Leopold Spinner (1906 – 1980)

Leopold Spinner was born in Lemberg. In 1914 the family moved to Vienna and from 1925 Spinner studied Latin, propaedeutics, philosophy and musicological subjects at the University of Vienna. In 1935 he began his studies with Anton Webern, as soon as he had completed his university educations and his composition apprentice years with Paul A. Pisk, and after he had developed a certain basis as a composer and teacher at 29. Unlike Alban Berg and Anton Webern, who had taken part in the pioneering years of the new school of Schönberg and to a certain extent had helped shaping it, Leopold Spinner approached a craft of composing, which gradually took on established forms, and already as a young composer he wilfully chose the twelveton method as an extension of his knowledge. In 1936 he was the prize winner of the Henry-le-Boeuf-Preis in Brussels.

During his studies with Webern, Spinner intensively occupied himself with Bach, and throughout his life he was always interested in “how other composer do it”, so that his later occupation as editor of Boosey & Hawkes definitely met with his curiosity: “but….it was lovely to work on your music; I was always interested in the ideas and mathematics being part of all music, if one only wants to search for it.” (to Gottfried von Einem)

In 1939 Leopold Spinner emigrated to England, lived at first in London, then – together with his wife Dr. Johanna Goldstein and their daughter Margaret – in Bradford, Leeds, anew in London, Mitcham, and finally in London again. In Bradford he was allowed to hold evening classes on music. His candidature for the Music College of Manchester was unsuccessful. From 1942 to 1946 he worked as a machinist in the locomotive construction in “war employment”.

Spinner always stayed in touch with musicians and artists during and after the war, although he had lost many contacts and his occupational field through his emigration to London. He took the opportunity – certainly favoured by his position in Boosey & Hawkes from 1958 – to cultivate contacts and to accept support for spreading his works, though without wide success. Because his view of serious interpretation didn’t allow any carelessness of studying and any shallowness and thus any performances just for the sake of publicity. In 1946 Spinner met Else Cross, a student of Steuermann and Webern. As a pianist she consistently stood up for Spinner in concerts and teachings and remained the only musician who continuously performed his works.

In 1946 the first ISCM Festival after the end of the war took place in London. The submitted works of Spinner were rejected and not performed. His attempts to having his works performed at music festivals as well as in Darmstadt failed. Only in 1969, through the initiative of Gottfried von Einem, did performances take place in Austria, and until 1980 several oeuvres of Spinner had been published as well as recorded by ORF and broadcasted in Austria, Switzerland and England.

From 1947 Leopold Spinner got the opportunity to work as a copyist for other composers and was entrusted with copyist work and the preparation of piano reductions for the publisher Boosey & Hawkes. Spinner also worked as a private teacher. From 1958 he became editor of Boosey & Hawkes (successor of Erwin Stein), later chief editor, and stayed in this position until his retirement in 1975.

Leopold Spinner outlived his wife by fourteen years and died in London in 1980.