Joshua Rifkin
Encyclopedia
Joshua Rifkin is an American conductor
, keyboard
player, and musicologist
. He is best known by the general public for having played a central role in the ragtime
revival in the 1970s with the three albums he recorded of Scott Joplin
's works for Nonesuch Records
, and to classical musicians for his theory that most of Bach's choral works were sung with only one singer per choral line
.
in November 1970 on the classical
label Nonesuch
) - which were presented as classical music recordings - were critically acclaimed, commercially successful and led to other artists exploring the ragtime
genre. It sold 100,000 copies in its first year and eventually became Nonesuch's first million-selling record. The Billboard
"Best-Selling Classical LPs" chart for 28th September 1974 has the record at #5, with the follow-up "Volume 2" at #4, and a combined set of both volumes at #3. Separately both volumes had been on the chart for 64 weeks. The album was nominated in 1971 for two Grammy Award
categories: Best Album Notes
and Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (without orchestra)
, but at the ceremony on March 14, 1972, Rifkin did not win in any category.
Rifkin's work as a revivalist of Joplin's work immediately preceded the adaptation of Joplin's music by Marvin Hamlisch
for the film The Sting
(1973). In 1979 Alan Rich
in the New York Magazine wrote that by giving artists like Rifkin the opportunity to put Joplin's music on record Nonesuch Records
"created, almost alone, the Scott Joplin revival."
In August, 1990, Rifkin recorded a CD for the Decca label (catalog number 425 225) featuring rags by the two other major composers of ragtime, ( "The big three") Joseph Lamb
and James Scott (musician)
, and also tango
compositions by the Brazilian composer Ernesto Nazareth
.
's vocal music, including the St Matthew Passion, was performed with only one singer per voice part
, an idea generally rejected by his peers when he first proposed it in 1981. But in the twenty-first century the idea has become widely influential. The conductor Andrew Parrott
has written a book arguing for the position (The Essential Bach Choir; Boydell Press, 2000; as an appendix the book includes the original paper that Rifkin began to present to the American Musicological Society
in 1981, a presentation he was unable to complete because of a strong audience reaction). Such respected Bach scholars as Daniel Melamed and John A Butt
have argued in its favor. Furthermore, Rifkin and Parrott are no longer the only notable conductors to adopt the approach in performance. Among the conductors to record and perform music of Bach using some form of the vocal scoring argued for by Rifkin are Konrad Junghänel
(Mass in B Minor, several cantatas, and the motets), Sigiswald Kuijken
( Mass in B Minor, Saint Matthew Passion
, and the beginning of a cycle of the complete cantatas
), Paul McCreesh
(Saint Matthew Passion
, Magnificat, Easter Oratorio
, and several cantatas
), Eric Milnes, who has begun recording the complete cantatas
cycle with one singer per part, Marc Minkowski
( Mass in B Minor), Philippe Pierlot (masses and cantatas), Masaaki Suzuki
(motets), Jeffrey Thomas
, Jos van Veldhoven
( Mass in B Minor) and Matteo Messori (Christmas Oratorio
, Cantatas, Motets).
Rifkin himself has recorded Bach's Mass in B Minor, Magnificat
, and cantatas nos. 8, 12, 51, 56, 78, 80, 82, 99, 106, 131, 140, 147, 158, 172, 182, 202, 209, 216, and others, for the Nonesuch
, Mainach, L'Oiseau-lyre
, and Dorian labels, all with his Bach Ensemble and various singers. He recently published a book-form monograph, Bach's Choral Ideal (Dortmund: Klangfarben Musikverlag, 2002). His scholarly critical edition of Bach's Mass in B Minor was published by Breitkopf and Härtel in November, 2006, and was recorded by the Dunedin Consort led by John Butt John A Butt
for release in 2010. It is the first edition to follow strictly Bach's final version from 1748–50, not intermixing readings from the 1733 Missa (the first version of the Kyrie and Gloria), or certain revisions made posthumously by Bach's son C.P.E. Bach.
Rifkin has also made a brilliant reconstruction of J.S. Bach's posited Oboe Concerti: for oboe, strings and continuo in D minor, from BWV 35, 156, 1056 and 1050; in A major for oboe d'amore, strings and continuo from BWV 1055; in E-flat major for oboe, strings and continuo from BWV 49, 169 and 1053. All the original movements are keyboard settings. They reflect the Baroque oboe idiom convincingly. In this form, they evince the influence of the Venetian school, notably Marcello
, Corelli
and Vivaldi.
in the Music Division at the Juilliard School and received his Bachelor of Science degree in 1964. He also studied with Gustave Reese
at New York University
(1964–1966), at the University of Göttingen (1966–1967), and later with Arthur Mendel
, Lewis Lockwood
, Milton Babbitt
, and Ernst Oster at Princeton University
where he received his M.F.A. in 1969. He also worked with Karlheinz Stockhausen
at Darmstadt
in 1961 and 1965.
Rifkin has taught at several universities, including Brandeis University
(1970–1982), Harvard, Yale
, and is currently Professor of Music and Fellow of the University Professors at Boston University
. He is noted for his research in the field of Renaissance and Baroque music. One of his widely accepted findings (1975) is that Bach's St Matthew Passion was first performed on Good Friday, 1727, not 1729 as was previously thought. In a paper published in the Bach-Jahrbuch in 2000, Rifkin argued that the cantata Nun ist das Heil und die Kraft, BWV 50 was not written by Bach.
As a conductor and keyboard soloist, he has appeared with the English Chamber Orchestra
, San Francisco Symphony
, St. Louis Symphony, Scottish Chamber Orchestra
, Victorian State Symphony, and Israel Camerata Jerusalem. He has led operatic productions at Theater Basel
in Switzerland and the Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich. He has recorded music of Handel, Mozart, and Haydn with the Concertgebouw
Chamber Orchestra and Capella Coloniensis. As a choral conductor he has recorded motets of Adrian Willaert
with the Boston Camerata Chamber Singers, and music of the Medici Codex
with the Dutch ensemble Capella Pratensis.
on her albums In My Life and Wildflowers. He performed with the Even Dozen Jug Band (along with Dave Grisman, Maria Muldaur
and John Sebastian
, among others) and made a recording of his humorous re-imaginings of music by Lennon and McCartney in the style of the 18th century, notably Bach, known as The Baroque Beatles Book
and recently reissued on CD. In a related vein, Rifkin sang the countertenor solo in the premiere performance of the spoof cantata Iphigenia in Brooklyn by P. D. Q. Bach
(Peter Schickele
).
Conducting
Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...
, keyboard
Keyboard instrument
A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...
player, and musicologist
Musicology
Musicology is the scholarly study of music. The word is used in narrow, broad and intermediate senses. In the narrow sense, musicology is confined to the music history of Western culture...
. He is best known by the general public for having played a central role in the ragtime
Ragtime
Ragtime is an original musical genre which enjoyed its peak popularity between 1897 and 1918. Its main characteristic trait is its syncopated, or "ragged," rhythm. It began as dance music in the red-light districts of American cities such as St. Louis and New Orleans years before being published...
revival in the 1970s with the three albums he recorded of Scott Joplin
Scott Joplin
Scott Joplin was an American composer and pianist. Joplin achieved fame for his ragtime compositions, and was later dubbed "The King of Ragtime". During his brief career, Joplin wrote 44 original ragtime pieces, one ragtime ballet, and two operas...
's works for Nonesuch Records
Nonesuch Records
Nonesuch Records is an American record label, owned by Warner Music Group and distributed by Warner Bros. Records.-Company history:Nonesuch was founded in 1964 by Jac Holzman to produce "fine records at the same price as a trade paperback", which would be half the price of a normal LP...
, and to classical musicians for his theory that most of Bach's choral works were sung with only one singer per choral line
OVPP
One Voice Per Part - this musical term and neologism and its abbreviation refers to the practice of performing Baroque choral music, and Bach's works in particular, with single voices on each vocal line...
.
Rifkin and Joplin
Rifkin's Joplin albums (the first of which was Scott Joplin: Piano RagsScott Joplin: Piano Rags
Scott Joplin: Piano Rags is a 1970 ragtime piano album, consisting of compositions by Scott Joplin played by Joshua Rifkin, on the Nonesuch Records label. The album cover states the name as Piano Rags by Scott Joplin. The record is considered to have been the first to reintroduce the music of...
in November 1970 on the classical
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
label Nonesuch
Nonesuch Records
Nonesuch Records is an American record label, owned by Warner Music Group and distributed by Warner Bros. Records.-Company history:Nonesuch was founded in 1964 by Jac Holzman to produce "fine records at the same price as a trade paperback", which would be half the price of a normal LP...
) - which were presented as classical music recordings - were critically acclaimed, commercially successful and led to other artists exploring the ragtime
Ragtime
Ragtime is an original musical genre which enjoyed its peak popularity between 1897 and 1918. Its main characteristic trait is its syncopated, or "ragged," rhythm. It began as dance music in the red-light districts of American cities such as St. Louis and New Orleans years before being published...
genre. It sold 100,000 copies in its first year and eventually became Nonesuch's first million-selling record. The Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
"Best-Selling Classical LPs" chart for 28th September 1974 has the record at #5, with the follow-up "Volume 2" at #4, and a combined set of both volumes at #3. Separately both volumes had been on the chart for 64 weeks. The album was nominated in 1971 for two Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
categories: Best Album Notes
Grammy Award for Best Album Notes
The Grammy Award for Best Album Notes has been presented since 1964. From 1973 to 1976, a separate award was presented for Best Album Notes - Classical. Those awards are listed under those years below. The award recognizes albums with excellent liner notes...
and Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (without orchestra)
Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (without orchestra)
The Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance was awarded from 1959 to 2011. From 1967 to 1971 and in 1987 the award was combined with the award for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance and awarded as the Grammy Award for Best Classical Performance - Instrumental Soloist or...
, but at the ceremony on March 14, 1972, Rifkin did not win in any category.
Rifkin's work as a revivalist of Joplin's work immediately preceded the adaptation of Joplin's music by Marvin Hamlisch
Marvin Hamlisch
Marvin Frederick Hamlisch is an American composer. He is one of only thirteen people to have been awarded Emmys, Grammys, Oscars, and a Tony . He is also one of only two people to EGOT and also win a Pulitzer Prize...
for the film The Sting
The Sting
The Sting is a 1973 American caper film set in September 1936 that involves a complicated plot by two professional grifters to con a mob boss . The film was directed by George Roy Hill, who previously directed Newman and Redford in the western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.Created by...
(1973). In 1979 Alan Rich
Alan Rich
Alan Rich was an American music critic who served on the staff of many newspapers and magazines on both coasts. Originally from Brookline, Massachusetts, he first studied medicine at Harvard University before turning to music...
in the New York Magazine wrote that by giving artists like Rifkin the opportunity to put Joplin's music on record Nonesuch Records
Nonesuch Records
Nonesuch Records is an American record label, owned by Warner Music Group and distributed by Warner Bros. Records.-Company history:Nonesuch was founded in 1964 by Jac Holzman to produce "fine records at the same price as a trade paperback", which would be half the price of a normal LP...
"created, almost alone, the Scott Joplin revival."
In August, 1990, Rifkin recorded a CD for the Decca label (catalog number 425 225) featuring rags by the two other major composers of ragtime, ( "The big three") Joseph Lamb
Joseph Lamb
Joseph Francis Lamb was a noted American composer of ragtime music. Lamb, of Irish descent, was the only non-African American of the "Big Three" composers of classical ragtime, the other two being Scott Joplin and James Scott.-Life and Career:Lamb was born in Montclair, New Jersey...
and James Scott (musician)
James Scott (musician)
James Sylvester Scott was an African-American ragtime composer, regarded as one of the three most important composers of classic ragtime, along with Scott Joplin and Joseph Lamb....
, and also tango
Tango music
Tango is a style of ballroom dance music in 2/4 or 4/4 time that originated among European immigrant populations of Argentina and Uruguay . It is traditionally played by a sextet, known as the orquesta típica, which includes two violins, piano, double bass, and two bandoneons...
compositions by the Brazilian composer Ernesto Nazareth
Ernesto Nazareth
Ernesto Júlio de Nazareth was a Brazilian composer and pianist, especially noted for his creative tango and Choro compositions.Ernesto Nazareth was born in Rio de Janeiro, one of five children. His mother, Carolina da Cunha gave him his first piano lessons...
.
Rifkin and Bach
Rifkin is best known to classical musicians for his thesis that much of Johann Sebastian BachJohann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
's vocal music, including the St Matthew Passion, was performed with only one singer per voice part
OVPP
One Voice Per Part - this musical term and neologism and its abbreviation refers to the practice of performing Baroque choral music, and Bach's works in particular, with single voices on each vocal line...
, an idea generally rejected by his peers when he first proposed it in 1981. But in the twenty-first century the idea has become widely influential. The conductor Andrew Parrott
Andrew Parrott
Andrew Parrott is a British conductor, perhaps best known for his pioneering historically informed performances of pre-classical music. He conducts a wide range of repertoire, including contemporary music. He conducted the premiere of Judith Weir's A Night at the Chinese Opera...
has written a book arguing for the position (The Essential Bach Choir; Boydell Press, 2000; as an appendix the book includes the original paper that Rifkin began to present to the American Musicological Society
American Musicological Society
The American Musicological Society is a membership-based musicological organization founded in 1934 to advance scholarly research in the various fields of music as a branch of learning and scholarship; it grew out of a small contingent of the Music Teachers National Association and, more directly,...
in 1981, a presentation he was unable to complete because of a strong audience reaction). Such respected Bach scholars as Daniel Melamed and John A Butt
John A Butt
John A Butt is an orchestral and choral conductor, organist, harpsichordist and scholar who has held the Gardiner Chair of Music at the University of Glasgow since 2001, and has led the Dunedin Consort, a professional vocal ensemble centered in Edinburgh, since 2003.-Biography:John Butt was born...
have argued in its favor. Furthermore, Rifkin and Parrott are no longer the only notable conductors to adopt the approach in performance. Among the conductors to record and perform music of Bach using some form of the vocal scoring argued for by Rifkin are Konrad Junghänel
Konrad Junghänel
Konrad Junghänel is a German conductor and lutenist. He has given numerous solo concerts all around the world and has also worked with ensembles such as Les Arts Florissants and others....
(Mass in B Minor, several cantatas, and the motets), Sigiswald Kuijken
Sigiswald Kuijken
Sigiswald Kuijken is a Belgian violinist, violist, and conductor known for playing on authentic instruments.-Biography:Kuijken was born in Dilbeek, near Brussels. He was a member of the Alarius Ensemble of Brussels between 1964 and 1972 and formed La Petite Bande in 1972...
( Mass in B Minor, Saint Matthew Passion
Saint Matthew Passion
Saint Matthew Passion can refer to:* St Matthew Passion, a musical composition written by Johann Sebastian Bach* Saint Matthew Passion , a 1966 documentary film...
, and the beginning of a cycle of the complete cantatas
Bach cantata
Bach cantata became a term for a cantata of the German Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach who was a prolific writer of the genre. Although many of his works are lost, around 200 cantatas survived....
), Paul McCreesh
Paul McCreesh
Paul McCreesh is an English conductor.Paul McCreesh is founder and artistic director of the Gabrieli Consort & Players, with whom he has established himself at the highest level in the period instrument field; he is recognised for his authoritative and innovative performances on the concert...
(Saint Matthew Passion
Saint Matthew Passion
Saint Matthew Passion can refer to:* St Matthew Passion, a musical composition written by Johann Sebastian Bach* Saint Matthew Passion , a 1966 documentary film...
, Magnificat, Easter Oratorio
Easter Oratorio
The Easter Oratorio , BWV 249, is an oratorio by Johann Sebastian Bach, Kommt, eilet und laufet , first performed in Leipzig in 1725.- History :...
, and several cantatas
Bach cantata
Bach cantata became a term for a cantata of the German Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach who was a prolific writer of the genre. Although many of his works are lost, around 200 cantatas survived....
), Eric Milnes, who has begun recording the complete cantatas
Bach cantata
Bach cantata became a term for a cantata of the German Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach who was a prolific writer of the genre. Although many of his works are lost, around 200 cantatas survived....
cycle with one singer per part, Marc Minkowski
Marc Minkowski
Marc Minkowski is a French conductor of classical music, especially known for his interpretations of French Baroque works. His mother is American, and his father was Alexandre Minkowski, a Polish-French professor of pediatrics and one of the founders of neonatology...
( Mass in B Minor), Philippe Pierlot (masses and cantatas), Masaaki Suzuki
Masaaki Suzuki
is a Japanese organist, harpsichordist and conductor, and the founder and musical director of the Bach Collegium Japan.He was born in Kobe to parents who were both Christians and amateur musicians...
(motets), Jeffrey Thomas
Jeffrey Thomas
Jeffrey or Jeff Thomas is the name of:* Jeffrey Thomas , British Labour Member of Parliament* Jeffrey C. Thomas, seven-time candidate for U.S...
, Jos van Veldhoven
Jos van Veldhoven
Jos van Veldhoven is a Dutch choral conductor. He studied musicology at the Rijksuniversiteit of Utrecht, and choral and orchestral conducting at the Royal Conservatory, the Hague. He has been artistic director of De Nederlandse Bachvereniging since 1983...
( Mass in B Minor) and Matteo Messori (Christmas Oratorio
Christmas Oratorio
The Christmas Oratorio BWV 248, is an oratorio by Johann Sebastian Bach intended for performance in church during the Christmas season. It was written for the Christmas season of 1734 incorporating music from earlier compositions, including three secular cantatas written during 1733 and 1734 and a...
, Cantatas, Motets).
Rifkin himself has recorded Bach's Mass in B Minor, Magnificat
Magnificat
The Magnificat — also known as the Song of Mary or the Canticle of Mary — is a canticle frequently sung liturgically in Christian church services. It is one of the eight most ancient Christian hymns and perhaps the earliest Marian hymn...
, and cantatas nos. 8, 12, 51, 56, 78, 80, 82, 99, 106, 131, 140, 147, 158, 172, 182, 202, 209, 216, and others, for the Nonesuch
Nonesuch Records
Nonesuch Records is an American record label, owned by Warner Music Group and distributed by Warner Bros. Records.-Company history:Nonesuch was founded in 1964 by Jac Holzman to produce "fine records at the same price as a trade paperback", which would be half the price of a normal LP...
, Mainach, L'Oiseau-lyre
L'Oiseau-Lyre
L'Oiseau-Lyre may refer to:* Éditions de l'Oiseau-Lyre, French-Australian Music publishers* L'Oiseau-Lyre , an classical early music label owned by Decca Records since 1970...
, and Dorian labels, all with his Bach Ensemble and various singers. He recently published a book-form monograph, Bach's Choral Ideal (Dortmund: Klangfarben Musikverlag, 2002). His scholarly critical edition of Bach's Mass in B Minor was published by Breitkopf and Härtel in November, 2006, and was recorded by the Dunedin Consort led by John Butt John A Butt
John A Butt
John A Butt is an orchestral and choral conductor, organist, harpsichordist and scholar who has held the Gardiner Chair of Music at the University of Glasgow since 2001, and has led the Dunedin Consort, a professional vocal ensemble centered in Edinburgh, since 2003.-Biography:John Butt was born...
for release in 2010. It is the first edition to follow strictly Bach's final version from 1748–50, not intermixing readings from the 1733 Missa (the first version of the Kyrie and Gloria), or certain revisions made posthumously by Bach's son C.P.E. Bach.
Rifkin has also made a brilliant reconstruction of J.S. Bach's posited Oboe Concerti: for oboe, strings and continuo in D minor, from BWV 35, 156, 1056 and 1050; in A major for oboe d'amore, strings and continuo from BWV 1055; in E-flat major for oboe, strings and continuo from BWV 49, 169 and 1053. All the original movements are keyboard settings. They reflect the Baroque oboe idiom convincingly. In this form, they evince the influence of the Venetian school, notably Marcello
Marcello
Marcello is an Italian surname and given name, the Italian equivalent of Marcel.- Etymology :The name originally means like a hammer.It is originally the adjectival form of marcus which means hammer; the -el suffix was in times of archaic Latin the adjectival form.-People with this given name:*...
, Corelli
Corelli
Corelli may refer to:*Arcangelo Corelli , Italian violinist and composer of Baroque music*Marie Corelli , British novelist*Franco Corelli , Italian tenor*Correlli Barnett , English military historian...
and Vivaldi.
Studies and career
Rifkin studied with Vincent PersichettiVincent Persichetti
Vincent Ludwig Persichetti was an American composer, teacher, and pianist. An important musical educator and writer, Persichetti was a native of Philadelphia...
in the Music Division at the Juilliard School and received his Bachelor of Science degree in 1964. He also studied with Gustave Reese
Gustave Reese
Gustave Reese was an American musicologist and teacher. Reese is known mainly for his work on medieval and Renaissance music, particularly with his two publications Music in the Middle Ages and Music in the Renaissance ; these two books remain the standard reference works for these two eras,...
at New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
(1964–1966), at the University of Göttingen (1966–1967), and later with Arthur Mendel
Arthur Mendel
Arthur Mendel was an American musicologist.- Literary works :* music critics on the "Nation" * editor of "The Bach Reader", 1945...
, Lewis Lockwood
Lewis Lockwood
Lewis H. Lockwood is an American musicologist.He taught at Princeton University from 1958 to 1980, and at Harvard University from 1980 to 2002. He is currently a Distinguished Senior Scholar at Boston University and the Fanny Peabody Research Professor of Music, Emeritus, at Harvard...
, Milton Babbitt
Milton Babbitt
Milton Byron Babbitt was an American composer, music theorist, and teacher. He is particularly noted for his serial and electronic music.-Biography:...
, and Ernst Oster at Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
where he received his M.F.A. in 1969. He also worked with Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Another critic calls him "one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music"...
at Darmstadt
Darmstadt
Darmstadt is a city in the Bundesland of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Rhine Main Area.The sandy soils in the Darmstadt area, ill-suited for agriculture in times before industrial fertilisation, prevented any larger settlement from developing, until the city became the seat...
in 1961 and 1965.
Rifkin has taught at several universities, including Brandeis University
Brandeis University
Brandeis University is an American private research university with a liberal arts focus. It is located in the southwestern corner of Waltham, Massachusetts, nine miles west of Boston. The University has an enrollment of approximately 3,200 undergraduate and 2,100 graduate students. In 2011, it...
(1970–1982), Harvard, Yale
YALE
RapidMiner, formerly YALE , is an environment for machine learning, data mining, text mining, predictive analytics, and business analytics. It is used for research, education, training, rapid prototyping, application development, and industrial applications...
, and is currently Professor of Music and Fellow of the University Professors at Boston University
Boston University
Boston University is a private research university located in Boston, Massachusetts. With more than 4,000 faculty members and more than 31,000 students, Boston University is one of the largest private universities in the United States and one of Boston's largest employers...
. He is noted for his research in the field of Renaissance and Baroque music. One of his widely accepted findings (1975) is that Bach's St Matthew Passion was first performed on Good Friday, 1727, not 1729 as was previously thought. In a paper published in the Bach-Jahrbuch in 2000, Rifkin argued that the cantata Nun ist das Heil und die Kraft, BWV 50 was not written by Bach.
As a conductor and keyboard soloist, he has appeared with the English Chamber Orchestra
English Chamber Orchestra
The English Chamber Orchestra is a British chamber orchestra based in London. The full orchestra regularly plays concerts at Cadogan Hall, and the ECO Ensemble performs at Wigmore Hall...
, San Francisco Symphony
San Francisco Symphony
The San Francisco Symphony is an orchestra based in San Francisco, California. Since 1980, the orchestra has performed at the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall. The San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony Chorus are part of the organization...
, St. Louis Symphony, Scottish Chamber Orchestra
Scottish Chamber Orchestra
The Scottish Chamber Orchestra is Scotland's national chamber orchestra, based in Edinburgh. One of Scotland’s five National Performing Arts Companies, the SCO performs throughout Scotland, including annual tours of the Scottish Highlands and Islands and South of Scotland. The SCO appears...
, Victorian State Symphony, and Israel Camerata Jerusalem. He has led operatic productions at Theater Basel
Theater Basel
Theater Basel is the municipal theatre of the city of Basel, Switzerland, which is home to the city's opera and ballet companies. The theatre also presents plays and musicals in addition to operas and operettas....
in Switzerland and the Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich. He has recorded music of Handel, Mozart, and Haydn with the Concertgebouw
Concertgebouw
The Concertgebouw is a concert hall in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The Dutch term "concertgebouw" literally translates into English as "concert building"...
Chamber Orchestra and Capella Coloniensis. As a choral conductor he has recorded motets of Adrian Willaert
Adrian Willaert
Adrian Willaert was a Flemish composer of the Renaissance and founder of the Venetian School. He was one of the most representative members of the generation of northern composers who moved to Italy and transplanted the polyphonic Franco-Flemish style there....
with the Boston Camerata Chamber Singers, and music of the Medici Codex
Medici Codex
The Medici Codex of 1518 is a music book prepared for the Pope Leo X, the second son of Lorenzo the Magnificent of the Medici family who was pope from 1513 to 1521....
with the Dutch ensemble Capella Pratensis.
Other work
In the 1960s, Rifkin created arrangements for Judy CollinsJudy Collins
Judith Marjorie "Judy" Collins is an American singer and songwriter, known for her eclectic tastes in the material she records ; and for her social activism. She is an alumna of the University of Colorado.-Musical career:Collins was born and raised in Seattle, Washington...
on her albums In My Life and Wildflowers. He performed with the Even Dozen Jug Band (along with Dave Grisman, Maria Muldaur
Maria Muldaur
Maria Muldaur is a folk-blues singer who was part of the American folk music revival in the early 1960s...
and John Sebastian
John Sebastian
John Benson Sebastian Jr. is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist and autoharpist. He is best known as a founder of The Lovin' Spoonful, a band inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000...
, among others) and made a recording of his humorous re-imaginings of music by Lennon and McCartney in the style of the 18th century, notably Bach, known as The Baroque Beatles Book
The Baroque Beatles Book
The Baroque Beatles Book is a novelty record album created by the American keyboardist and conductor Joshua Rifkin. Released by Elektra/Nonesuch in 1965, it takes musical themes of The Beatles and reworks them into Baroque style...
and recently reissued on CD. In a related vein, Rifkin sang the countertenor solo in the premiere performance of the spoof cantata Iphigenia in Brooklyn by P. D. Q. Bach
P. D. Q. Bach
P. D. Q. Bach is a fictitious composer invented by musical satirist "Professor" Peter Schickele. In a gag that Schickele has developed over a five-decade-long career, he performs "discovered" works of this forgotten member of the Bach family...
(Peter Schickele
Peter Schickele
Johann Peter Schickele is an American composer, musical educator, and parodist. He is best known for his comedy music albums featuring his music that he presents as music written by the fictional composer P. D. Q...
).
External links
- Joshua Rifkin bio
- "Joshua Rifkin: Authentic at Heart" (interview from Ha'aretz)
- "Re-inventing Wheels: Joshua Rifkin on Interpretation and Rhetoric" (interview with Rifkin from Bernard Sherman's Inside Early Music)
- "Rifkin's Pesky Idea" (article by Bernard Sherman on the one-per-part controversy, originally published in Early Music America, Summer 1999, p. 48)
- "Schering's Wacky Theory" (Joshua Rifkin's response to Sherman's article, originally published in Early Music America, Fall 1999, p. 48)
- "Interview with Joshua Rifkin" by Uri Golomb, first published in Goldberg Early Music Magazine 51 (June 2008): 56-67