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Home , Artur Schnabel, Jessye Norman, Maria Callas, Vladimir Horowitz

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music in my life TODAY, CHRISTIAN STEINER is working photograph classical musicians. He’s been with Cherie Hu, a fourteen-year-old plying his trade behind the lens for more who’s studying in the pre-college division of than four decades and his portfolio includes Pianist as e . Dressed in an elegant iconic images of , Maria pink ball gown, the young musician sits down Callas, , Plácido Domingo, Photographer at Steiner’s Bechstein grand piano and rattles , , Alicia de o€ the rst movement of Beethoven’s ird Larrocha, Yo-Yo Ma and dozens of other stars. Christian Steiner balked at . As she plays, Steiner moves “His eye is so keen, but more than that, he becoming a concert pianist, around his photography studio capturing her nds the truth and the soul in his subjects,” to the benefit of musicians. in action. A‚erwards, as she poses against the says the American Christine Brewer. piano, Steiner puts her at ease. “Because Christian got to know me and my By Damian Fowler “How nervous do you get?” he says. music before we worked together, he totally “Not really,” says Cherie. ‘got’ me!” But before he was a maestro behind “How wonderful!” says Steiner. “When the camera, Steiner was on the fast track to a I play these days, I get very nervous and I career as a concert pianist. always envy the people who don’t.” Steiner was born in in #$%& to a e photographer continues in this vein, family of musicians he compares to the von talking easily about piano technique, memory, Trapps. Steiner’s father was one of twelve repertoire, all the while directing the shoot children, and everyone was brought up to with small comments: “Eyes to me.” “You’re play a musical instrument in a peripatetic being solemn again!” family troupe that, like wandering minstrels Steiner, a youthful seventy-two-year-old of old, traveled from town to town. His

MARKUS HIRNIGEL New Yorker, has made it his life’s work to father became the rst violist at the eminent

LISTEN: LIFE WITH • 21 music + life • music in my life

Deutsche , then handed down the It’s an awful profession,” he told his son. Still, a sleepless night thinking about this. . . . I’m musical legacy to his children, who had little that didn’t mitigate Steiner’s feelings of failure so nervous.” With this, Bernstein forgot his option but to follow. “ere was nothing other as he le‚ Germany and sought some kind of austere reserve and said, “Oh, I’m not like than eating, drinking, sleeping and playing solace back in . that! Come over here and give me a hug.” musical instruments,” recalls Steiner, whose Only then did Bernstein’s features so‚en, two elder brothers ended up playing viola and EVER SINCE HIS BROTHER had given allowing Steiner to capture his portrait. in the . him a camera at the age of thirteen, Steiner On another occasion, Steiner had a At the age of four Steiner was handed a had enjoyed taking pictures, but he’d never photo session with the great Russian pianist violin and refused it. A few months later, a thought of it as a profession. But then a , whose very dour image cello was presented to him, which he also friend in New York who thought he took troubled the photographer. On arriving at the rejected. But at the age of ve, Steiner found great shots introduced him to a professional pianist’s New York apartment, Steiner was his instrument: the piano. With enforced photographer. surprised to learn that Richter’s rst language daily practice, he soon excelled. When Steiner quickly got up to speed, learned was German, which immediately built a he was thirteen, he gave his rst recital at the trade and soon found himself with an as- rapport between the two men. A‚er two school and stunned the audience with a signment that took him to Philharmonic Hall hours, Steiner had rolls of lm with images rendition of a Haydn . Hooked, he set at (before it became Avery of Richter a€able, smiling and relaxed. As about training to become a concert pianist, Fisher Hall) to shoot a two-piano Mozart the relieved photographer packed up his attending the Hochschule für Musik Berlin, concerto. It was a familiar environment, only equipment, Richter said, “I will not approve where his piano teacher was a former student now Steiner was behind the camera instead of any photograph that will have any smiles of . e talented Steiner at the keyboard. in it.” Steiner’s heart sank; he unpacked his )ourished, winning competitions as well Over time, word spread and Columbia equipment and had to spend another hour as plaudits from the likes of , Artists Management Inc. began sending him dedicated to the preferred gloomy prole. who encouraged him to study in New York on assignments. “I immediately started to have thanks to a scholarship program run by the a big clientele,” recalls Steiner, whose subjects AS HIS PHOTOGRAPHY career went from German government. were the biggest musicians of the day — from strength to strength, Steiner slowly made In New York, Steiner began studying with conductors to to opera stars. If Steiner his way back to the keyboard. His rst foray the pianist Frank Sheridan, who was on the was nervous at rst, he quickly realized that back into performance, four years a‚er he’d faculty at Mannes College of Music (as it was musicians were even more anxious about hav- stopped playing, coincided with a photo then called). A‚er a year, he continued in ing their pictures taken. Eminent artists would shoot with . In #$/$ he was Strasbourg with Edward Steuermann, who arrive at his door declaring, “is is as bad as invited by pianist Earl Wilde to record taught him “interpretation, not technique.” going to the dentist.” His technique was to put a group of two-piano pieces in . A rising star in Germany, Steiner now had people at ease. When faced with self-conscious (Wilde had once heard Steiner play before management and played over forty concert questions like, “What should I do with my he quit and continued, over the years, to dates a year, seemingly on a successful mouth?” Steiner would say, “Nothing! Just talk encourage him to return to performance. trajectory. en something stalled. to me.” And of course he could talk — with Steiner reluctantly agreed and started Steiner had returned to New York for expert facility — about music. practicing again, although his ngers “felt further private study with an eminent teacher Artists warmed to Steiner, who like pudding.”) At the same time, Steiner at Juilliard, but her negativity undermined understood that getting good results from was assigned to )y to to take some his condence. On one occasion she told his subjects meant a good rapport and a pictures of Callas for an album cover. him, “You’re not nearly as talented as you relaxed atmosphere. is wasn’t always easy, He arrived at the diva’s apartment on Rue think you are.” He found her instruction to be especially with big names like von Karajan, Georges Mandel half expecting the session paralyzing and he started to doubt his future whose silent, cool disposition made him to be canceled, as it had been several times as a pianist. “She beat me into a pulp and I let unapproachable. Likewise with Bernstein, before. And then she appeared, barefoot, her,” Steiner now recalls. “It showed me that I who arrived magisterially dressed in a black in a peignoir, with her hair )owing down perhaps wasn’t cut out for this career.” cape with red silk lining and would not her back. At rst Callas wanted to direct At the age of twenty-six, the rst phase of relinquish his stony-faced severity. Steiner the shoot, telling Steiner to photograph Steiner’s musical career came to an abrupt end. wondered how he could break through to the her from below because “it makes my nose He nervously informed his father and was maestro, and nally said, “I have admired you look shorter.” A‚er a while, the two fell into relieved at his reaction. “You’re right to do so. for as long as I can think. Last night I had conversation. Callas was curious about a

22 • SUMMER 2010 Famous faces. Christian Steiner’s portraits of (clockwise from le!) Jessye Norman, Maria Callas, Vivica Genaux and Herbert von Karajan

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pianist who had chosen to make a career in photography. “In her mind, I think she was intrigued by doing something else, too,” says Steiner, recalling that only the week All in the family. Christian before the newspapers had been full of the Steiner’s grandfather (above) Kennedy–Onassis marriage. Not surpris- with four of his children. "e Steiner Quintet (below) is ingly, Callas — whose relationship with advertised in a 1952 poster the shipping magnate had ended the year for the Nordmark Sinfonie- before — was in a vulnerable state. At one Orchester in Flensburg, point during the shoot, she ran over to the Germany. window to watch some soldiers on horseback ride by. Steiner, who was delighted by this burst of girlish enthusiasm, had his camera at the ready as she gazed down at the street. He had his portrait. e next day he returned to London and began his recording sessions with Earl Wilde, which included Rachmanino€’s Symphonic Dances and Ravel’s La Valse . e session went well; all of a sudden playing was fun again. Still, it was another few years before Steiner returned to public performance. As he started practicing again, he found that his old facility at the keyboard returned. Since then, Steiner has made perfor- very human form, which I think makes them he says. “One fed the other and continues to mance a counterpoint to his daily life as even more dear to us.” do so.” a photographer, playing regular chamber Over the years, Steiner’s aesthetic has Hanging on the wall of his upstate New concerts around the country and in Europe. evolved. His early work tended toward the York home, Steiner has a prized posses- It helps that he knows virtually everyone in moody headshot, with the face of the artist sion — a framed poster announcing a concert the business, not to mention his brothers in emerging from a dark background. “My from #$22 that took place in the chamber the Berlin Philharmonic. He’s also launched in)uence was Rembrandt, who only used one music hall of the Berlin Philharmonic. Steiner his own series — the Tan- source of light,” says Steiner. But that tech- and his brother presented works for piano nery Pond Concerts — held every summer nique has now changed. “What’s important in and cello by Schumann, Debussy, Bréval and in upstate New York on the grounds of the my pictures is that a subject looks interesting Beethoven to an enraptured audience of over Mount Lebanon Shaker Village. is year and approachable, intelligent and engaged. a thousand people. It was an auspicious and the series, running May 0$ through Septem- Beauty is not necessary.” thrilling moment for Steiner: the rst time ber 01, celebrates its twentieth anniversary Many musicians, impressed by Steiner’s he had performed in Germany since he had and includes the Brentano , portraits, have found themselves returning to stopped playing all those years before, his pianist Jeremy Denk and mezzo-soprano his studio for more sessions. Callas, Domingo condence restored. Vivica Genaux. and von Karajan, to name a few, were repeat In fact, for her last record, Pyrotechnics: clients. e late, great pianist Alicia de Vivaldi Opera Arias , Genaux used Steiner’s Larrocha once told Steiner, “You’re the one stunning portraits, which capture “the energy who makes me look like I wish I looked!” and vibrancy of the music and my enthusiasm Looking back at his career, Steiner for this repertoire,” she says. “ere is an sees the continuity in his joint passions of elegance, a simplicity and a directness in his photography and music. “e fact that I portraits that stands out to me. To the public, photographed musicians was natural because the artist is o‚en seen as some kind of heroic of my background. en music came back gure, and Christian shows us our heroes in into my life, which was a natural progression,”

24 • SUMMER 2010