author
Oskar Bie
1864–1938
A lively voice in German music and art writing, he brought concerts, painting, dance, and literature together with unusual range. His books and criticism opened the arts to general readers while keeping a sharp, curious eye on style and performance.
1 Audiobook
History of the pianoforte and pianoforte players
by Oskar Bie
About the author
Born in Breslau in 1864, Oskar Bie was a German art historian, music critic, journalist, and author. He studied philosophy, art history, and music history in Breslau, Leipzig, and Berlin, earned his doctorate in 1886, and later qualified to lecture in art history in Berlin.
Bie became known for writing about both music and the visual arts in an accessible, wide-ranging way. He worked as an editor of Neue Rundschau for many years and published books on subjects including dance, the piano, and opera, building a reputation as a thoughtful cultural critic rather than a narrow specialist.
He died in Berlin in 1938. Today he is remembered as one of those writers who helped connect different art forms for a broad reading public, especially in the rich cultural world of late 19th- and early 20th-century Germany.