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Violinist Rachel Barton Pine prepares for her New York debut at Symphony Space
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Rachel Barton Pine. Photo by Andrew Eccles.
When violinist Rachel Barton Pine says she loves to play all sorts of music, she’s not kidding around. Her passion is as obvious when she performs the baroque partitas of Johann Sebastian Bach as when she plays Beethoven’s romantic Violin Concerto.
Then there are her performances with the thrash-and-doom metal band, Earthen Grave, where she plays an extended-range electric violin called the Viper, like she’s a bat out of hell. Nobody can call this impeccably-trained musician too restrained.
Putting aside her unlikely love affair with heavy metal, Pine will make her New York solo debut as part of the New York Chamber Music Festival at Symphony Space on Tuesday night. She’ll be playing strictly classical. That is her first allegiance.
“Classical music has the widest range of human emotion of any music,” Pine says. “It can be incredibly intense.” Anyone who’s immersed themselves in the vast world of musical idioms known as “classical music,” knows better than to argue her point.
Hailed as a child prodigy during the 1980s, Pine made her solo debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Erich Leinsdorf, when she was ten. By the time she was 15, she was keeping up a busy concert schedule. At 17, Pine became the youngest person and first American to win the J.S. Bach International Competition in Leipzig, Germany. That was followed by awards in Genoa, Vienna, Brussels and Montreal.
More than just a violin virtuoso, Pine has been actively involved in rediscovering historic music for her instrument and composing her own cadenzas for some of the works she plays—a common practice among classical musicians until about a century ago.
“I did quite a bit of improvising for one of Johann Pisendel’s sonatas on my new CD,” Pine says, referring to the work of the 18th-century composer who was a friend of Bach’s and may—she believes—have inspired and influenced Bach’s Six Unaccompanied Sonatas and Partitas. “Improvising on the Pisendel piece was a lot of fun, like playing in a jazz combo,” says Pine.
This month she will become the first living composer and the only woman to have her cadenzas and arrangements published in Carl Fischer’s “Masters Collection,” a series of sheet music folios that includes historic violin virtuosos such as Fritz Kreisler and Joseph Szigetti.
Pine’s newest CD, “Trio Settecento: A German Bouquet,” a collection of sonatas by German composers from the 1600s and 1700s, will be released by Chicago’s Cedille Records on September 29.
Ever one to balance the old and the new, Pine also released a heavy metal album this year with the wonderfully Hardyesque name: “Earthen Grave: Dismal Times.” Her co-conspirators in the Chicago-based band are Mark Weiner (vocals), Tony Spillman and Jason Muxlow (guitars), Ron Holzner (bass) and Scott Davidson (drums). Most have been crashing around the metal scene long enough to prove their chops …and then some. But this is their first collaboration with a classically-trained violinist. If there are contradictions in the project, Pine doesn't see them.
“Heavy metal is very close to classical music,” she argues. “It has a lot of rhythmic and harmonic complexity. And some of the best metal musicians love classical. A few weeks ago I was hanging out with Dave Lombardo, the drummer from Slayer, and he told me he’s really into Chopin and Vivaldi. He listens to them on his iPod.”
“Reign in Blood” meets the étude? Who would have guessed?
Pine’s affinity for thrash-and-doom may have been partly forged by early hardships. Most young artists have to struggle against daunting obstacles, but before her 21st birthday Pine had experienced way more than her fair share of the gods’ wrath.
Growing up poor in Chicago, she often didn’t know where her family was going to get the money to eat, let alone to buy her rosin or violin strings. And by time she was a teen, the pressure to contribute to her family’s upkeep was intense.
“I became the primary breadwinner for the family at age 14,” Pine says. She was responsible for covering the mortgage, utility bills and the groceries for herself, her parents and her two siblings.
Those financial hardships are something Pine’s never forgotten; the memories moved her to set up the Rachel Elizabeth Barton Foundation, dedicated to helping other struggling young artists.
But it was a brutal accident in 1995 that truly tested Pine’s mettle. When she was 20, she was dismounting from a commuter train in suburban Chicago when her arm was caught in the closing doors and she was first dragged, then thrown under the wheels. In the accident, she lost her lower left leg and severely damaged the other. Months in the hospital and rehab followed.
“Suddenly, there I was, and for some time, I couldn’t play the violin anymore. It was very difficult,” she summarizes now with masterful understatement.
It would take several years and dozens of surgeries before Pine could even begin to resume anything resembling her earlier performance schedule. Some of the most precious years in a young artist’s career had been lost—which helps to explain why it is only now, at age 34, that Pine is making the all-important New York solo debut.
For the occasion, she plans to play Johann Pisdenel’s sonata for solo violin (1717), Felix Mendelssohn’s sonata in F major (1838), John Corigliano’s sonata (1963) and Franz Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 12 (1880). Her long-time artistic collaborator Matthew Hagle will be the pianist. The concert, which will get broadcast live on www.wfmt.com, promises to be a spirited dance through almost 300 years of musical history. Symphony Space’s devoted Upper West Side audience, famous for its musical enthusiasm, can be counted on to get into the spirit of the evening.
Pine is looking forward to the date with her usual enthusiasm. “There’s nothing like a live concert,” she says, the excitement brimming up in her voice. “Audiences are participants, and the energy they give back to the musicians transforms each performance.”
Whether it’s Beethoven, Liszt or Slayer that she’s talking about, amen to that!
Symphony Space – 2537 Broadway at 95th Street - 212 864-5400
Tuesday, September 15 at 8:00 PM
The New York Chamber Music Festival Presents:
Rachel Barton Pine, violin & Matthew Hagle, piano
$35; members, seniors and students $25; day of show $40
News flash: Pine is offering Examiner readers discount tickets for her concert on Tuesday, September 15 at Symphony Space. Anyone who goes to the box office that night or makes a purchase through the box office by phone (212-864-5400) and gives the code "RBPfan," will get 50% off the ticket price, resulting in a ticket for just $17.00.
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Related websites:
Frank Krolicki's Chicago Rock Music page
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