Esteban Eitler
also known as: Istvan Eitler, Stefano Eitler
Esteban Eitler was born as Stefan Eitler on 25 June 1913 in Bozen, today Bolzano in Italy, which at that time belonged to the Austrian part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He grew up in a musical family and began his musical education at an early age, first studying the violin and violoncello and later concentrating on the flute. His father, who taught the flute at the conservatory in Bolzano, was among his first teachers. After the family moved to Hungary, Eitler entered the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest in 1929. He completed his studies there in 1934, receiving a diploma as a virtuoso flautist. Even before graduating he had begun his professional career: from 1933 to 1935 he worked regularly for Budapest Radio and was active as a flautist and solo piccolo player with orchestras in Budapest.
In 1936 Eitler travelled to Buenos Aires with a European salon orchestra and decided to remain in Argentina. It was there that he adopted the Spanish form of his first name, Esteban. He soon established himself as a professional flautist, performing with ensembles including the Filarmónica Metropolitana, the chamber orchestra of A.G.M.A. and the A.D.E.M.A. Symphony Orchestra. During the following years he also travelled extensively, particularly in Bolivia, where he appeared as a soloist in concerts and radio broadcasts. His encounters with Andean music had a lasting effect on his earliest compositions. Eitler began composing seriously around 1941, and works such as "Impresiones bolivianas", "Acuarelas bolivianas" and "Tres bocetos del Alto Perú" show his early interest in indigenous melodies, pentatonic material and the musical traditions of Bolivia and Peru.
A decisive change in Eitler's musical development came through his contact with the Argentine composer Juan Carlos Paz. From about 1943 Eitler studied with Paz and became closely involved with the circle around the Agrupación Nueva Música in Buenos Aires, one of the principal centres of musical modernism in Latin America. His compositional language developed rapidly from his earlier Andean-inspired and post-Impressionist idiom towards polytonality, atonality and eventually twelve-tone composition. He became both a composer and an energetic performer of contemporary music, presenting not only his own works but also the music of other modern composers. His output during the 1940s was remarkably prolific and included solo pieces, chamber music, songs and works for unusual instrumental combinations. Around 1945 Eitler founded Ediciones Musicales Politonía in Buenos Aires, through which he promoted and published contemporary Latin American music, including a number of his own compositions.
Eitler's interest in the avant-garde was not restricted to music. From the mid-1940s he became associated with the Argentine Madí movement, an experimental movement devoted to geometric abstraction and the integration of different artistic disciplines. Eitler participated in Madí events both as a musician and as a visual artist, contributing drawings as well as musical compositions. His works appeared in exhibitions and publications connected with the movement, and he maintained contacts with artists such as Gyula Kosice and Carmelo Arden Quin. This combination of music and visual art remained characteristic of his unusually broad artistic activity.
At the same time Eitler developed an increasingly international career as a flautist. In 1947 he undertook his first extensive tour of Brazil, travelling through 22 cities and giving 42 concerts within four months. Between 1948 and 1951 he also worked as a conductor in Buenos Aires while continuing his activities as a composer, performer, painter and draughtsman. His compositions increasingly circulated outside Argentina and were performed in other Latin American countries as well as in Europe and the United States. In 1952 his Quartet 1950 received recognition at a symposium at the University of Texas in Austin, and several of his compositions were published internationally. Eitler's reputation as a specialist in contemporary flute music also led numerous composers to write works for him or dedicate compositions to him. Among the composers with whom he had connections were Hans-Joachim Koellreutter, Guerra-Peixe, Claudio Santoro, Edino Krieger, Gustavo Becerra, León Schidlowsky, Ernst Krenek and Roy Harris.
In 1952 Eitler moved with his family to Santiago de Chile. There he became an important figure in the dissemination of contemporary music and worked closely with the Dutch pianist and composer Fré Focke and the Chilean composer Eduardo Maturana. Together they were closely associated with the Agrupación Tonus, which organised numerous concerts of contemporary European and Latin American music in Santiago, Valparaíso and other Chilean cities. Eitler performed regularly as a flautist in these concerts and continued to compose experimental music, while at the same time remaining active in popular music and jazz. Between 1953 and 1956 he held several positions in Chile, including conductor of the permanent orchestra of Radio Cooperativa, director of its chamber music department, conductor and arranger for Odeon, and teacher at the Conservatorio Golf and the Colegio Tomás Moro. He was also a member of the Chilean composers' association.
In August 1957 Eitler moved once more, this time to São Paulo in Brazil. He was invited to teach at the Seminários de Música Pró-Arte, where his subjects included flute, recorder, jazz arranging, harmony and jazz counterpoint. He was also employed as principal flautist of the Rádio Gazeta orchestra, performed with the orchestra of the Teatro Municipal in São Paulo and taught at other musical institutions. Despite these extensive performing and teaching duties, he continued to compose and remained involved in contemporary music and the visual arts.
Esteban Eitler died of leukaemia on 25 January 1960 in São Paulo (Brazil).
In my possession is the autograph manuscript of the "Variaciones sobre un tema de Claudio Debussy" for piano by Esteban Eitler. The work was composed in 1944 and published shortly afterwards through Ediciones Musicales Politonía, his own publishing house. This edition is virtually impossible to find nowdays, so a modern edition is in need.
My manuscript is dedicated to Daniel Devoto (1916-2001), an Argentine composer. The world premiere was given by Esteban Eitler himself on 4 June 1945 at the Teatro del Pueblo in Buenos Aires.
