Ernst Silberstein was born in Berlin to Jewish parents on 15th October 1900. In 1917 he took his Abitur exams at Kaiser-Friedrich-Realgymnasium in Berlin-Neukölln and did military service as a gunner behind the front lines from June to November 1918.

After the war he studied at the Staatliche akademische Hochschule für Musik Berlin, majoring in the cello under Hugo Becker. In December 1923, before graduating, he signed a contract, effective immediately, to assume the post of 3rd Cellist at the Städtische Oper in Charlottenburg, where he was made Principal Cellist in 1925. In 1929 one of his former teachers, the violin virtuoso Karl Klingler, appointed him as successor to the cellist Francesco von Mendelssohn in Klinger’s eponymous string quartet. There followed annual European tours with the Quartet.

Ernst Silberstein © The Cleveland Orchestra

When the National Socialists took power in 1933, Silberstein, as a Jewish tenured civil servant, was forced to retire from the orchestra of the Städtische Oper pursuant to § 3 of the “Second Ordinance on Implementation of the Act to Re-establish the Civil Service” and for a while drew the associated pension. When the payments were stopped, he lodged a protest against his enforced retirement. The complaint was dismissed in April 1934 on the ground that privileges applying to military veterans with front experience did not apply to him. Silberstein then submitted a claim on grounds of hardship. This petition was approved following correspondence with the authorities spanning a number of years.

Ludwig van Beethoven: String Quartet No. 12 in E flat major, Op. 127, a 1935 recording of the Klingler Quartet featuring Ernst Silberstein on the cello: . Listen on youtube

 

NSilberstein was initially permitted to continue appearing with the Klingler Quartet. In March 1934 he could be found playing at a soirée hosted by President Paul von Hindenburg and attended by Adolf Hitler. Yet public pressure on Jewish musicians was mounting steadily to the extent that police protection was soon required at Quartet events. It was whispered to Karl Klingler on several occasions that he should replace Silberstein with an “Aryan” cellist. Klingler backed Silberstein as an accomplished artist and resisted such a move, supporting him in writing and also appealing personally to the “Führer and Reich Chancellor” in a long letter sent in November 1934. Despite these efforts, Ernst Silberstein was ejected from the Reichsmusikkammer in September 1935 and banned from performing in accordance with § 10 of the “First Ordinance on Implementation of the Act Regulating the Reich Chamber of Culture”. This marked the end of the Klingler Quartet.

Ernst Silberstein emigrated to the USA a year later in September 1936 and is presumed to have lodged with relatives of his US-born mother. His wife Hilda, née Schirmer, found her way to New York in July 1937 via Antwerp. Silberstein’s mother followed in October 1938, via Le Havre, moving in with her son and daughter-in-law in the New York borough of Queens

The Klingler Quartet around 1930: Karl Klingler, Ernst Silberstein, Fridolin Klinkler, Reinhard Heben (f. l. t. r.), © Archiv

 

Silberstein made his New York debut in December 1936 with the Perolé Quartet and joined the NBC Symphony Orchestra in 1937 under its principal conductor Arturo Toscanini. A variety of performances, recordings and radio broadcasts followed. In 1943 Silberstein became principal cellist at the Metropolitan Opera in New York before finding his new artistic home with the Cleveland Orchestra under George Szell in 1947.

After the end of the war, Silberstein received a request from Karl Klingler to revive his quartet. He refused, however, because of his occupation - and also because he did not want to set foot on German soil again. Silberstein and Klingler continued to maintain written contact, but never saw each other again in person. Ernst Silberstein died on 26 Sept. 1985 at the age of 84 in University Heights near Cleveland.

Source: Tobias Knickmann: „Ernst Silberstein“, in: Claudia Maurer Zenck, Peter Petersen, Sophie Fetthauer (Hg.): Lexikon verfolgter Musiker und Musikerinnen der NS-Zeit, Hamburg 2017. Online unter: www.lexm.uni-hamburg.de.