Kurt Schindler

Kurt Schindler (Berlin, 1882 – New York, 1935) was a German-born composer and conductor who spent most of his career in the United States. His significance lies in the unusual combination of three activities: composition, choral conducting and the systematic study of musical folklore, a field in which he left a collection of considerable scope.

He studied at university in Berlin and Munich between 1899 and 1901, where he took piano, composition, theory and musicology with teachers including Ansorge, Gernsheim, Thuille and Stumpf. The influence of Friedlaender drew him towards European popular music, particularly German, and his participation in a choir directed by Gernsheim, which performed modern arrangements of traditional songs, reinforced that interest. His official debut as a composer came at the Krefeld festival in 1902, although his songs had already been sung by performers such as Emmy Destinn and Ludwig Wüllner. After conducting engagements in Stuttgart and Würzburg, he worked with the Berlin Opera and, in 1905, joined the conducting staff of the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

In 1909, at Mahler's suggestion, he founded the MacDowell Chorus, which three years later was renamed the Schola Cantorum of New York. Under his baton the ensemble won a reputation as one of the finest choral groups in North America, until his resignation in 1926. His friendship with Natalie Curtis heightened his interest in popular music, which came to occupy a prominent place in the choir's programmes, especially in introducing Russian and Spanish folklore to American audiences. For his work on behalf of Spanish music he was invited to become a corresponding member of the Hispanic Society of America. At the same time, from 1907 for almost two decades, he worked as reader, editor and critic for the publisher Schirmer, and he directed the music at Temple Emanu-El between 1912 and 1925.

In 1928 he travelled to Spain to study its popular music systematically. Over three field campaigns, between December 1929 and January 1933, he collected more than a thousand traditional melodies, some of which were recorded on aluminium discs. In 1933 he was appointed the first music director of Bennington College in Vermont, but the demands of the post and his precarious health obliged him to give up his research. His transcriptions were published in 1941 thanks to the Hispanic Institute of Columbia University, which had sponsored the third campaign.

Schindler's legacy is chiefly associated with the dissemination of folklore. His compositional output, lyrical in character, largely remained unpublished, whereas his editions of Russian, American and, especially, Spanish folk songs remain an important documentary reference.