1796–1857 · Romantic
Emilie Zumsteeg (1796–1857) was a German composer, pianist, music teacher and choral conductor from Stuttgart. She set up the first women's choir in Württemberg, and song is the foundation of her composing. The site offers six of her editions for voice and piano, at intermediate and advanced levels.
Emilie Zumsteeg was born in Stuttgart on 9 December 1796. Her father was the composer Johann Rudolf Zumsteeg, and her mother was Luise. They had seven children, and Emilie was the seventh and youngest.
Her father died when she was six years old. Her mother afterwards kept a music shop, and that deepened the girl's love of music. Emilie spent her entire life in Stuttgart.
Her piano teacher in childhood was Gottlob Schick, and Wilhelm Sutor taught her music theory. Reading new music at sight came easily to her.
Emilie had a fine alto voice. Before long she was appearing as both singer and pianist in Stuttgart's Museumskonzerte series. As an adult, she surrounded herself with gifted musicians and prominent poets.
Her links with writers mirrored her fondness for the lied, the art song, on which her composing rested.
Emilie Zumsteeg began by giving music lessons in private homes, and later became a music teacher at the Königin-Katharina-Stift, a Stuttgart gymnasium. She taught singing and piano, and the lessons were how she earned her living.
In 1830 she founded Württemberg's first choir for women. By 1836 the choir founded in her home already numbered 30 singers.
From 1841 King William I of Württemberg paid the choir's leader an annual salary. Zumsteeg was also a leading member of the Society for Classical Church Music.
She was one of the first women to appear in public as a choral conductor.
In 1821 Zumsteeg's early piano work Trois Polonaises was published. The Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung reviewed it favourably.
In 1842 her song collection, Op. 6, received a short but admiring notice in the same journal, and the press across the country wrote about Zumsteeg.
After a long illness, Emilie Zumsteeg died in Stuttgart on 1 August 1857. She is buried in Hoppenlau Cemetery.
One of the halls at Stuttgart's cultural centre Treffpunkt Rotebühlplatz carries her name. Since 2018 a bridge on Regerstrasse, the Emilie-Zumsteeg-Brücke, has been named after her as well.
The foundation of Zumsteeg's work is the song. Her output includes about sixty songs, an overture, piano works, three polonaises and sacred choral music. Her songs were popular at home and beyond. Ivan Prokhanov, a Russian Baptist leader, later took up one of them, and it spread under the title Prisoners' Song.
Her music was regarded as very innovative and creative for its day. Her voice shaped the boldness of her writing, which sometimes asked for a wider range than usual. The early collection Sechs Lieder, Op. 4, is mostly simple strophic songs, yet the second of them, Morgenständchen, shows an Italianate colour. Her originality also appears in Neun Lieder: Ich denke Dein has a hint of fantasy, and Des Freundes Wunsch is handled in a chamber spirit.
The song Sehnsucht der Liebe, Op. 6 No. 4, for mezzo-soprano or contralto, falls into two halves: the first is marked adagio and the second allegro vivace. It is considered well worth reviving. A complete assessment of her output is not yet possible: it depends on further study of Zumsteeg's life and on more of her music being brought back into print.
The site has six Zumsteeg editions for voice and piano: Der Geburtstag and In das Stambuch einer Freundin (intermediate), Des Kaufmanns Liebeswerbung, Der Sternenhimmel and Lied in der Ferne (intermediate+), and Die Kapelle (advanced). Der Geburtstag is a convenient place to start.