Stanley Ritchie is an Australian
violinist, author, conductor, and teacher born (in Yenda, New South Wales – about
350 miles west of Sydney, Australia) on April 21, 1935. He is known for a successful career
encompassing a wide range of musical activity.
He is, however, probably best known for his later involvement in Baroque
music, being a specialist in period instrument performance. In fact, he may well have been one of the
first artists to teach (historically-informed) early music practice in America,
if not the first. Sergiu Luca also
pioneered early music playing on baroque instruments in the mid-1970s and was
the first to record the Bach unaccompanied violin works on a period
instrument; however, he did not become as well-known in the field as later violinists did. It is interesting to note
that (in 1980) Austrian violinist Norbert Brainin became involved in a
widespread movement in England and elsewhere to lower the tuning of “A” from
440 hz to 432 hz but without success. This
would have applied across the board, not just Baroque music. I personally favor a lowering of the standard
tuning. The 440 tuning has made music
sound a little too brittle and brilliant.
Nevertheless, I think we should keep modern strings – they simply last
longer. Ritchie began his violin studies
at age 7 with someone whose name is unknown to me. He enrolled at the Sydney Conservatory of
Music as a young man and graduated in 1956.
He was 21 years old. Two years
after that, he went to Paris where he studied with Jean Fournier (pupil of
George Enesco and brother of cellist Pierre Fournier.) Ritchie finally came to the U.S. in 1959. He was 24.years old. In New York, he studied with Joseph Fuchs,
Oscar Shumsky, and Samuel Kissel. In
1963, he became concertmaster of the New York City Ballet. After two years, he moved to the Metropolitan
Opera where he served as Associate Concertmaster. Raymond Gniewek was the concertmaster at the
time. From 1970 to 1973, Ritchie was a
member of the New York Chamber Soloists.
He was appointed Assistant concertmaster of the Vancouver Symphony and
played in that orchestra from 1973 to 1975.
In 1975, he joined the Philadelphia String Quartet (University of
Washington - Seattle, Washington) as first violinist. Since 1970, he had developed an interest in
early music performance as played on instruments fitted to original Baroque
standards or specifications (if one can call them that), using Baroque bows as
well. Supposedly, German
violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter has said that period instrument players are
“players who ordinarily wouldn't make it, who make silly accents with the bow,
cannot produce a sound, and think they are making something
profound." If she in fact made that
statement, she has since changed her opinion to a highly positive view. Ritchie
has been professor of violin at Indiana University since 1982 but has continued
to concertize and teach far and wide. He
has recorded for various labels, including EMI, Decca, Dorian, Nonesuch, and
Harmonia Mundi. Opinions vary, of
course, but my choices for the best authentic (period) instrument ensembles in
the world are: the English Concert, the Academy of Ancient Music, Tafelmusik,
Europa Galante, Il Giardino Armonico, the Venice Baroque Orchestra, and Les Musiciens du Louvre. Ritchie’s recording
of Vivaldi’s concerto in e minor (with the Academy of Ancient Music) is
available on YouTube here. Vivaldi wrote
more than 200 violin concertos – eleven of them are in e minor. This one is the second in Opus 11 - Opus 11
contains 5 violin concertos and number 2 is the one in e minor. Whether it’s true or not, it has been widely
reported that Igor Stravinsky (or Luigi Dallapiccola or Darius Milhaud) once
said that Vivaldi - one of the most important Baroque composers - didn’t
compose 600 concertos; “he composed one concerto six hundred times.” Ritchie
has played a Jacob Stainer violin of 1679 for some time. I do not know if he is still playing it.
Max Rostal was an Austrian violinist, arranger, and teacher born (in Teschen) on July 7, 1905 (Heifetz was four years old.) He is not particularly well-known for anything other than that he had a long teaching career and was under-rated as a violinist. He began his violin studies at age 5. He began playing in public from age 6 (1911.) From the age of 8, after arriving in Vienna, one of his teachers was Arnold Rose, concertmaster of the Vienna Philharmonic for many years. (When Fritz Kreisler - as a teenager - applied to the Vienna Philharmonic, it was Arnold Rose who turned him down.) In 1920, his mother took Rostal to Berlin, along with his siblings. There, he took private lessons with Carl Flesch, when Flesch was still teaching there. According to at least one source, Rostal was often compared to Bronislaw Huberman, Fritz Kreisler, and Eugene Ysaye. Rostal made his formal debut in Berlin on February 3, 1923. He was 17 years old. Although he played pieces by Reger, Vivaldi, Dvorak, and Paganini, the main work on the program was the violin concerto by Alexander Glazunov. In 1925, he won the Mendelssohn Scholarship. Another obscure violinist who won this prize was Leonora Jackson in 1897. In 1926, Rostal moved to Vienna, where he made a living mostly by giving private lessons. In 1927, he was offered the position of concertmaster of the Oslo Philharmonic. In 1928, he returned to Berlin to become assistant to Carl Flesch at the Berlin Music Academy. From 1930 to 1933 he taught at the Advanced School for Music in Berlin. Rostal organized the Rostal String Quartet in 1930. The quartet enjoyed great success for the duration of its existence (three years.) In April of 1933, he was dismissed from his teaching position and subsequently (in 1934) moved to England, where he established himself, primarily as a teacher. From 1944 to 1958, he taught at the Guildhall School of Music in London and played many concerts broadcast over the BBC. He then taught in Cologne (Germany) from 1957 to 1982. Simultaneously, he was a violin teacher at the Conservatory in Bern, Switzerland (1958-1985.) Several recordings of his are posted on YouTube and it is said that his few recordings are now treasured by collectors. Many critics have also said that he had a very individual style. He was especially praised for his interpretation of Bartok’s second concerto (as is Silvia Marcovici nowadays) and was known to champion contemporary music. Rostal premiered Alan Bush’s violin concerto in 1949, a work which has not been heard from since. He also edited quite a few works for violin and wrote a method book as well. These works can easily be found on the internet. A violin (and viola) competition (begun in Bern in 1991 and now held in Berlin) is named after him. In 1944, Rostal was instrumental in organizing the Carl Flesch violin competition (which ran from 1945 until 1992. Raymond Cohen was the first winner of that competition.) Among his pupils were Thomas Brandis, Sergiu Luca, Norbert Brainin, Yfrah Neaman, Desmond Cecil, Edith Peinemann, and Igor Ozim. His Guarnerius del Gesu is now owned by the Stradivari Society (Chicago, USA.) Max Rostal died in Switzerland on August 6, 1991, at age 86.
Sergiu Luca was a Romanian (some would say American) violinist and teacher born (in Bucharest) on April 5, 1943 (Heifetz was 42 years old.) He is best known for having been the first to record the Bach unaccompanied violin works on a baroque violin. That recording is an early example of one of the causes he championed. The desire for playing (and learning to play) on original (authentic) instruments took off after that, especially in England, where the Academy of Ancient Music and the English Concert were founded. He began his violin studies at age 4 and entered the Bucharest Conservatory at age 5. His family moved to Israel when he was 7 and he made his public debut as a soloist with the Haifa Symphony when he was 9. Prior to coming to the U.S. to study under Ivan Galamian at the Curtis Institute (Philadelphia), he studied in London (with Max Rostal) and in Switzerland. He is one of a handful of prodigies whom Isaac Stern helped bring from Israel to study in the U.S. - Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, and Shlomo Mintz are three others. None of them ever returned, except to play concerts or participate in music festivals now and then. Luca made his American debut playing the Sibelius Concerto with the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1965. He played it again later that year with the New York Philharmonic (February 13, 1965), though he only played the first movement of the concerto. It was for one of Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts - he was 21 years old. I do not know why but he did not play with the Philharmonic ever again. In contrast, over the years, Zino Francescatti soloed with this orchestra more than 50 times – so did Jascha Heifetz, Nathan Milstein, and Isaac Stern. Luca made his New York recital debut at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in November, 1969. For many years afterward, he concertized in Europe, Latin America, Israel, Japan, and the U.S. Luca founded the Chamber Music Northwest festival in Portland, Oregon (1971-1980), and the Cascade Head Music Festival in Lincoln City, Oregon (about 60 miles southeast of Portland) (1985–2006.) He was one of the first artists to speak to audiences from the stage prior to concerts. In 1983, he became a violin professor at Rice University, a job from which he never retired. He was forty years old. He was also director of Houston's Texas Chamber Orchestra from 1983 to 1986. In 1988 he founded the Da Camera Society of Houston (1988-1994) – some say it was his most ambitious project. Until now, I had never heard of it. He also had a hand in starting the Context chamber group (in 1995) in Houston, which was dedicated to performances on period instruments. I should note that these quoted dates vary by as much as a year (in both directions) from one source to another. For instance, in one source, Luca’s tenure at the Texas Chamber Orchestra is given as 1982-1987. In another, those years are given as 1983-1986. He recorded with Context on the Zephyr label, but also recorded with several orchestras and chamber ensembles on Nonesuch and other labels. He also recorded works, such as the Mozart Sonatas, for violin and piano. In the mid 1970s, he began his forays into authentic baroque performances. Although by appearances he was very involved in original instrument performances, he plainly stated several times that he wanted to embrace as large a repertory as possible and be immersed in all styles and musical ideas. An audio recording of his playing Tartini’s Devil’s Trill Sonata is at YouTube. Luca's favored instrument was the Earl of Falmouth violin by Carlo Bergonzi (1733); however, he also owned a large collection of violins, including ones by Sanctus Seraphin (1733), Antonio Stradivari (1713 – the Wirth Stradivarius), Nicolaus Sawicki (1829 – Paganini considered Sawicki a genius), Stefano Scarampela (1909), and Isabelle Wilbaux (2008 – Canadian luthier.) He was quoted in The Houston Chronicle (by Tara Dooley-July, 2008) as saying, about violins, "They are sort of a human thing that is somewhere between something alive and something that is inanimate." Luca died on December 6, 2010, at age 67.
