitive performances, both in recital and with major orchestras, won her followers across the United States and Europe and often provided her American audiences with their first exposure to the pieces she played. The European-style salon in her Chicago home welcomed musicians, scientists, authors, artists, and politicians, while her marriage to attorney Sigmund Zeisler placed her at the center of a historical moment when Sigmund defended the anarchists in the 1886 Haymarket trial.
In its re-creation of a musical and social milieu, Fannie Bloomfield-Zeisler paints a vivid portrait of a dynamic artistic life.
| Cover Title Copyright Contents Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Beginnings 2. Study Abroad 3. Sigmund Zeisler 4. Establishing a Career 5. On Tour before Domestic Audiences 6. On Tour before European Audiences 7. Fannie Bloomfield-Zeisler and Judaism 8. The Home Front Appendix A. Salon Visitors' Book Appendix B. Concert Dates and Locations, 1875–1908 Appendix C. Fannie Bloomfield-Zeisler's Repertoire Notes Selected Bibliography Index | "Macleod adroitly documents both Fannie Bloomfield-Zeisler's tremendous musical accomplishments and zest for life. It seems the fire that burned around her as a girl became the woman's fire within."—Journal of Illinois History"Macleod's biography offers a valuable contribution to a limited collection of literature on female musicians performing in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The author's work not only gives meaning to a heretofore famous pianist's achievements but also provides a volume exploring the dichotomy of the "new woman" striving to have a family and a career."—Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society
"The book is written in an informative, descriptive style and is not too academically dry or needlessly wordy. . . . For this reason, this book is very instructive to students in learning about nineteenth-century ways, attitudes, and lifestyles, as well as the prominence and musical stardom of an American Jewish woman."—The American Jewish Archives Journal
|Beth Abelson Macleod served as the arts and music librarian at Central Michigan University for over thirty years. She is the author of Women Performing Music: The Emergence of American Women as Instrumentalists and Conductors.