Carl Michael Alfred Steinberg was born in Breslau, Germany (now Wrocław, Poland), on 4 October 1928.

[3] The two stayed with a family in Stapleford, Cambridgeshire, an assignment organized by the Quakers, and attended The Perse School.

[4] Steinberg attended Princeton University, where his roommate was the future classical-music scholar and pianist Charles Rosen, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in 1949.

While Steinberg was lauded for his writing, the high standards by which he gauged the performances he reviewed caused friction with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

In a 1995 interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, Steinberg said he saw his role as a critic and annotator as someone "building bridges and helping to create contact between listeners—nonprofessional listeners for the most part—and music.