Steinberg, (Carl) Michael (Alfred)

Steinberg, (Carl) Michael (Alfred) , German-born American music critic; b. Breslau, Oct. 4, 1928. He went to England in 1939 and to the U.S. in 1943, becoming a naturalized American citizen in 1950. He studied music at Princeton Univ. (A.B., 1949; M.F.A., 1951), and then was in Italy (1952–54). Returning to North America, he taught at Princeton Univ., Hunter Coll., Manhattan School of Music, Univ. of Saskatchewan, Smith Coll., Brandeis Univ., Boston Univ., and (from 1968) the New England Cons. of Music in Boston. In 1964 he was appointed music critic of the Boston Globe. His criticisms, utterly disrespectful of the most sacrosanct musical personalities, aroused periodic outbursts of indignation among outraged artists, aggrieved managers, and chagrined promoters. In 1969 several Boston Sym. Orch. players petitioned the management to banish him from their concerts. Then, in a spectacular peripeteia, he left the Boston Globe in 1976 and was appointed director of publs. for the Boston Sym. Orch. In 1979 he assumed the position of artistic adviser and publications director of the San Francisco Sym., subsequently serving as its program annotator from 1989. He also was artistic advisor of the Minn. Orch. in Minneapolis (1989–92) and program annotator of the N.Y. Phil, (from 1995). He pubi. The Symphony: A Listener’s Guide (Oxford, 1995) and The Concerto: A Listener’s Guide (N.Y., 1998).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire