Born: October 11, 1894 - St. Louis, Missouri, USA
Died: May 12, 1943 - New York, New York, USA
The distinguished American violinist, conductor, teacher, and composer; Albert (Frederic) Stoessel, began his musical studies in St. Louis. Then he received training with Emanuel Wirth, in violin with Willy Hess and in theory with Hermann Kretzschmar at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik, where he also studied conducting.
At 19 Albert Stoessel began his professional playing career with the Hess String Quartet, and toured as a violin solist in Switzerland, Holland, and Germany. In 1914 he appeared as a violin soloist in Berlin. After touring in Europe, he returned to the USA in 1915 for a concert tour, appeared as a soloist with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and lived in Boston until 1917 while pursuing his career as a violinist and composer. During World War I he was a military bandmaster in the U.S. Army (1917-1919), serving as director of the school for bandmasters of the American Expeditionary Force in France. He became Director of the AEF Bandmaster's School of Chaumont, France, organized by Walter Damrosch. After his discharge in 1919, he returned to the USA, appeared as a violin soloist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and toured with Enrico Caruso's last tour in 1920.
Albert Stoessel settled in New York in 1921 and became the assistant conductor of the Oratorio Society of New York under Walter Damrosch. He first began work with the Chautauqua Institution in 1921-1922 as a conductor, and in 1923 (or 1929) was appointed Musical Director. He became conductor of the Worcester Festival of the Worcester (Massachusetts) County Musical Association in 1925, and conducted the Westchester Festival in White Plains, New York, from 1927 to 1933. Likewise he appeared widely as a guest conductor. In 1923 he founded the music department at New York University (from which he was awarded a master's degree in 1924), which he headed until 1930. He was director of the opera and orchestra departments at the Juilliard Graduate School (from 1927 or 1931), where he conducted a number of premieres of American works. He was elected a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1931.
Albert Stoessel composed the opera Garrick in 1936, published The Technic of the Baton (New York, 1920; 2nd edition, revised and enlarged, 1928), and composed a number of violin, piano, choral, and orchestra pieces. His wife, Julia Pickard Stoessel, had also been a violin student in Berlin. They were married June 27, 1917, and had two sons, Edward and Fredric. Albert Stoessel died in 1943 after fatally stricken while conducting the premiere of WaIter Damrosch's Dunkirk at the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York.
Compositions. Op. 8. No. 1. Lullaby. No. 2. Humoresque ... (Violin & piano) (1916)
Crinoline. Minuet, etc. (Violin & piano) (1916)
5 Miniatures for Violin and Piano (1917)
American Dance, No. 1 in G minor. (No. 2 in E. für Violin & piano) (1917)
Suite antique for 2 Violins and Piano (1917; arranged for 2 Violins and Chamber Orchestra)
Bostonís own. March. Piano Solo (1918)
Violin Sonata (1919)
Hispania Suite for Piano (1920; arranged for orchestra, 1927)
Beat! beat! Drums (Four-part song, words by W. Whitman) (1922)
Cyrano de Bergerac, symphonic portrait (1922)
Suite Antique for 2 violins and piano (1924)
Flitting Bats for Violin and Piano (1925)
Christmas bells (1933)
Concerto Grosso for Piano obbligato and Strings (1935)
Early Americana, orchestral suite (1935)
Garrick, opera ,(1936; New York, February 24, 1937)
Short studies in double stopping, for the violin through all the keys (1940)
Hymn to Diana. Sketch