1813–1888 · Hungary, France
Stephen Heller (1813–1888) was a Hungarian pianist, teacher and Romantic composer who spent most of his life in France. He wrote more than 150 numbered opuses, almost all of them for piano. His studies are still used in teaching, because they help to develop melodic phrasing.
Outside Hungary he is known as Stephen Heller, but at birth he was István Heller. He was born on 15 May 1813 in Pest, into a family of Jewish origin. His father was a clerk at a factory and did not think much of his son's musical interests. The boy, however, longed to learn, so his father found him his first teachers: Czech wind players from an infantry regiment based in Pest.
Soon the military musicians were replaced by Franz Brauer, a church choirmaster in Pest, who noticed the boy's talent. He had been marked out for a career in law, yet he chose a different path and devoted his whole life to music.
While still a child he made his debut in his home town, playing Jan Ladislav Dussek's concerto for two pianos together with Brauer. The performance made such a good impression that the young pianist was sent to study in Vienna.
In Vienna the plan was for him to take lessons from the renowned teacher Carl Czerny, but those lessons proved beyond Heller's means. He therefore became a pupil of Anton Halm instead.
At 15 Heller gave his first public concert in Vienna, and it too was a success. After that his father took him on a concert tour of Hungary, Poland and Germany.
The composer himself later recalled these tours without pleasure. According to his memoirs, his father saw the appearances as a business venture and tried to squeeze as much money as possible out of his son's gift. In one town he placed the boy as an accompanist with a theatre company. By the time the tour reached Germany, Heller was worn out by the organising work that came before each concert.
On the way back to Budapest Heller stopped in Kassel, Frankfurt am Main and Nuremberg. He passed the winter of 1829 in Hamburg and in the summer of 1830 reached Augsburg, where illness struck. The journey broke off there.
The Augsburg period stretched over nearly a decade. Here Heller began to compose and came into contact with Robert Schumann, and through him with German musical Romanticism. A wealthy lover of music acted as his patron.
In 1838, at the age of 25, Heller came to Paris at the invitation of Friedrich Kalkbrenner. After that he hardly ever left the city.
Kalkbrenner made use of the young musician for his own ends: he had him arrange music for beginners and write articles for his own musical publication. Kalkbrenner also introduced him to the publisher Maurice Schlesinger, who began to give him work and brought out his first compositions. This freed Heller from Kalkbrenner's oppressive supervision.
In Paris Heller grew close to Hector Berlioz, Frédéric Chopin and Franz Liszt, a fellow Hungarian, and knew many more of the famous composers of the time.
These were the years when Heller's gift as a composer unfolded. He wrote mainly studies, but not dry teaching exercises: they were delicate musical pictures of mood. The studies, together with his work with pupils, brought him recognition in the musical life of Paris and relieved him of money worries.
Heller made his name on the concert platform and in the classroom alike. One of his pupils was Isidor Philipp, who went on to run the piano department at the Conservatoire in Paris.
In 1849 Heller performed in England. In 1850 the British journal The Musical World printed a long article about his music, which appeared in instalments across many issues. In 1862, together with Charles Hallé, he played Mozart's concerto in E-flat major for two pianos at the Crystal Palace.
Later, after the composer's death, his music was described in these terms: Heller's studies stayed in use among teachers half a century on, although they were thought slightly hard for the home and too easy for the concert stage. His working life ran from the age of Schumann to that of Bizet.
He seldom left Paris: he toured in England and also went away during the Franco-Prussian War and the occupation. Even so, his talent was known in Hungary too, where his name was mentioned alongside Liszt's.
Towards the end of his life Heller's eyesight deteriorated badly, which hindered his composing. He died in January 1888 at his home in Paris. By then the composer had outlived his reputation and was almost forgotten. He is buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery.
Even so, his work influenced later Romantic composers, and his studies remain in teaching use. Hungarian tradition later placed his work in the last generation of Hungarian Romantics, which reached its peak in the nineteenth century; this group was described in 1885 by István Bartalus in one of his publications.
Heller's legacy includes more than 150 numbered opuses, and almost all of them are piano pieces. Almost the only exception is a cycle of ten pieces for violin and piano, Op. 30, written jointly with the violinist H. W. Ernst. His output includes studies, preludes, caprices, variations on themes by Beethoven and Schumann, piano arrangements of Schubert songs, and cycles of pieces: “Nuits blanches” (Op. 82), “Promenades d'un solitaire” (Opp. 78, 80 and 89), “Dans les bois” (Op. 86) and “Voyage autour de ma chambre” (Op. 140).
Among the opuses are many variations, rondos and caprices on tunes from operas and songs. They include “Zampa” after Hérold's opera (Op. 6), “La Juive” after Halévy's opera (Opp. 31 and 32), “Le Prophète” after Meyerbeer's opera (Op. 70), and pieces on Schubert melodies: “Le roi des aulnes” (Op. 34) and “La poste” (Op. 35).
Heller's studies stand out among his works. These include Op. 45 (“25 Études. Introduction à l'art du phrasé”), Op. 46 (“30 Études mélodiques et progressives”), Op. 47, Op. 125 and Op. 154, which collects technical studies to prepare for playing the works of Chopin. The Brockhaus and Efron encyclopedia picks out Heller's studies as valuable teaching material, from which players learn melodic phrasing. They found their way into many piano manuals, among them the self-tutor by L. Mochel and O. Zimina.
The site has sheet music by Heller at the “Intermediate+” level. These are “Preludes” (Op. 81), “Album for The Young” (Op. 138), “Caprice Brillant on Wohin (Song) from Schubert” (Op. 33), “warrior song” (Op. 45), “Sonata” (Op. 9), “Variations on a Theme by Beethoven” (Op. 130), “Feuillets d'album” (Op. 83), pieces from Op. 86 (Heft I, nos. 1 and 2) and Op. 138 (no. 1), as well as “praise of tears”, “’s The Combat”, “’s Torrent” and two “schumann variation” pieces.
You can begin getting to know Heller with “Album for The Young” (Op. 138), then play “warrior song” (Op. 45) and “Preludes” (Op. 81). Then you can move on to “Caprice Brillant on Wohin (Song) from Schubert” (Op. 33) and “Variations on a Theme by Beethoven” (Op. 130).