Violinist Rachel Barton Pine can do it all
Rachel Barton Pine’s Bay Area concert has been canceled, but see our recommendations on recordings and videos you can enjoy online.
If classical music has anything like a Renaissance woman, she just might be violinist Rachel Barton Pine. With a repertoire spanning Baroque masterworks to Romantic and early 20th century concertos, Pine’s diverse musical interests extend to neglected works by African American composers, Chicago blues and heavy metal bands. Yet J.S. Bach is always a touchstone, says Pine, who was scheduled to join harpsichordist Jory Vinikour in an all-Bach program for the San Francisco Early Music Society this week. The concerts have been canceled due to the coronavirus outbreak, but Pine says the album of Bach sonatas she recorded with Vinikour in 2018 remains one of the high points of her career. In a recent call from her Chicago home, she said Bach’s music is her greatest inspiration. “Bach is very close to my heart,” Pine said, “and I’ve been playing the unaccompanied violin works for many years. But I’ve also been playing the works for violin and keyboard. “Jory was always my No. 1 pick for somebody to do them with, but he’d been living in Europe for a long time. He’d grown up in Chicago, but we didn’t know each other when we were students. He went off to make his career in Europe, but luckily, he moved back to the States a few years ago, and that gave us the opportunity to start rehearsing and performing together.” Now, she said, their playing is incredibly simpatico. “We’ve started to have that magical sixth sense,” she said. “When we play, there’s just so much spontaneity that we can be very creative. It’s not just a rehearsed, preplanned, well-played performance. It’s very alive in the moment.” Pine traces her love for Bach to her student years. “I’m fascinated by music for violin alone in general because, unlike the piano or the guitar, the violin doesn’t naturally play by itself,” she said. “It’s more of a melody instrument, meant to make music with others. “But certain composers — only the best ones, really — have been able to make music for solo violin. Of course, in the case of Bach, he does this by making the violin pretend to be many violins, which is difficult for the player but an amazing accomplishment for the composer.” Bach is by no means her sole musical hero. In 1992, she was asked to give the contemporary world premiere of a recently rediscovered 18th century violin concerto by an African French composer named Chevalier J.J.O. de MeudeMonpas. At the time, she was a member of the Chicago Symphony’s young artist ensemble. She gave the premiere in Chicago, led by a young conductor named Michael Morgan, who was an assistant conductor at the Chicago Symphony before coming to the Bay Area to become music director of the Oakland Symphony. Pine said Morgan is still one of her lifelong heroes. She has continued the work of recovering music by 18th and 19th century black composers. She’s the founder and president of the RPB Foundation, which has collected more than 900 pieces by more than 350 composers of African descent from four centuries and continents. Pine also has loved heavy metal since she was 10 years old and got her first transistor radio. “I was so drawn to it, and at first I thought it was because I was studying classical all day, and this was just so different. But then I realized I really liked it because it’s so close to classical. I started meeting many of my favorite bands, and we’d talk about how classical music was an inspiration for them. There was a lot of connection there.” Her eclectic tastes extend to Chicago blues, Scottish and American fiddling, and classic rock and metal. Pine clearly has the drive to succeed. In 1995, her career nearly ended when she was exiting a Chicago commuter train. The doors closed on the straps of her violin case, and she was dragged behind the train. Half of her left leg was severed. She was 20 years old. It was a long recovery. Today, she walks with a prosthetic leg. She maintains an active schedule of performances, recordings, and mentoring young artists — including her 8-year-old daughter, Sylvia, who is also a violinist. They often play duets. Bach is always the inspiration. “It’s such special repertoire,” Pine said. “It’s not just an intellectual exercise. There’s something so spiritual about this music, which is why I particularly love it. Bach’s music just brings you this sense of something greater than yourself. To be a conduit for that is incredibly uplifting.”