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| Walter Reiter (Timothy Kraemer) |
To celebrate the release of Walter S. Reiter’s comprehensive new book - “The Baroque Violin and Viola: a 50 Lesson
Course” (OUP, 2020), the Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra presented a concert on
February 6th 2021. On February 7th, the JBO collaborated with the Jerusalem
Academy of Music and Dance Research Authority to hold an international
symposium - “The Gut Feeling: Art and Science of the Baroque Violin”. Following
the symposium, Professor Reiter held a master class for young Israeli Baroque
violinists and violists. The two-day event was especially meaningful as Walter Reiter
spent many years in Jerusalem, had strong connections to the Baroque music
revival there, till today, continuing interaction with JBO founder and director
Prof. David Shemer. Several of Reiter’s former Jerusalem students have gone
on to making prestigious performing careers.
“The Baroque Violin and Viola: a 50
Lesson Course”, a two-volume 700-page publication, is written in a style that
is informal, accessible and authoritative. It consists of five modules - on
ornamentation, four “Interludes” of historical and cultural interest as well as
lessons focusing on topics as diverse as temperament, shifting, vibrato and
dance. Of the book, John Eliot Gardiner wrote: “It shows Walter Reiter to be an
expert guide in defining a rich cultural context for music-making - and not
just violin-playing - and with the potential to shatter dull preconceptions.
His practical experience, learning and articulacy combine to enrich and extend
our purview of instrumental music extending over five centuries.” British violinist, conductor and Baroque specialist Rachel
Podger has referred to the book as “a journey of discovery covering all
technical aspects of playing the Baroque violin, from sound-production to the
history of national styles via affect, articulation, rhetoric, intonation and
temperament, ornamentation and improvisation.”
Opening the concert program, David
Shemer spoke of Walter Reiter and his long history in the performance of
Baroque music, expressing his admiration for him. Commencing with an anonymous
ensemble piece inspired by “My dove, in the clefts of the rock” (Song of
Songs), the works in the February 6th concert were performed and filmed in
various locations. Not only did this JBO production work very well, it also
featured some of Reiter’s outstanding former Jerusalem pupils. In two movements
from Sonata in A minor Op.9 No.5 for violin and basso continuo by Jean-Marie Leclair, Lilia Slavny’s definitively
daring-, emotionally involved- and richly ornamented playing was well suited to
the work’s multifarious requirements, both technical and expressive, and to
Leclair’s style of writing. Joining David Shemer-harpsichord, Ophira
Zakai-theorbo and Tal Arbel-viola da gamba, JBO first violinist Noam Schuss
dedicated her performance of Dietrich Buxtehude’s Sonata in G minor Op.2 No.3
for violin, viola da gamba and basso continuo to Walter Reiter. With her knack
of keeping a line alive from beginning to end, Schuss gave free rein and
bracing, suave, personal expression to the constant alternation between the
fantastic and contrapuntal styles making up Buxtehude’s sonic world, with
Arbel’s zestful, buoyant solos threaded seamlessly through the weave and
reminding one of the composer’s preference to follow German tradition by using
the gentler-sounding viola da gamba rather than the ‘cello. Listening to this
performance, one is left wondering why Buxtehude’s instrumental chamber music
has remained so neglected until recently. Schuss was then joined by flautist
Idit Shemer to perform G.Ph.Telemann’s Concerto for flute and violin in E
minor, the performance displaying the natural balance and insight acquired from
the many years the two artists have been playing together. Especially charming
was the lucid Adagio in G major, with the soloists playing the gentle cantilena
against the “lute” accompaniment of pizzicato strings. The work signed out
with an Allegro movement - an exhilarating celebration of Telemann's love
of folk music.
Violinist Kati
Debretzeni referred to Reiter’s new book as “beautifully written and
exhaustively researched”, and as one that will serve generations of players.
For this concert, she chose to play the Passacaglia from Heinrich Biber’s
Mystery (Rosary) Sonatas, a work she had heard played by Reiter many years ago,
his performance having left a lasting impression on her. Biber’s only surviving
work for solo violin, the extended Passacaglia (certainly no standard concert
fare) spins variations over a simple 4-note descending bass pattern which is
heard throughout. Clearly aware of the spiritual content of the piece, Debretzeni’s
playing was transparent, sensitive and meticulously detailed - at times
fragile, at others, robust and even elaborate - skillfully paced, personal and
thought-provoking.
Though Giovanni
Bassano was a composer of considerable skill, he is probably best remembered
today as a musical pedagogue, the author of an influential volume “Ricercate,
passaggi et cadentie”; the book’s content deals with methods of decorating
contrapuntal lines, using motets and other works by Willaert, Clemens non Papa
etc. Written in 1585, at the dawning of the Venetian Baroque, Walter Reiter’s
choice to perform Bassano’s Ricercata VIII was not an unpredictable option:
Reiter spoke of this style as looking towards the Levant, suggesting a
connection to Jerusalem. Referring to the piece as “written down
improvisation”, Reiter’s playing of the Ricercata was free and spontaneous as
he addressed each motif and its course. We then heard the Largo from J.S.Bach’s
Sonata for solo violin in C major BWV1005, with the artist viewing its dark
mood as a memorial to Bach’s (first) wife Maria Barbara, who had died when the
composer was away in Karlsbad. Reiter, finding the work appropriate to the mood
of the present Covid-19 pandemic, gave a profound and moving reading of the
Largo, its melodic, florid line, emerging from within the voices, sung over a
simple bass.
Violinists Lilia
Slavny, Noam Schuss, Kati Debretzeni and Dafna Ravid, also flautist Idit
Shemer, all spoke warmly of Walter Reiter’s teaching, his wisdom, influence and
mentorship.
Seeing in the
international symposium on the morning of February 7th, welcoming those present
and thanking those organizations involved in joining the JBO for the event -
namely, the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance Research Authority and the
Jerusalem Music Centre (Mishkenot Sha’ananim) - was Gilli Alon-Bitton, CEO of
the Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra. The first speaker was Prof. David Shemer, who
began by reminding viewers of the first steps of Baroque performance in
Jerusalem taken by him and Walter Reiter in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He
talked of Reiter’s playing as being characterized by “meaningfulness”, by
playing that “tells a story”, always making one think. Maestro Shemer went on
to extol the qualities of Reiter’s new book with its creative pedagogy,
references to major sources and its insight into Baroque music. He spoke of it
as mandatory reading for all Baroque musicians, not only violinists and
violists, and also as being useful for modern string players making the
transition to performing in the Baroque style.
Noam Schuss, first
violinist of the Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra, today teaching both modern- and
Baroque violin and conducting a young people’s Baroque orchestra, spoke of her
violin studies with three prominent teachers - Ilona Feher, Ora Shiran and
William Preucil (Cleveland Quartet) - and of being trained in the “grand, large
violin sound”. Then, 25 years ago, she met Walter Reiter, who was teaching at
the Jerusalem Early Music Workshop. At the Eastman School of Music, she had
played Bach on a modern violin with a Baroque bow, but now, playing repertoire
new to her, such as Corelli, she was being informed and inspired by Reiter, who
was encouraging her to be freer within the historical context. Schuss’ musical
roots were taking a turn! Helping her move away from the traditional track,
Reiter was convinced she was meant to play Baroque-style music. Reiter then
introduced her to David Shemer. Thinking back to those early days, Noam Schuss
has been mesmerized reading Reiter’s book, which counsels that “nothing is just
for technique” and that playing this music means being an explorer. Schuss
emphasizes the importance of taking time to experiment in these fast times. She
refers to rehearsals of her youth orchestra as a “Baroque laboratory”.
The next speaker was
Prof. David Irving, a leading Australian musicologist, cultural historian
and Baroque violinist, currently based at the Institució Milà i Fontanals-CSIC
(Barcelona). His research revolves around the role of music in intercultural
exchange, colonialism, and globalisation from c.1500 to c.1900, with particular
focus on Southeast Asia. His talk put Walter Reiter’s book into a
global-historical context, showing illustrations of early bowed instruments and
tracing their dispersal worldwide through colonialism, traders, etc. Irving discussed
the kinds of wood used in the making of violins and bows and the choice of
wood’s influence on playing and technique. He mentioned that Biber’s bow was
made of snakewood. Prof. Irving told of the arrival of the violin in
China by way of a missionary, Pedro Pedrini, possibly a pupil of Corelli, who
was writing sonatas similar in style to those of Corelli. Pedrini taught the
Emperor musical notation, who, in turn, began to write music. We heard two
movements of a Pedrini sonata performed by Nancy Wilson (violin) and Joyce
Lindorff (harpsichord). Irving stressed the importance of violinists
playing together with musicians of different cultures.
Prior to the printing
of ”The Baroque Violin
and Viola: a 50 Lesson Course”, Walter Reiter
had requested violinist Rachel Podger to read through it. Podger felt honoured
to do so. She spoke of Reiter’s wisdom and believes that students will find the
book’s research attractive, encouraging them to go on to do more. Among
Reiter’s many teaching strategies, Podger loves the singing and playing
exercises using Italian words and the inspiration of sounds heard in one’s mind
or even prompted by objects when “turning marble into sound”. She originally
met Reiter when both were leading with the English Concert in the early
1990s and she has always felt a musical affinity with him. Podger made
reference to conversations with him and to the humour and creativity of his
word games and puns.
Musicologist, violist
and director of the prestigious Israeli Carmel Quartet Dr. Yoel Greenberg
studied modern violin with Reiter in the 1980s. Reiter was his first teacher.
Although Greenberg did not go in the direction of Baroque performance, Reiter
did introduce him to Baroque music, to the world of chamber music, giving him much
musical background and arousing his interest in musicology. Today, Greenberg
finds Reiter’s reliance on 18th century pedagogy a meeting point between the
two of them. We then heard members of the Carmel Quartet playing a section of
what sounded like a coherent and balanced piece of galant music. Greenberg then
revealed that it actually consisted of fragments from works of Haydn,
Dittersdorf, Mozart and Pleyel pieced together quite companionably, a manoeuvre
impossible in styles later than the Classical style. He referred to the
stringing together of schemata as researched by Robert O. Gjerdingen, a scholar
of music theory and music perception, and to composer and music theorist J.P.
Kirnberger (1721-1783), who had engaged in the replacement or addition of
passages. Greenberg concluded his talk by saying that the two years of study
with Maestro Reiter had given him a whole world.
The afternoon was
taken up with on-line master classes, in which Walter Reiter worked with young
Israeli Baroque violinists and violists, concluding a festive and enriching two-day
event in honour of his new and most significant book.
