Fannie Bloomfield-Zeisler: the life and times of a piano virtuoso

Abstract

Fannie Bloomfield-Zeisler: The Life and Times of a Piano Virtuoso. By Beth Abelson Macleod. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2015. Pp. xii, 197, illustrations, notes, index. Cloth, $55.00.)In Fannie Bloomfield-Zeisler: The Life and Times of a Piano Virtuoso, author Beth Abelson Macleod lets readers know that Bloomfield-Zeisler led a double life, on the concert stage and one at home (p. 115.) Her two-part being, at times diametrically opposed, became so integral to Bloomfield-Zeisler's existence that it drove her as a wife, mother, and musician to eventually deplete her health. She continued her performances at concert after concert in city after city even though the Victorian society in which she lived championed women mastering their homes and not their ambitions. Her ironclad will to establish herself in the simultaneous role of virtuoso pianist and new woman serves as the thematic argument of Macleod's well-written biography.The author patiently walks readers through each chapter of BloomfieldZeisler's chronological milestones by focusing on the virtuoso's personal beliefs and professional accomplishments. Chapter One supplies the background story on her orthodox Jewish immigrant family. The saga of the Blumenfeld (later changed to Bloomfield) family's move from Austrian German Silesia (current day southeastern Poland) to Chicago, Illinois, in 1867. After numerous details (several of which were tangential but fascinating passages like the Chicago fire), the opening chapter ends eleven years later as the prodigy Blumenfeld and her mother returned to Europe for professional training and polishing. In Chapter Two, Macleod methodically portrays the young musician as intensely committed to her craft. Her expenditure of rehearsal energy increasingly caused her to be stoically ill but she ignored her pain to gain stage performances. It was at this early point in her career that Blumenfeld, who for reasons unexplained, changed the spelling of her name. Now known as Bloomfield, she obsessively pursued her career, while telling her noted physician she would rather die than stop playing. As Chapter Three focuses on Bloomfield's marriage to husband Sigmund Zeisler, a defense attorney in the Haymarket Riot trial, it misses explaining a key point. Why did Bloomfield decide to hyphenate her name to Bloomfield-Zeisler? Macleod carefully analyzes most of the musician's private and public decisions by comparing and contrasting them to contemporary's actions, but the feminist name addition was unusual for this time; it begs an explanation or at least an educated conjecture. The greatest depth of attention paid to Bloomfield-Zeisler's career is found in Chapters Four through Six. …