When viewing the phases of her life that are documented, it is clear that Lena Stein-Schneider was ahead of her time in many respects. She was one of the few female composers in Germany who ventured to enter public life and whose diverse artistic activities garnered respect in Berlin at the time. A versatile composer, she gained renown as a creator of operetta, as well as popular music. Moreover, she was a sought-after conductor and choirmaster. Her pieces were performed worldwide. Today, we have available just a few manuscripts and recordings of her works, most of them maintained at the Archiv Frau und Musik in Kassel. One of them is the score of the 1949 musical fairy-tale Goldhärchen (Goldilocks), published by Éditions du Bourg in Lausanne.
Lena Stein-Schneider
Biography
The composer, pianist, librettist and conductor Lena Stein-Schneider (née Helene Meyerstein) was born on 5 January 1874 in Leipzig as the seventh of the eight children of Pauline and Moritz Meyerstein, a wool merchant. After graduating from a girls’ secondary school, she went on to study the piano and voice at the Conservatorium für Musik in Leipzig. In 1892, she married the merchant Alfred Schneider, whereupon she moved to Berlin. Between 1893 and 1905, the couple had four children: Alice, Fritz, Lucie and Gisela. Although a mother and wife, she did not give up her ambition to make a career as a musician. While in Berlin, she studied voice (with Lola Beeth and Georg Vogel), as well as counterpoint and composition.
After marrying, she assumed the artistic name Lena Stein-Schneider. We do not know when she began composing, but we know that she first gained recognition in 1909, with the operetta Der Luftikus (The Airhead). Besides operettas, Lena Stein-Schneider wrote popular and film music, and operas, mainly to her own libretti, and she also largely conducted her own pieces. In 1919, she started to work for the film industry, debuting with the music for the two-part drama Der Kampf um die Ehe (The Fight for Marriage). Afterwards, she also wrote sketches for cabaret, thus extending her range with dance and popular music, which not only sold well, but also raised interest on the part of publishers and record companies. The labels that released her pieces included Ricordi, Junne, Ullstein, Drei Masken, Pabst & Fischer and Deutsche Grammophon. Lena Stein-Schneider gave concerts in Germany, Italy and other countries. In the 1920s, she also made tours of the USA. In 1925, the RKO Keith’s Theater in New York City premiered her singspiel Composer's Dream. As a member of the authors’ rights organisations AMMRE (Anstalt für mechanisch-musikalische Rechte GmbH, today GEMA) and the AKM (Gesellschaft der Autoren, Komponisten und Musikverleger), she received licensing and performance fees, improving her financial situation.
In the early 20th century, Lena Stein-Schneider opened a music salon in her apartment in Berlin. Later on, inspired by the famous Rubinstein Choir she saw in New York, she founded the Rubinstein Women's Choir and the Rubinstein Club in Berlin, which served as a platform for promoting young musicians, affording them the opportunity to present their works to interested audiences and critics. Engaging in multiple activities, Lena Stein-Schneider became an acknowledged figure of the Berlin music scene.
In the wake of the Nazi Party’s seizure of power, her music began to be systematically withdrawn from Germany’s stages and Lena Stein-Schneider was not allowed to perform in public. In 1933, the authorities banned the Rubinstein Club and disbanded the Rubinstein Women's Choir. In 1935, she was denied membership of the Reichsmusikkammer (Reich Music Chamber) and also forbidden to pursue all professional activities, as a result of which the artist (by the time widowed) faced severe material distress. This was all evidently solely based on her being of Jewish descent, ignoring the fact that Stein-Schneider had proved to be a true patriot – during World War I, she served as a nurse and she also expressed her affinity for Germany in her music, for instance, in the 1914 Kronprinzen Marschlied (The Crown Prince’s Marching Song), Op. 103.
There is scant information about her life between 1935 and 1945, as well as between the end of World War II and her death, in 1958. It is however, documented that on 6 August 1942 Lena Stein-Schneider was brought to the collection point at Große Hamburger Straße in Berlin (used by the Nazis to process Jewish people before being deported from the city), from where, on 14 August 1942, at the age of 68, she was transferred (within the 44th transport I/45) to the Theresienstadt ghetto. She was incarcerated there for 30 months. Shortly before the end of the war, on 5 February 1945, Lena Stein-Schneider was relocated to Switzerland, where she would live for several years. Due to her impaired health, she, however, could not fully devote to music. During the time she spent in Switzerland, she only composed one score for a radio play and several short pieces, with the best-known being Avinu Malkenu: Gebet für den Frieden (A Prayer for Peace), which was published in Hebrew and German alike (the German version was issued by Switzerland’s Éditions du Bourg in Lausanne in 1949).
In the early 1950s, Lena Stein-Schneider returned to Berlin, where she initiated a lengthy struggle with the German authorities for compensation, primarily for the lost manuscripts and recordings of her works. After years of tedious bureaucratic wrangle, she ultimately, at the age of 83, received DM 3,500 for the damages she had sustained. Lena Stein-Schneider died on 17 July 1958 in Munich.
