Leo Kestenberg

Leo Kestenberg (27 November 1882 – 13 January 1962) was a German-Israeli classical pianist, music educator, and cultural politician. Working for the government in Prussia from 1918, he began a large-scale reform of music education (Kestenberg-Reform) which aimed to teach music to all, beginning with small children, and including the education of their teachers. In exile in Prague, he was instrumental in forming the and administrating the first international organization for music education, which became ISME. In 1898 he met Ferruccio Busoni, which led to an intimate friendship with him and his family, regarded as a turning point in his artistic life. After piano studies with José Vianna da Motta, Hermann Scholtz and Felix Draeseke, Kestenberg attended a master class by Busoni in Weimar in 1900 which introduced him to music by Bach, Schumann and above all Liszt. He joined the military band in Josefstadt the same year and began his concert career in Reichenberg as soloist in Liszt's First Piano Concerto. He became musical adviser to the Volksbühne Berlin, and a piano teacher at both the Stern Conservatory and the Klindworth-Scharwenka Conservatory. He began serving on the educational committee of the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD), which he had joined in 1900, publishing in the Sozialistische Monatshefte.

In 1908, he married Grete Kussel; they had two daughters. He began his professional career as a concert pianist, which led to professorship in piano at the Musikhochschule Berlin from 1921 to 1929. He continued his cultural-political commitment, organising numerous artistic events within the framework of the USPD's workers' associations and trade unions in the and the Workers' Singers' Association, in an effort to democratising the arts. He was involved in the popular education project of the Kroll Opera from 1927 to 1930, in Paul Cassirer's art magazine Der Bildermann in 1916, and supported the Commission for Exemplary Workers' Furniture in 1912.

In 1918, Kestenberg joined the as a research assistant, was appointed advisor to the art department in 1920 and headed the music department of the Zentralinstitut für Erziehung und Unterricht (Central Institute for Education and Instruction). Here he not only supported the modernisation and professionalisation of school music education, but also directed the entire Prussian appointment policy for the Berlin theatres and orchestras. In his paper Musikerziehung und Musikpflege (1921), he established for the first time an overall educational plan from kindergarten to university, and for the popular cultivation of music, which then formed the basis for the "Denkschrift über die gesamte Musikpflege in Schule und Volk" (1923) requested by the Prussian parliament. With the support of the non-party Minister of Culture Carl Heinrich Becker, he was able to implement essential educational policy reforms in Prussia (Kestenberg-Reform). The reform was gradually implemented in the form of decrees. However, only a few days after his 50th birthday, Kestenberg was dismissed from all positions for political reasons on 1 December 1932.

Kestenberg decrees (Examination, training and employment of music teachers at the higher educational institutions in Prussia)

In the autumn of 1938, Kestenberg was again forced to flee from the Nazis and came to Paris, where he tried, with the help of friends and colleagues, to continue the "International Society for Music Education" founded in Prague. The increasingly threatening political situation in Europe prompted him to emigrate again at the end of 1938, moving to Tel Aviv.

On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the founding of the Society for Music Education in Prague, the music school held a benefit concert as the Leo Kestenberg Project in the Chamber Music Hall of the Berlin Philharmonie on 25 March 2014.

On 27 November 2017, a Berlin memorial plaque was unveiled at his former residence, Berlin-Wilmersdorf, Barstraße 12.

The musicologist Wilfried Gruhn founded the Internationale Leo Kestenberg Gesellschaft in 2009, an international society researching his life and work, and having published his writings in six volumes until 2013.

Publications Leo Kestenberg: Gesammelte Schriften in 4 Bänden und 2 Teilbänden. Edited by Wilfried Gruhn, Freiburg 2009–2013. Leo Kestenberg (ed.): Kunst und Technik. Berlin 1930, renewed by , Osnabrück 1999 Leo Kestenberg: Musikerziehung und Musikpflege. Leipzig 1921, online in the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Ph. A. Maxwell (ed.): Leo Kestenberg & Franz W. Beidler, Complete Correspondence 1933–1956, online press 2013