Peter Stadlen

Who was Peter Stadlen?

Peter Stadlen was a composer, pianist, and musicologist, specializing in the study and interpretation of Beethoven.

Stadlen, who was born in Vienna, premiered the Variations for piano, Op. 27 by Webern, and was the soloist in the European premiere of Schoenberg’s Piano Concerto. After the "Anschluss" he had to leave Austria and sought refuge in Britain. Eventually, however, a neurological finger malfunction caused him to give up performing, and he became a music critic, serving the Daily Telegraph for 26 years.

Stadlen spent many years trying to track down Beethoven's metronome, an invention which Beethoven had commissioned. It was believed that the weight on his metronome was faulty as some of the speeds written on his pieces seemed incorrect. Peter wished to ascertain the make-up of this weight and to see the correct speeds which Beethoven himself had intended. He finally tracked it down to a small antiques shop only to discover that, although the metronome itself was intact, the weight itself was missing.

Stadlen died in London, he was married to Hedi Stadlen and left two sons: Nicholas and Godfrey.

Stadlen's archive and scores are preserved by the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna.