Franz Joseph Zeisberg (1863-1951)
Franz Joseph Zeisberg is the author of the hand-written piano arrangements entitled "Primitive Indian Tunes." It should be noted that unlike Alice C. Fletcher, Francis La Flesche or Frances Densmore, he was not an ethnologist by training. Like, John C. Fillmore, he was a trained musician, who focused on teaching, composing, and arranging. I have not yet encountered evidence to support--or deny--that he personally met the authors of the collection--Fletcher and Fillmore--that inspired the piano arrangements. Of anyone, it is possible he had the acquaintance of Fillmore through professional music circuits, given parallels in their careers of teaching at and administration of conservatories and schools of music.
A biography from the Cole County Historical Society tells us that Zeisberg moved from Schonfeld, Grafschaft Glatz, in the Sudenten mountains of Prussia Silesia to Jefferson City, Missouri, in the spring of 1881 at the age of eighteen.
He grew "up on a farm and was accustomed to manual labor from childhood. In Germany [farmwork] did not interfere with educational pursuits, including the study of music. His father, Clemens Zeisberg, played several instruments and belonged to the church orchestra and the community band. His mother Theresia, nee Reinsch, sang in the choir...
Professor Zeisberg was educated in a state teachers’ college in which the study of music was an important part of the curriculum. After trying farm life in Osage County... working in a brickyard in Jefferson City... and clerking in a book and music store until he gained a working knowledge of English, he embarked on a music teaching career. Together with Professor Carl Preyer, he established a music school then called the Jefferson City Conservatory. He was also [an] organist in several churches. Eventually Preyer went to Kansas State University and Zeisberg taught at the Elizabeth Aull Seminary, Lexington, MO.
Encouraged by William H. Sherwood to come to Chicago for a more suitable field, he went to that city where he soon became favorably known in the musical world. Answering a call from Martha Washington College, Abingdon, Virginia, he took over the directorship of the conservatory there in 1892 and what he had considered to be a temporary tenure became a term of thirty years in the service of that institution, with a brief intermission at Sullins College, Bristol, Virginia. His teaching specialties included piano, violin, organ, harmony and composition.
Professor Zeisberger’s compositions include many teaching pieces, many songs, male and mixed choruses, church music, two masses and about seventy fugues for organ and piano. In 1922 he gave up his exacting post at Martha Washington and he and Mrs. Zeisberg returned to Jefferson into practical retirement.
(Text excerpted from Cole County Historical Society)
For our purposes, the significant part of the story includes his training and career in music, including his activities in both teaching and composing. At the time he penned these piano arrangements, Zeisberg would have been in retirement, living in Jefferson, Missouri, and around 74 years old. I have not yet found evidence that suggests he published any compositions using Indigenous sources or themes and we don't know enough about his life to know how or why he came into contact with these materials or to what use he may have put them.
