Rudolph Reuter

1915 photo of Rudolph Reuter. Published in The Musical Courier.

Rudolph Reuter (September 21, 1888 - January 4, 1973) was an American pianist and professor.

Life

Reuter came from a musical family; his father and grandfather were members of the New York Philharmonic.[1] As a child, he performed as a boy soprano for the St. James Episcopal Church in Manhattan, and later as the organist for the North New York Congregational Church in the Bronx.[2] While still a teenager, he traveled to Berlin, where he studied with Karl Heinrich Barth, as well as with Max Bruch.[2] He made his European début in 1908 with the Hamburg Philharmonic, playing the Brahms Piano Concerto no. 1.[2]

In 1909, he was invited to take a position as professor of piano and theory at the Imperial Academy in Tokyo, Japan.[3] Reuter was the first pianist to perform the piano works of Debussy in Japan, playing the Sarabande from Pour le piano in 1909, and the Toccata from the same suite in 1911.[4] He returned to the United States in 1912, being concerned that his geographic distance from the United States and Europe was "endanger[ing]" his "whole musical future..."[5]

He developed an active career as a soloist and teacher based in Chicago. In 1920, he was the first pianist to give a public performance of Charles Tomlinson Griffes’s revised piano sonata; the Chicago Tribune critic praised Reuter’s playing of the piece, citing the pianist’s “enthusiasm and excellent musical understanding,” but dismissed the sonata out-of-hand as “wholly meaningless and useless musical material.”[6] The critic for Musical America offered even more trenchant criticism: “Especially noteworthy was his first performance from manuscript, of a sonata in four divisions, but in one movement, by Charles T. Griffes. This work by the Southern [sic] composer, hardly measures up to his many compositions we have heard, either in thematic worth or harmonic texture. The short thematic materials and the vague harmonic meanderings, leave the hearer in uncertain mood as to the meaning of the entire work. Mr. Reuter played the sonata with virile and straight forward style, but even his excellent performance could not rescue the sonata from its drab dullness.”[7]

Reuter taught for many years in Chicago, first at the Chicago Musical College, then at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago.[8][9]

References

  1. ^ "Rudolph Reuter Appears Here." The Arizona Daily Star, November 17, 1936, 7.
  2. ^ a b c "Reuter Plays Newer Music." The Ogden Standard-Examiner, November 7, 1920, Section Two-5.
  3. ^ "To Teach Piano in Tokyo." Washington Post, April 19, 1909, 3.
  4. ^ Brown, Matthew. Debussy Redux: The Impact of His Music on Popular Culture. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2012, 139.
  5. ^ "Jottings of Musicians." The Inter-Ocean, December 22, 1912, M9.
  6. ^ Hubbard, W.L. “This New Sonata Has One Virtue Anyway–It’s Brief.” Chicago Tribune, March 11, 1920, 13.
  7. ^ M.R. “Two Russian Virtuosi and Local Forces Round Out Chicago’s Weekly Schedule.” Musical America 31, no. 21 (March 20, 1920): 30.
  8. ^ "Chicago Musical College." Chicago Examiner, August 15, 1913, 8.
  9. ^ "Memorial rite set for Rudolph Reuter." Chicago Tribune, January 22, 1973, 3-10.