Autograph Manuscript—Engraver's Copy—Printed Edition: An Ideal Case

Monday, January 17, 2022

Emilie Zumsteeg (born 9 December 1796 in Stuttgart, died 1 August 1857 in Stuttgart) grew up with music as the youngest child of Johann Rudolph Zumsteeg (1760-1802), who had been a court musician with the Stuttgart court orchestra starting in 1781. After his death, her mother, Luise, founded a music shop in Stuttgart with the support of the publisher Breitkopf & Härtel in Leipzig.

Zumsteeg earned a living as a music teacher and worked closely with choirs, founding a women’s chorus, the Stuttgart Frauenliederkranz, in 1830. In recognition of her accomplishments, King Wilhelm I of Württemberg granted her an annual salary starting in 1841. She died at the age of 60 in Stuttgart, where she had spent her entire life. Emilie Zumsteeg significantly influenced her city’s musical life and left her mark there.

The piano-vocal lied is the genre that is clearly at the focus of Emilie Zumsteeg’s oeuvre. More than 40 of her lieder were printed during her lifetime. The seven lieder for voice and piano op. 6, printed ca. 1842, are among her most significant compositions.

She also published an arrangement of the waltz from the opera Otello by Gioacchino Rossini. This edition, printed by Schott in Mainz in 1824, is now in the RISM catalog. In addition, the database also contains her autograph manuscript with markings by the engraver—also from the Schott Archive—which was used in preparation of the publication. The beginning of each new line of music has been marked in red crayon.

Image: Emilie Zumsteeg, Walzer nach einem Thema aus Rossini’s Othello. Autograph manuscript, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich. D-Mbs Mus.Schott.Ha 1933-2. RISM ID no. 1001063918. Available online (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).

Category: New at RISM