{{short description|Hungarian composer (1885–1960)}} {{for|the American historian and linguist|Leo Wiener}} {{Western name order|Weiner Leó}} {{more footnotes needed|date=November 2020}} thumb|Leó Weiner
'''Leó Weiner''' (16 April 1885 – 13 September 1960) was one of the leading Hungarian music educators of the first half of the twentieth century, and a composer.
==Life==
===Education=== Weiner was born in Budapest to a Jewish family. His brother gave him his first music and piano lessons.{{Citation needed|date=December 2015}} As children, he and Fritz Reiner played piano four hands.<ref>{{cite book | last = Lyman | first = Darryl | chapter = Fritz Reiner, Baton Technician (1888–1963) | title = Great Jews in Music | publisher = Jonathan David Publishers | location = New York | year = 1986 | isbn = 0-8246-0315-X | page = 164 | quote = At the age of six he began to study the piano, and within a few years he was playing four-hand piano music with Leó Weiner, a local boy (three years Reiner's senior) who later became an important composer-teacher.}}</ref>
Weiner later studied at the Academy of Music in Budapest, studying with János (Hans) Koessler. While there, he won numerous prizes, including the Franz Liszt Stipend, the Volkmann Prize and the Erkel Prize (all for one composition, his Serenade Op. 3); the Haynald Prize for his ''Agnus Dei''; and the Schunda Prize for the ''Hungarian Fantasy'' for tárogató and cimbalom.<ref name=Weissmann-and-Berlász-2001>{{cite book | last1 = Weissmann | first1 = John S. | first2 = Melinda | last2 = Berlász | chapter = Weiner, Leó | title = The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians | edition = second | volume = 27: Wagon to Zywny | editor1-first = Stanley | editor1-last = Sadie | editor1-link = Stanley Sadie | editor2-first = John | editor2-last = Tyrrell | editor2-link = John Tyrrell (musicologist) | location = London | publisher = Macmillan Publishers | year = 2001 }}</ref>{{page needed|date=November 2020}}
===Teaching career=== In 1908 he was appointed music theory teacher at the Budapest Academy of Music, professor of composition in 1912 and professor of chamber music in 1920.<ref name=Weissmann-and-Berlász-2001 />{{page needed|date=November 2020}} In 1949 he retired as emeritus professor, but continued to teach until the end of his life.{{Citation needed|date=December 2015}} Among his many notable students were conductors Antal Doráti,<ref>Lyman (1986). p. 62 in "Antal Doráti, Outstanding Trainer of Orchestras (1906–)": "At fourteen young Doráti entered the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest, where his principal teachers were Leó Weiner (chamber music) and Zoltán Kodály (theory and composition)."</ref> Peter Erős, Béla Síki, and Georg Solti; violinist Tibor Varga; cellists Edmund Kurtz and János Starker; and pianist György Sebők.
He died in Budapest.
==Compositions== The early Romantics from Beethoven through Mendelssohn most strongly influenced Weiner's compositional style. His orchestration seems much indebted to later Romantic French composers not notably affected by Wagner, Bizet in particular. This conservative Romantic approach formed the basis of his style, to which elements of Hungarian folk music were added sometime later, although he was not an active field researcher of folk music as were his contemporaries Bartók and Kodály, but simply shared an interest in the subject and added elements of folk music into his established harmonic language without significantly changing it.<ref name=Weissmann-and-Berlász-2001 />{{page needed|date=November 2020}}
Among Weiner's notable compositions are a string trio, three string quartets, two violin sonatas, five divertimenti for orchestra, a symphonic poem, and numerous chamber and piano pieces.
On July 1, 2003, his ''Carnival Humoresque (Fasching)'', Op. 5, had its US premiere when it was performed at the Naumburg Orchestral Concerts, in the Naumburg Bandshell, Central Park, in the summer series.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Notable Events and Performers |url=https://naumburgconcerts.org/notable-events-and-performers |access-date=2025-03-05 |website=Naumburg Orchestral Concerts |language=en-US}}</ref>
==References== {{reflist}}
===Bibliography=== * {{cite book | chapter = Weiner, Leó | title = The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians | editor1-first = Stanley | editor1-last = Sadie | editor1-link = Stanley Sadie | location = London | publisher = Macmillan Publishers | year = 1980 }} * {{cite book | last = Sendrey | first = Alfred | title = Bibliography of Jewish Music | publisher = Columbia University Press | year = 1951 }}
==External links== * [https://www.allmusic.com/artist/leó-weiner-mn0001643797/biography Biography] at Allmusic * [http://www.editionsilvertrust.com/music-t-to-z.htm Leo Weiner Chamber Music sound-bites: String Trio, Op.6, String Quartet No.1, Op.4 & Divertimento No.2 for String Quartet, Op.24a] * {{YouTube|qIHUyDTUeQ8|Violin Sonata No. 2 in F sharp minor, Op. 11 - 1 Allegro}} Janos Konrad violin, David Herman piano Recorded by Matyas Veer in the Muziektheater Amsterdam on 4 February 2014 * {{YouTube|62FoGmwX5ak|Violin Sonata No. 2 in F sharp minor, Op. 11 - 2 Presto}} Janos Konrad violin, David Herman piano Recorded by Matyas Veer in the Muziektheater Amsterdam on 4 February 2014 * {{YouTube|E-3Wl29zvPk|Violin Sonata No. 2 in F sharp minor, Op. 11 - 3 Larghetto}} Janos Konrad violin, David Herman piano Recorded by Matyas Veer in the Muziektheater Amsterdam on 4 February 2014 * {{YouTube|ivlirWDkYow|Violin Sonata No. 2 in F sharp minor, Op. 11 - 4 Rubato}} Janos Konrad violin, David Herman piano Recorded by Matyas Veer in the Muziektheater Amsterdam on 4 February 2014 *{{IMSLP|id=Weiner, Leó}} * {{YouTube|E-3Wl29zvPk|Románc Op. 14 - 1921 - for cello and piano}} Steven Honigberg, cello Carol Honigberg, piano recorded in 2002
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Weiner, Leo}} Category:1885 births Category:1960 deaths Category:Hungarian composers Category:Jewish classical composers Category:Franz Liszt Academy of Music alumni Category:Academic staff of the Franz Liszt Academy of Music Category:20th-century Hungarian Jews Category:Composers from Budapest Category:Burials at Kerepesi Cemetery Category:Jewish classical pianists Category:Hungarian male classical pianists Category:20th-century Hungarian male composers Category:20th-century Hungarian composers