Schiller, Elsa

PIANIST, RECORD PRODUCER (GERMANY)
BORN 18 Oct 1897, Baden, Niederösterreich (near Wien) - DIED 27 Nov 1974, München, Bayern: Hotel Continental
GRAVE LOCATION Salzburg: Kommunalfriedhof, Gneiser Strasse 8 (Gruppe 78, Reihe 5, Nummer 2 (ashes))

Elsa Schiller was the daughter of the merchant Sigmund Schiller. The fanily moved to Budapest in 1900 and there she studied piano under Ernö Fodor anf Ernst von Dohnányi and musical theory under Leo Weiner. After further studies from 1921 to 1922 under Emil von Sauer in Dresden she settled in Berlin as a pianist.

From the mid 1920s until the early 1930s she gave concerts together with the altsoprano Julia-Lotte Stern. When the nazis came to power in 1933 she was admitted to the Reichsmusikkammer, but in 1935 she was forced to leave it because she was Jewish. In 1937 she was no longer allowed to teach. In 1943 the Gestapo informed the Reichsmusikkammer that she was still teaching. First she was fined, but in November she was arrested and deported to Theresienstadt. Julia-Lotte Stern sent her food packages and somehow she survived until the end of the war.

After the war she gave further concerts with Julia-Lotte Stern until she joined the American radio station RIAS. In 1952 she started working for Deutsche Grammophon as a producer in Hannover and from 1956 onwards in Hamburg. In 1965 she left her job and settled with Julia-Lotte Stern and another friend in Hof near Salzburg. During the winters she lived in Munich and she died there in 1974.

Related persons
• cooperated with Stern, Julia-Lotte

Images

The grave of Julia-Lotte Stern and Elsa Schiller at the Kommunalfriedhof, Salzburg.
Picture by Androom (31 Aug 2014)

 

Sources
Objekt-Metadaten @ LexM


Schiller, Ernst von

Published: 08 Feb 2015
Last update: 03 Apr 2022