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This chapter examines Fannie Bloomfield-Zeisler's life against the backdrop of contemporary U.S. attitudes toward marriage, motherhood, and careers for women. Unlike most women musicians of her generation, who gave up their professions when they married or had children, Bloomfield-Zeisler resumed concertizing mere months after the births of each of her three sons. The chapter emphasizes Bloomfield-Zeisler's need to prove that she could “do it all,” and proceeds with a discussion of the image of women artists in literature during the period, with particular attention to Bert Leston Taylor's 1906 novel The Charlatans. The chapter also considers the increasingly vulnerable plight of German musicians in the United States during World War I; the effect of the war on Fannie and her husband, Sigmund Zeisler; the ways in which the Zeislers chose to manifest their patriotism; Bloomfield-Zeisler's last years, which were marked by a number of philanthropic involvements; and her death on August 20, 1927.

This chapter examines the state of classical music in the United States in the late nineteenth century as well as Fannie Bloomfield's first attempts to establish a career as a pianist during that time. It first describes the European ensembles that toured the United States beginning in midcentury, such as the Germania Musical Society, and the European virtuosos who barnstormed the country. It then considers Theodore Thomas's role in promoting an interest in classical music, and especially how he helped further Bloomfield's career. It also discusses the impediments to women's success as virtuosos, including the assumption that women were incapable of interpreting the likes of composers considered to be “virile,” such as Ludwig van Beethoven and Edvard Grieg. The chapter concludes with an assessment of Bloomfield's audition with Thomas; her initial failure to present a New York debut; her career-altering contract with the Wm. Knabe & Co.; her subsequent debut performances in Chicago and New York; and her marriage to Sigmund Zeisler in 1885.

This chapter focuses on Fannie Bloomfield-Zeisler's piano recitals in the United States. It begins with a discussion of the development of an almost sacred canon of composers and the elevation of classical music to a virtual religious status as articulated by critic and transcendentalist John Sullivan Dwight and others. It then considers the bifurcation of various U.S. cultural activities into separate spheres—popular and elite—as described by historian Lawrence Levine, and how recent scholars have modified Levine's position with regard to the evolution of music in nineteenth-century America. The chapter also chronicles the practical aspects of touring in the nation, such as train travel, itineraries, packing lists, and hotels. Finally, it describes Bloomfield-Zeisler's recitals and how they compared with those of her contemporaries, both male and female; the U.S. audiences during that time—their makeup, behavior, etiquette, and their reactions to Bloomfield-Zeisler's performances; and how Bloomfield-Zeisler played.

This book delves into the life and times of piano virtuoso Fannie Bloomfield-Zeisler. When Fannie Bloomfield embarked on her career as a pianist in 1883, she was greeted with a very different and much smaller musical world. There were fewer music conservatories. The primary path to professional eminence ran narrowly through elite European training and mastery of the German–Austrian repertoire. This book explores Bloomfield-Zeisler's life and career and how she became one of the foremost pianists of her generation. It presents anecdotes that humanize Bloomfield-Zeisler and make her more than a public figure. It also offers insights into her personality in ways that would only be possible if someone knew her well. This introduction discusses a number of historical trends that coalesced to make Bloomfield-Zeisler's career more achievable than it would have been even a few decades earlier: the most significant of these were the increasing presence of classical music in U.S. life and the rise of the “new woman.” It also provides an overview of the chapters that follow.

This chapter describes some of the situations encountered by Fannie Bloomfield-Zeisler during her European tour in 1893–1894, 1899, 1902, and 1912. Bloomfield-Zeisler made her Berlin debut at the Singakademie in a concert featuring Frederic Chopin's F Minor and Anton Rubinstein's D Minor piano concertos with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra; the performance was a success with both audience and critics. In 1902, she faced a hostile audience when making her Paris debut with the Lamoureux Orchestra. The chapter recounts Bloomfield-Zeisler's initial reluctance to play before Berlin critics, who were notorious for their harshness and their susceptibility to bribes; her interpretation of Rubinstein's piano concerto with the composer in the audience; and her controversial orchestral debut in Paris at a time when France was experiencing a time of intense musical nationalism, and Parisian audiences viewed a soloist performing with orchestra as synonymous with a shallow display of virtuosity.

This chapter examines the role that Judaism played in Fannie Bloomfield-Zeisler's life and career. It begins by summarizing the experiences of nineteenth-century European musicians of Jewish heritage and the extent to which music, unlike other professions, allowed them a pathway to success. It then considers the portrayal of Jewish musicians in novels and plays of the period, with particular emphasis on Israel Zangwill's The Melting Pot. It also discusses various Jewish aspects of Bloomfield-Zeisler's life, including early conflicts within her immediate family, her experience in Chicago attending a Christian boarding school, and her time in Vienna during a period of increasing anti-Semitism. Finally, it analyzes the reasons for Bloomfield-Zeisler's frequent comparison with Sarah Bernhardt; allusions to her Jewishness in reviews; and the Zeislers' monthly salons in Chicago, which attracted an impressive range of prominent U.S. and European intellectuals—musicians, authors, jurists, artists, writers, scientists, and philanthropists.

This chapter focuses on the Blumenfeld family's emigration from Europe in 1867 (Fanny Blumenfeld's name was changed to Fannie Bloomfield soon after), their reasons for leaving, and their eventual establishment of a home and business in Chicago. It describes the discovery of Fanny Blumenfeld's talent and its nurturing by noted German immigrant musicians such as Bernhard Ziehn and Carl Wolfsohn. Wolfsohn founded Chicago's Beethoven Society, which provided the initial opportunities for Fannie Bloomfield's public performance. The chapter also recounts the “discovery” of Bloomfield in 1876 when she visited Russian virtuoso Annette Essipoff, who advised that she study in Vienna with noted pedagogue Theodor Leschetizky. Family conflicts and money considerations initially made this impossible, but when financial difficulties were alleviated by a wealthy Jewish benefactor, Blumenfeld set out for Vienna in 1878 with her mother and grandmother; she was fifteen at the time.