Rachel Barton Pine

Heralded as a leading interpreter of the great classical masterworks, international concert violinist Rachel Barton Pine thrills audiences with her dazzling technique, lustrous tone and emotional honesty. With an infectious joy in music-making and a passion for connecting historical research to performance, Pine transforms audiences’ experiences of classical music.

During the 2015-16 season, Pine will perform concertos by Beethoven, Brahms, Bruch, Dvorak, Fairouz, Mozart, Sibelius and Vivaldi, with orchestras including the Santa Rosa Symphony, the New Mexico Philharmonic, and the Flagstaff, Windsor, and Gainesville Symphony Orchestras. She will continue her recital tour of the Six Bach Sonatas and Partitas for Unaccompanied Violin in Gainesville, FL and Washington, D.C.

In April, 2016 Avie Records will release Pine’s performance of J.S. Bach’s Six Sonatas and Partitas for Violin. Pine recently celebrated the release of her debut album on Avie: Mozart: Complete Violin Concerto, Sinfonia Concertante, with conductor Sir Neville Marriner and The Academy of St Martin in the Fields.  In September 2015 Cedille Records releases her recording of Vivaldi: The Complete Viola D’Amore Concertos with Ars Antigua.

This season a high-definition,  life size video of Pine playing and being interviewed will be the culminating installation of “Stradivarius: Origins and Legacy of the Greatest Violin Maker,” a new exhibit of treasures made by master violin makers including Andrea Amati, Guarneri del Gesù, and Antonio Stradivari debuting at the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, AZ.

Pine has appeared as soloist with many of the world’s most prestigious ensembles, including the Chicago Symphony; the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Royal Philharmonic; and the Netherlands Radio Kamer Filharmonie. Her past festival appearances have included Marlboro, Wolf Trap, Vail, Ravinia, Davos, and Salzburg.
 
She has worked with such renowned conductors as Charles Dutoit, Zubin Mehta, Erich Leinsdorf, Neeme Järvi and Marin Alsop, and with such leading artists as Daniel Barenboim, Christoph Eschenbach, Christopher O’Riley, and Mark O’Connor.  She has collaborated with many contemporary composers including Augusta Read Thomas, John Corigliano, José Serebrier, and Mohammed Fairouz.
 
Pine has a prolific discography of 30 CDs on the Avie, Cedille, Warner Classics, and Dorian labels. Pine began an exploration of beloved violin concertos and the concertos that inspired them with Brahms and Joachim Violin Concertos, recorded with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and conductor Carlos Kalmar. Her Beethoven & Clement Violin Concertos, recorded with The Royal Philharmonic and conducted by José Serebrier, offered the world premiere recording of Clement’s D Major Violin Concerto.

Her recording of Violin Lullabies, with pianist Matthew Hagle, debuted at number one on the Billboard classical chart.
 
She writes her own cadenzas to many of the works she performs, including for the Beethoven and Mozart concertos.  In 2009, Carl Fischer published The Rachel Barton Pine Collection, a collection of original compositions, arrangements, cadenzas, and editions penned or arranged by Pine, which made her the only living artist and first woman to join great musicians like Fritz Kreisler and Jascha Heifetz in Carl Fischer’s Masters Collection series.

Pine holds prizes from several of the world’s leading competitions, including a gold medal at the 1992 J.S. Bach International Violin Competition in Leipzig, Germany.    

Her Rachel Barton Pine Foundation assists young artists through various projects, including the Instrument Loan Program, Grants for Education and Career, Global HeartStrings (supporting musicians in developing countries), and a curricular series in development with the University of Michigan: Music by Black Composers. 

About Rachel Barton Pine's Violin
Rachel Barton Pine performs on the Joseph Guarnerius del Gesu (Cremona 1742), known as the “ex-Bazzini, ex-Soldat” on lifetime loan from her anonymous patron.

Guarneri and Stradivari are considered to be the two greatest violin makers of all time. “Del Gesu” violins have been the preferred instruments of many famous violinists including Paganini, Ysaye, Kreisler, Heifetz, Stern, and Zukerman. Many of these violins have special histories, and this instrument is no exception.

In 1875, an extremely talented young musician named Marie Soldat (1863-1955) decided to give up the violin to develop her talents in piano and voice. Hearing Joseph Joachim perform in Graz three years later, however, inspired her to return to the violin, and to study with him.

Marie Soldat was introduced to Brahms at Pörtschach during a summer tour of Austrian spas in 1879. After hearing her play, he arranged a benefit performance to help pay for her studies. Brahms also gave her money for a train ticket to join him and Joachim in Salzburg. When she began to play the Mendelssohn Concerto with Brahms at the piano, the strings on her violin snapped. Joachim handed her his Stradivari, and her performance was so impressive that Joachim accepted her into his class at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin.

Soldat (later Soldat-Röger) became a member of Brahms’s inner circle and a regular chamber music partner. Their friendship continued throughout his life. The famed pianist and conductor Hans von Bülow once introduced her as “Brahms’s understudy.”

Soldat was widely considered one of the greatest violinists of her day. She studied the Brahms Concerto with both Joachim and Brahms, and it became her signature piece. She introduced it to many European cities, including Vienna in 1885, with Hans Richter conducting the Vienna Philharmonic. She gave it its second performance in Berlin, with Joachim conducting.

Brahms selected this violin for Soldat in 1897 and arranged for a wealthy Viennese businessman to purchase it and loan it to her for her lifetime. The Strad magazine, in 1910, remarked that “…[it] bears most of the characteristics we have learnt to associate with this maker in a remarkable degree. The tone is of extraordinary beauty, and suits the violinist’s virile style admirably.… The tone is full and rich, and noticeably deep on the G string. All the outlines of the fiddle seem to breathe life and strength.” Rachel believes Brahms may have chosen this violin, in part, because its voice represents most closely what he envisioned for his concerto.

After Marie Soldat passed away, her violin was bought by a collector and not heard in the world for many years. Rachel has been using it since 2002 when she recorded the Brahms and Joachim Concertos with the Chicago Symphony.