Alaska News

Unconventional concert violinist Rachel Barton Pine returns to Alaska

It takes a lot of determination to put all 24 Paganini Caprices for Solo Violin on a concert program. But no one ever said Rachel Barton Pine lacked determination.

She began conquering her instrument as a child. Her career was skyrocketing when, in 1995, she lost a leg in a subway accident. She worked through that and has since performed major repertoire with major orchestras, recording medieval music, modern music and everything in between. She explores ethnic world music, heavy metal and forgotten concertos by black composers and women. She brings her own intense vision to well-established works that you think you've heard enough, like her revelatory version of Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons" with the Anchorage Symphony last year. And, with her husband and daughter, she spends a lot of time on the road.

"Flagstaff, Fairbanks, Anchorage, New York, Finland," she said in a phone call from Arizona last week, laying out her immediate schedule.

Barton Pine is now in Alaska as a guest of the Sitka Music Festival's Winter Classics Series. One program is an all-Brahms affair with cellist Zuill Bailey and pianist Eduard Zilberkant. Two others will consist of just her, the Caprices and her Guarnerius del Gesu, made in 1742.

"That's the same year as Paganini's own violin was made," she notes.

Niccolo Paganini is often described as music's first superstar. He cultivated a mysterious stage persona that shifted from dark to flamboyant. He excelled in special effects and long, luminous tones that struck some listeners as supernatural. He made and squandered fortunes, leaving a trail of scandal, lawsuits and time in jail.

And he found time to write the Caprices, a string of 24 gems. They showcase the various unusual effects that he mastered and, in many cases, pioneered. But they also have the timeless and profound independent universality of Bach's "Well-Tempered Klavier," the Chopin Etudes, Debussy's Preludes or Bartok's "Mikrokosmos," with a wide range of different moods and structure.

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Rarely does a violinist dare to do them all at once. Not even Paganini himself ever played them together in public, Barton Pine said.

"Performances in those days were more varied, a little less serious. But he was probably the only person at the time who could have played them all. Things have changed, with more violinists able to do more things. It's like in figure skating; a couple of generations ago no one had ever done a triple jump. Now everyone has to do them."

She continued the athletic comparison, likening a performance of the Caprices to winning Olympic gold medals in high jump, hammer throw, diving, basketball and triathlon simultaneously.

"The stamina required poses a very unique challenge," she said. "You have to be equally prepared to do everything the violin is capable of doing. It's an amazing journey, but it can be exhausting."

And not just for the player. "When I do the full 24, it's a normal recital length. It would all fit on one CD. But there's a density and intensity that's a lot for the audience to absorb. I break them up with commentary, anecdotes from Paganini's life, insights into the pieces. I find that really helps people have an entry point into what makes each Caprice special."

Paganini dedicated the Caprices "to all the artists," Barton Pine said, stressing "all." In a similar way, Barton Pine finds herself dipping into art projects far afield of the usual world of concert violin.

"I like a lot of music -- Chicago blues, Scottish fiddle tunes. But I'm specifically interested in heavy metal rock. It's my second-favorite kind of music. I used to think that was because it was so different from classical, a respite. But I started playing some on my violin as part of my audience engagement efforts and realized that the two kinds of music were very close. I've played with a lot of my favorite metal bands now and I'm always honored to hear them talk about how their songs were inspired by classical music."

Her listening list includes Metallica, Van Halen, Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. She plays a wicked-looking V-shaped electric violin with extra strings in the "doom/thrash" band Earthen Grave.

Is there some musical endeavor that doesn't interest her? Conducting, she said. "I've never been bitten by the baton bug. I want to be out there and playing the instrument."

Yet she does lead conductorless ensembles with her bow when she joins them as a soloist. She recently did several such performances of the five Mozart Violin Concertos, the material for her latest CD.

"The recording is standard repertoire, but it's different because I play my own cadenzas," the showy improvisational climaxes for the featured instrument, often left to the discretion of the soloist and left blank by the composer.

"I used to be intimidated by the idea," she said. "There are all these great cadenzas for the major concertos written by big names in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. How could my own cadenza be as good?

"But that's the wrong way to look at it. I play the concerto as only I play it. My own cadenza will be the most organic to my own performance, which is what the composer wanted. It's good to hear the cadenzas by Kreisler or Joachim, but it's more exciting when someone picks up the pen and writes their own."

She's apparently good at it. Many of the historic cadenzas have been published in the Carl Fischer Master Collection series, something of an encyclopedia of cadenzadom. The collection includes Barton Pine's work. She's the only woman in the series.

Not only that, she noted, "I'm the only non-dead person in the collection."

Rachel Barton Pine

with Sitka Summer Music Festival: Winter Classics

When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 14

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Where: UAA Recital Hall

Tickets: Sold out

The Complete Paganini Caprices

When: 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 15

Where: Discovery Theatre

Tickets: $49.25 at centertix.net and 263-ARTS

Rachel Barton Pine will also perform the Paganini Caprices at 8 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 12, in Davis Concert Hall in Fairbanks.

Mike Dunham

Mike Dunham has been a reporter and editor at the ADN since 1994, mainly writing about culture, arts and Alaska history. He worked in radio for 20 years before switching to print.

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