Eta Harich-Schneider (Harpsichord, Clavichord)

Born: November 16, 1897 - Oranienburg, near Berlin, Germany
Died: January 10, 1986 - Garching, near München (Freistaat Bayern), Germany or Vienna, Austria

The German musicologist and harpsichordist, Eta (Margarethe) Harich-Schneider, studied piano and musicology in Berlin, making her debut in 1924 with the first performance of Paul Hindemith's 1922 Suite. She then studied harpsichord with Wanda Landowska (1929-1935), subsequently forming an early-music ensemble.

Eta Harich-Schneider then became a professor at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik, but was dismissed in 1940 when she refused to join the Nazi party. She then fled to Tokyo, where she directed the music department of the U.S. Army College and also taught Western music at the imperial court (1947-1949). After her move to New York in 1949, she pursued Japanese studies at Columbia University. She also took courses in Sociology at the New School for Social Research (M.A., 1955). From 1955 to 1961 she taught harpsichord at the Vienna Academy of Music.

Eta Harich-Schneider wrote important books on harpsichord technique and repertoire and on Japanese art music. She also made notable recordings of works by Baroque masters and of collections of Japanese music. She received a Guggenheim fellowship in 1955.

Source: Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of 20^th Century Classical Musicians (1997)
Contributed by Aryeh Oron (February 2007)

Eta Harich-Schneider: Short Biography | Recordings of Instrumental Works

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