Heller, Stephen (EN)

Heller Stephen, István, *15 May 1813 Pest, †14 January 1888 Paris, French pianist and composer of Hungarian origin. He studied piano under F. Bräuer in Pest, and subsequently under A. Halm in Vienna. He began giving concerts in 1826, gaining a reputation as an outstanding virtuoso. In 1828, he travelled with his father on concert tours of Hungary, Austria, Poland (in 1828–29 he performed in Kraków and Warsaw alongside N. Paganini) and Germany. Following performances in Leipzig, Hamburg and Kassel, among other places, in 1830 he ceased his concert activities – due to severe physical exhaustion – and settled in Augsburg (until 1838), where he began studying composition. Heller’s works were enthusiastically received by R. Schumann (numerous reviews in the “Neue Zeitschrift für Musik” in 1836 and 1853). Heller himself, as a correspondent for the “Neue Zeitschrift für Musik”, wrote the so-called Davidsbündlerbriefe on musical life in Augsburg (1836, 1837); after moving to Paris in 1838, he continued this series as Briefe aus Paris (1839, 1840, 1843); he also contributed to the “Revue et Gazette Musicale”. His renewed career as a pianist brought him fame and renown; in 1849 and 1862 he gave concerts in England. He was also a sought-after piano teacher. Heller remained in Paris for the rest of his life; despite general acclaim, the patronage of Chopin and Liszt, and a warm relationship with Berlioz, he lived modestly and in solitude. In 1883, he began to lose his sight. He was buried in the Père-Lachaise cemetery. Autographs of Heller’s works are held mainly at the Bibliothèque Nationale, whilst Schumann’s letters (the so-called “Correspondenz”), including those to Heller at the Jagiellonian Library.

Heller, now largely forgotten, was in the mid-19th century, alongside Chopin and Schumann, a figure widely known in Paris, Germany and England. As a pianist, he enjoyed great success until 1867 in almost all the artistic centres of Europe at that time. He was also a respected music critic and a recognised composer, writing almost exclusively for solo piano; almost all his works were published during his lifetime and performed by numerous virtuosos of the time, with Liszt among the foremost. Heller was also met with an enthusiastic reception in the music literature of the time; numerous articles about him appeared in journals, and H. Barbedette devoted a monograph to him (1876), whilst A. Marmontel wrote an extensive treatise (1887). Heller was a typical representative of the Romantic period in music; in his work, this was expressed through a conscious adoption of literary and musical themes, inspiration drawn from other fields of art (mainly poetry and painting), in the creation and evocation of mood through programmatic titles of so-called “characteristic pieces”, which were most often cyclic forms (with titles also given to individual parts of the cycle), e.g. Traumbilder Op. 79 – 6 pieces, Feuillets d’album Op. 157 – 3 pieces; this type of composition includes the 3 suites Opp. 78, 80 and 89, as well as the 3 suites under the collective title Im Walde Opp. 86, 128 and 136, and Nuits blanches (18 pieces). These short, concise pieces, grouped into cycles, best illustrate the evolution of Heller’s compositional style and technique in terms of rhythmic and harmonic solutions, texture, melody and expression. Influenced by German Romanticism, he treated music as a means of expressing feelings and shifting moods, as well as an attempt to escape reality. The spiritual kinship between Heller and Schumann was acknowledged by the latter, who immortalized Heller’s figure under the pseudonym “Jeanquirita” in his piano suite Davidsbündlertänze, Op. 6 (1837). Although they never met in person, they maintained a lively correspondence, of which Schumann said: “it was the most engaging of all those I maintained” [indirect translation from Polish]. This correspondence reveals that Heller had been captivated by Chopin’s music since his youth; during his stay in Warsaw, he marvelled at the young man’s outstanding talent. He particularly valued the Polish composer’s études, a sentiment he expressed in an article for the “Revue” (24 February 1839) and by composing a cycle of 21 technical studies, serving as a kind of preparatory exercise for his works (Op. 154); Heller commemorated Chopin’s death with a fantasia on themes from the Preludes in E minor and B minor. 

During his lifetime, Heller became renowned as the composer of several collections of concert études and so-called technical studies, valued for their educational merit (particularly Op. 16, 45, 46, 47 and 125). His numerous fantasies, caprices and variations on external themes (particularly from operas) display a sketchy, improvisational character. He also composed rondos, nocturnes and dance-inspired pieces in the brillante style.

Literature: H. Barbedette Stephen Heller, Paryż 1876, English translation Stephen Heller. His Life and Works, London 1877, Detroit 1974; A. Marmontel Les pianistes célèbres, Tours 1887; F.G. Jansen Robert Schumann und Stephen Heller, “Neue Musikzeitung” XV, 1894; G. Servières Portrait de Stephen Heller d’après un tableau du Louvre, “Revue de la Société Internationale de Musique” V, 1909; R. Schütz Stephen Heller. Ein Künstlerleben, Leipzig 1911; L. Bronarski Stephen Heller i Chopin, “Ruch Muzyczny” 1960 no. 20; L. Bronarski Chopin et Stephen Heller, “Schweizerische Musikzeitung und Sängerblatt” 1973; J.-J. Eigeldinger Stephen Heller. Lettres d’un musicien romantique à Paris, Paris 1981; U. Müller-Kersten Stephen Heller. Ein Klaviermeister der Romantik. Biographische und stilkritische Studien, Frankfurt am Main 1986 (contains a complete, revised catalogue of Heller’s works).