Leo Kestenberg

Leo Kestenberg (27 November 1882 – 13 January 1962) was a German-Israeli classical pianist, music educator, and cultural politician. Working for the government in Prussia from 1918, he began a large-scale reform of music education (Kestenberg-Reform) which aimed to teach music to all, beginning with small children, and including the education of their teachers. In exile in Prague, he was instrumental in forming the and administrating the first international organization for music education, which became ISME. Fleeing from Nazi Germany further to Mandatory Palestine, he founded a seminary for music teachers and privately taught pianists such as Menahem Pressler and Alexis Weissenberg. Life and work Childhood and education Kestenberg was born the son of a Hungarian–Jewish hazzan in Ružomberok, then in the Kingdom of Hungary under the rule of the Habsburg monarchy. When he was four years old, the family moved to Prague and from there to Liberec two years later. Kestenberg received his first piano lessons from his father, then in 1894/95 from music director Gustav Albrecht in Zittau. After graduating from the , Kestenberg completed his schooling with the Mittlere Reife. At the age of 15, he began to study piano in Berlin with Franz Kullak. In 1898 he met Ferruccio Busoni, which led to an intimate friendship with him and his family, regarded as a turning point in his artistic life. After piano studies with José Vianna da Motta, Hermann Scholtz and Felix Draeseke, Kestenberg attended a master class by Busoni in Weimar in 1900 which introduced him to music by Bach, Schumann and above all Liszt. He joined the military band in Josefstadt the same year and began his concert career in Reichenberg as soloist in Liszt's First Piano Concerto. He became musical adviser to the Volksbühne Berlin, and a piano teacher at both the Stern Conservatory and the Klindworth-Scharwenka Conservatory. He began serving on the educational committee of the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD), which he had joined in 1900, publishing in the Sozialistische Monatshefte. Berlin