William Steinberg

German-born and naturalized American conductor William Steinberg directed a number of popular orchestras in Pittsburgh, Boston, and London. Born in Cologne, Germany on August 1, 1899, Hans Wilhelm Steinberg studied piano and violin before turning to conducting - with Hermann Abendroth - and composition. Winner of the Wüllner Prize in 1919, he joined the Cologne Opera’s orchestra as a violinist, becoming Otto Klemperer's assistant, and then replacement as musical director. He left in 1925 to work at the German Opera in Prague, then at the Frankfurt Opera from 1929 to 1933, conducting the premiere of Arnold Schönberg's Von Heute auf Morgen. Dismissed from his post in the middle of a rehearsal by the newly installed Nazi regime, he was forced to conduct concerts for the Jewish Cultural League, before leaving the country in 1936 to found - with Bronislaw Huberman - the Palestine Symphony Orchestra, then under British mandate, later to become the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Arturo Toscanini invited him to assist him with rehearsals for the NBC Symphony Orchestra, which he was in charge of in New York. From 1938 to 1941, William Steinberg began his American career, conducting other orchestras including the New York Philharmonic and the San Francisco Opera. In 1945, he had been an American citizen for a year when he took over the direction of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, to which he brought his European sensibility until 1952, notably in the recording of Shostakovich's 7th Symphony, known as "Leningrad". His best-known and most extensive tenure was as Music Director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, from 1952 to 1976, with whom he produced a large number of concerts and sessions for the Capitol label, including symphonies by Beethoven, Mahler, Tchaikovsky, Schubert, and Brahms. This period also saw William Steinberg conduct the London Philharmonic (1958-1960) and the New York Philharmonic during an extended sabbatical until 1968. In 1969, after a few guest concerts, the conductor was offered the Boston Symphony Orchestra, with whom he recorded a famous version of Holst's Planets (1971), before returning to Pittsburgh in 1972 and retiring four years later for medical reasons. His long career enabled him to collaborate with great soloists such as Arthur Rubinstein, Jascha Heifetz, Nathan Milstein and Adolf Busch, and to take time out from the symphonic repertoire for opera, at New York's Metropolitan Opera in Barber's Vanessa, Verdi's Aïda and Wagner's La Walkyrie. Hospitalized the day after a concert with violinist Isaac Stern, William Steinberg died on May 16, 1978, at the age of 78. Other reissues and compilations of his performances include The Deutsche Grammophon Recordings (2024).

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