Pimsleur, Solomon

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Pimsleur, Solomon

Pimsleur, Solomon, Austrian-American pianist and composer; b. Paris (of Austrian-Jewish parents), Sept. 19, 1900; d. N.Y., April 22, 1962. He was taken to the U.S. in 1903. He studied piano privately and majored in Eng. literature at Columbia Univ. in N.Y. (M.A., 1923), where he also received instruction in composition from Daniel Gregory Mason. He was a fellowship student of Rubin Goldmark at the Juilliard School of Music in N.Y. (1926), and then studied at the Salzburg Mozarteum. Returning to the U.S., he was active as a pianist and lecturer. He also ran his own artists agency and production company. His compositions followed along Romantic lines, and included an unfinished opera The Diary of Anne Frank; Ode to Intensity, symphonic ballad (N.Y., Aug. 14, 1933), Shakespearean Sonnet Symphony for Chorus and Orch., chamber music, and many piano pieces.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire