Goldbeck, Robert
Goldbeck, Robert
Goldbeck, Robert, German-American pianist, teacher, and composer; b. Potsdam, April 19, 1839; d. St. Louis, May 16, 1908. He studied piano and harmony with his uncle, Louis Kohler, then continued his training with Henry Litolff in Braunschweig. After a period in Paris and London, he went to N.Y. (1857). In 1867 he went to Boston, where he helped Eben Tourjee organize the New England Cons, of Music. He subsequently went to Chicago and founded his own cons. (1868), and in 1873 he proceeded to St. Louis, where he became co-director of the Beethoven Cons., conductor of the Harmonic Soc., and later founder of the St. Louis Coll. of Music (1880). He lived in N.Y., Konigsberg, London, St. Louis, and Chicago (from 1886), finally settling in St. Louis (1903). He wrote an opera, Newport (London, 1889), an operetta, The Soldier’s Return (London, 1856), several Morceaux symphoniques for Piano and Orch., and various pedagogical pieces for piano. He publ. an Encyclopedia of Music Education (3 vols., 1903).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire