Daniel Steibelt (Berlin, 1765 – Saint Petersburg, 1823)

1. Life

Steibelt's main centers of activity were London, Paris, and his permanent residence, Saint Petersburg. Like many virtuosos of his time, he frequently toured various locations. Furthermore, in his case, he was involved in businesses other than composition and performance, such as publishing (contemporaneous musicians like Clementi and Cramer often combined their musical careers with other professions, such as publishing), and commercial troubles sometimes forced him to relocate.

Steibelt received his initial musical instruction from his father, a piano maker. Subsequently, under the patronage of Wilhelm Friedrich II, who would later become King of Prussia, he became a pupil of Johann Philipp Kirnberger (1721–1783). His first published work was a short song, included in a song collection published in 1782, and two more songs were later published in song collections. Having chosen a musical career to escape military service forced upon him by his father, he embarked on extensive concert tours from 1788 onwards and settled in Paris by 1790.

His stay in Paris brought Steibelt his first major success. Particularly significant was the premiere of his first opera, Roméo et Juliette (1793), which achieved such success that it spread to other European countries after its premiere (as discussed later), establishing Steibelt's reputation not only as a pianist and teacher but also as a composer (at the time, a musician's compositional achievements in symphonies and operas were highly valued for recognition as a composer). However, his stay in Paris was short, and in 1796, Steibelt moved to London due to an unstable lifestyle and commercial irregularities. In this new environment, he started smoothly, beginning with success at concerts organized by Lord Salomon, and continued his performance activities and opera composition. However, in 1799, he left London for a year-long European tour (it is a famous anecdote that during this period, he competed with Beethoven in a piano duel and was defeated, a story that has been featured in recent films).

After completing his tour, he resided in Paris again from 1800, achieving success with a translated performance of Haydn's The Creation and the ballet Le retour de Zéphire (though his alterations to The Creation drew criticism). He also actively participated in the business of the publisher Érard. However, possibly due to financial reasons, he temporarily moved to London between 1802 and 1805.

During his second stay in Paris, he composed piano works, pedagogical treatises, the celebratory cantata La Fête de Mars commemorating Napoleon's victory, and opera works. However, to escape another financial crisis, specifically imprisonment for debt, he left Paris in 1808 and, after touring various places, settled in Saint Petersburg. There, he spent fulfilling days cultivating a friendship with John Field and engaging in numerous compositional and educational activities. The most significant achievement was his appointment as music director of the French Theatre and Kapellmeister at the court in 1810 or 1811. Securing this permanent position guaranteed him a stable life. Thus, he put an end to his previous nomadic life and made Saint Petersburg his lifelong home. After premiering his Piano Concerto No. 8 in 1820, he began work on the opera Le jugement de Midas but died in 1823 after an illness, without completing it.

2. Works and Evaluation

His creative output primarily centered on stage music and piano works for his own instrument.

In particular, his first opera, Roméo et Juliette, received a great reception, was translated into four languages, and remained in the European opera repertoire for over 30 years after its premiere. The work is notable for its innovative instrumentation and the treatment of unison choruses, earning high praise from Berlioz.

Most of his piano concertos are in five movements, bearing Romantic characteristics such as programmatic titles (e.g., No. 3 L’Orage, No. 6 Le voyage au Mont St Bernard), tone painting, and improvisatory cadenzas. Concerto No. 8, with its choral finale ("Bacchanalian Rondo"), has been noted for its similarities to Beethoven's Op. 80, Choral Fantasy.

A vast number of his piano works, both solo and with obbligato parts, starting with his first piano sonatas, Op. 1 to Op. 4, published in Munich during his first concert tour, were published under the title "Sonata." Their scale varies, but most are in two movements. The variety of accompanying instruments is also rich, including works for his wife's instrument, the tambourine. The types of single-movement piano sonatas are numerous, including preludes, marches, waltzes, variations, and programmatic works. Notably, when Napoleon entered Moscow in 1812, Steibelt composed the piano fantasy L’incendie de Moscou (The Burning of Moscow), which, combined with the aforementioned cantata, indicates that political circumstances often served as an impetus for Steibelt's compositions.

Steibelt also earned a living as a teacher, leaving behind etudes and pedagogical treatises. It is interesting that he also wrote about the playing technique of his wife's instrument, the tambourine. Among these, Méthode pour le pianoforte, published in Paris in 1805, is an important document that for the first time discussed the use of pedals in detail. In this work, Steibelt describes a "most modern" French piano with four pedals, which was an S. Érard piano equipped with a lute stop and a celesta stop (buff stop, a mechanism where a leather part is inserted between the hammers and strings), in addition to the damper and pianissimo (una corda) pedals commonly found on pianos today (at this time, there was still confusion in pedal terminology; Steibelt used the term "jeu céleste" to refer to una corda, and described what is now called the celesta stop as "jeu de buffle"). Furthermore, in this book, Steibelt claimed that the pedal markings used by Cramer and Dussek were first conceived in his treatise. Indeed, Steibelt was the first person in music history to indicate pedal markings in actual compositions (in Potpourri No. 6 and Mélange d'airs, Op. 10, both published in 1793). Alongside this, his educational works include Six Grandes Préludes, Op. 8 (published 1793), and 50 Études, including various genres, Op. 78 (published around 1809), the latter of which contains some pieces considered precursors to Mendelssohn's style.

3. Evaluation in Music History

Steibelt's evaluation in music history is not uniform. While it is undeniable from contemporary accounts and the notation of his published works that his playing was technically superior, there are mixed opinions regarding the refinement of his style. On one hand, Steibelt's music has been recognized for its rich creativity in melodic and other musical materials, as evidenced by Berlioz's aforementioned praise and later literature. On the other hand, both contemporaries and later generations have criticized his works for lacking artistic completeness. This is attributed to the prevailing improvisatory style in his piano works, which led him to be regarded as a composer without a firm compositional style. However, in the context of piano performance history, his re-evaluation as a pioneer of pedal technique has recently been gaining momentum.

Regarding his personality, many historical sources report negative images such as arrogance, rudeness, and unkindness. This seems to be a highly credible fact, given the frequent commercial and financial troubles he caused.