Werner Reinhart (18841951) was a Swiss industrialist, philanthropist, amateur
clarinetThe clarinet is a musical instrument in the woodwind family. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet...
tist, and
patronPatrón is a luxury brand of tequila produced in Mexico and sold in hand-blown, individually numbered bottles.Made entirely from Blue Agave, Patrón comes in five varieties: Silver, Añejo, Reposado Gran Patrón Platinum and Gran Patrón Burdeos...
of composers and writers, particularly
Igor StravinskyIgor Fyodorovich Stravinsky was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor, widely acknowledged as one of the most important and influential composers of 20th century music. He was a quintessentially cosmopolitan Russian who was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people of...
and
Rainer Maria RilkeRainer Maria Rilke is considered one of the German language's greatest 20th-century poets...
. Reinhart knew and corresponded with many of the great names of the early-mid 20th century in the European artistic and musical world, and his Villa Rychenberg in
WinterthurWinterthur is a city in the canton of Zurich in northern Switzerland. It has the country's sixth largest population with an estimate of more than 100,000 people. In the local dialect and by its inhabitants, it is usually abbreviated to Winti...
became an international meeting point for musicians and writers.
He was sometimes referred to as "the Winterthur
MaecenasGaius Cilnius Maecenas 13 April 70 BC –October 8 BC was a confidant and political advisor to Octavian as well as an important patron for the new generation of Augustan poets...
".
Alice BaillyAlice Bailly was a radical Swiss painter, known for her interpretation of cubism and her multimedia wool paintings.-Education and early career:...
named Werner Reinhart "L'homme aux mains d'or" – the man with the golden hands, and her 1920 portrait of him is called "The Man with the Golden Heart".
Oskar KokoschkaOskar Kokoschka was an Austrian artist, poet and playwright best known for his intense expressionistic portraits and landscapes....
also painted his portrait in 1947.
Werner Reinhart inherited his wealth from the Volkart family business, based in Winterthur, but he was never much involved in running the company. Reinhart and
Hermann ScherchenHermann Scherchen was a German conductor.Born in Berlin, he was originally a violist and played among the violas of the Bluthner Orchestra of Berlin while still in his teens. He conducted in Riga from 1914 to 1916 and in Königsberg from 1928 to 1933, after which he left Germany in protest at the...
played a leading role in shaping the musical life of Winterthur between 1922 and 1950, the emphasis being on contemporary music, and they were instrumental in numerous premieres being performed there. Scherchen was one of many people whom Reinhart patronised, not least in Scherchen's case because he had to pay alimony to no less than five ex-wives.
Following are details of some of the people he supported and assisted:
Othmar Schoeck
Othmar SchoeckOthmar Schoeck was a Swiss composer and conductor.He was known mainly for his considerable output of art songs and song cycles, though he also wrote a number of operas and instrumental compositions including two string quartets and...
was left destitute when
World War IWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
broke out. His appointment as conductor of the
St. GallenSt. Gallen is the capital of the canton of St. Gallen in Switzerland. It evolved from the hermitage of Saint Gall, founded in the 7th century. Today, it is a large urban agglomeration and represents the center of eastern Switzerland. The town mainly relies on services for its economic base.The...
Symphony Orchestra (with special permission to remain resident in Zürich), combined with the annuity Werner Reinhart gave him from 1916 onwards, allowed Schoeck to give up his jobs as chorus director and to compose more or less undisturbed. Schoeck was not given to overt signs of gratitude, but he dedicated to Werner Reinhart the following works:
- Gaselen, 10 poems by Gottfried Keller
Gottfried Keller , a Swiss writer of German literature, was best known for his novel Green Henry .- Life and work :...
, Op. 38 (1923), for baritone, flute, oboe, bass clarinet, trumpet, percussion and piano
- the Sonata for Bass Clarinet and Piano, Op. 41 (1927–28)
- the Suite in A flat for Strings, Op. 59 (1945).
Igor Stravinsky
Igor StravinskyIgor Fyodorovich Stravinsky was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor, widely acknowledged as one of the most important and influential composers of 20th century music. He was a quintessentially cosmopolitan Russian who was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people of...
approached Reinhart for financial assistance when he was writing
Histoire du soldatHistoire du soldat is a 1918 theatrical work "to be read, played, and danced" set to music by Igor Stravinsky. The libretto, which is based on a Russian folk tale, was written in French by the Swiss universalist writer C.F. Ramuz...
(The Soldier's Tale). The first performance was conducted by
Ernest AnsermetErnest Alexandre Ansermet was a Swiss conductor.- Biography :Ansermet was born in Vevey, Switzerland. Although he was a contemporary of Wilhelm Furtwängler and Otto Klemperer, Ansermet represents in most ways a very different tradition and approach from those two musicians...
on 28 September 1918, at the Theatre Municipal de
LausanneLausanne is a city in Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland, situated on the shores of Lake Geneva , and facing Évian-les-Bains and with the Jura mountains to its north-west. Lausanne is located some northeast of Geneva. It is the capital of the canton of Vaud and of the district of...
. Werner Reinhart sponsored this performance, and to a large degree underwrote it. In gratitude, Stravinsky dedicated the work to Reinhart, and even gave him the original manuscript.
Reinhart continued his support of Stravinsky's work in 1919 by funding a series of concerts of his recent chamber music. These included a suite of five numbers from
The Soldier's Tale, arranged for clarinet, violin, and piano, which was a nod to Reinhart, who was an excellent amateur clarinettist. The suite was first performed on 8 November 1919, in Lausanne, long before the better-known suite for the seven original instruments became widely known. Stravinsky dedicated his
Three Pieces for Clarinet (composed October–November 1918) to Reinhart, in gratitude for his ongoing support.
Reinhart founded a music library of Stravinskiana at his home in Winterthur.
Rainer Maria Rilke
In 1919,
Rainer Maria RilkeRainer Maria Rilke is considered one of the German language's greatest 20th-century poets...
travelled to Switzerland from
MunichMunich is the capital city of Bavaria, Germany. It is located on the River Isar north of the Bavarian Alps. Munich is the third largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Hamburg...
. The outward motive was an invitation to lecture in Zürich, but the real reason was the wish to escape the post-war chaos and take up once again his work on the
Duino ElegiesThe Duino Elegies are a set of ten elegies written in German by the poet Rainer Maria Rilke from 1912 to 1922. Rilke had been visiting Princess Marie von Thurn und Taxis in the Duino castle near Trieste in January 1912 and, according to his own recounting, had taken a stroll near the castle,...
. The search for a suitable and affordable residence proved to be very difficult and Rilke lived in various places. Only in the summer of 1921 was he able to find a permanent abode in the Chateau de Muzot in the commune of Veyras, close to Sierre in Valais. It was at Muzot, in February 1922, that Rilke, in a storm of inspiration, wrote most of the fifty-five
Sonnets to OrpheusThe Sonnets to Orpheus are a cycle of sonnets written by German-language poet Rainer Maria Rilke in 1922. He dedicated them as a memorial for Vera Ouckama Knoop , a playmate of Rilke's daughter Ruth.-Form and style:There are 55 sonnets in the sequence, divided into two sections, the first of 26...
and several smaller collections of poems. In May 1922, after deciding he could afford the cost of considerable necessary renovation, Werner Reinhart bought Muzot so that Rilke could live there rent-free, and became Rilke's patron. Here Rilke completed his greatest work, the
Duino Elegies.
During this time, Reinhart introduced Rilke to his protégée, the
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the continental mainland , the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans...
n violinist
Alma MoodieAlma Templeton Moodie was an Australian violinist who established an excellent reputation in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s. She was regarded as the foremost female violinist during the inter-war years, and she premiered violin concertos by Kurt Atterberg, Hans Pfitzner and Ernst Krenek...
. Rilke was so impressed with her playing that he wrote in a letter:
What a sound, what richness, what determination. That and the "Sonnets to Orpheus", those were two strings of the same voice. And she plays mostly Bach! Muzot has received its musical christening....
Paul Hindemith
Paul HindemithPaul Hindemith was a German composer, violist, violinist, teacher, music theorist and conductor.- Biography :Born in Hanau, Germany, Hindemith was taught the violin as a child...
's Clarinet Quintet, first performed at the ISCM Festival in Salzburg on 7 August 1923, was dedicated to Werner Reinhart, as was his Canon in Three Voices
Sine musica nulla disciplina (1944).
Reinhart told Gertrud Hindemith "there was something Mozartian" about her husband's writing
TrauermusikOn 19 January 1936, Paul Hindemith travelled to London, intending to play his viola concerto Der Schwanendreher, with Adrian Boult and the BBC Symphony Orchestra in Queen's Hall, on 22 January. This was to be the British premiere of the work....
in less than a day in London after the death of
King George VGeorge V was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 1910 through World War I until his death in 1936...
, and premiering it the same evening. "I know no one else today who could do that", he said.
Ernst Krenek
Ernst KrenekErnst Krenek was an Austrian and—from 1945—American composer. He explored atonality and other modern styles and wrote a number of books, including Music Here and Now , a study of Johannes Ockeghem , and Horizons Circled: Reflections on my Music .- Life :Krenek was born in Vienna as the son of a...
and his then wife
Anna MahlerAnna Justine Mahler was an Austrian sculptor.-Biography:Born in Vienna, she was the daughter of the composer Gustav Mahler and his wife Alma Schindler. They nicknamed her 'Gucki' on account of her big blue eyes...
(daughter of
Gustav MahlerGustav Mahler was a Bohemian-born Austrian composer and conductor. He was best known during his own lifetime as one of the leading orchestral and operatic conductors of the day...
) lived in Zurich 1924-25, at Reinhart’s invitation. Their marriage collapsed, however, and Krenek had a brief affair with
Alma MoodieAlma Templeton Moodie was an Australian violinist who established an excellent reputation in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s. She was regarded as the foremost female violinist during the inter-war years, and she premiered violin concertos by Kurt Atterberg, Hans Pfitzner and Ernst Krenek...
. While this relationship did not last, Krenek was so grateful for Moodie’s introduction to Reinhart's assistance that he dedicated his Violin Concerto No. 2, Op. 29, to her. His
Kleine Suite, Op. 28 (1924) was written for Reinhart himself.
Arthur Honegger
Werner Reinhart was the primary financial supporter of the Théâtre du Jorat, where
Arthur HoneggerArthur Honegger was a Swiss composer, who was born in France and lived a large part of his life in Paris. He was a member of Les Six...
’s oratorio
Le Roi DavidLe Roi David was composed in Mézières, Switzerland in 1921 by Arthur Honegger and is classified as an oratorio or more specifically as a dramatic psalm...
premiered, and corresponded with its owner René Morax.
Honegger’s Sonatine for Clarinet and Piano (1921–22) was written for Reinhart.
Honegger's
Pastorale d’étéPastorale d’été, H. 31 , is a short symphonic poem for chamber orchestra by Arthur Honegger. It was inspired by Honegger's vacation in the Swiss alps above Bern in 1920. It takes about seven or eight minutes to play....
was played in Berlin on 9 November 1922, conducted by Bernhard Seidmann. This was financially supported by Werner Reinhart, who also urged Honegger to program
Horace victorieux, a work he believed to be far more important.
Anton Webern
It was thanks to Werner Reinhart that
Anton WebernAnton Webern was an Austrian composer and conductor. He was a member of the Second Viennese School. As a student and significant follower of Arnold Schoenberg, he became one of the best-known exponents of the twelve-tone technique; in addition, his innovations regarding schematic organization of...
, who was living in political isolation in Austria, was able to attend the premiere of his
Variations for Orchestra, Op. 30 in Winterthur in 1943. Reinhart invested all the financial and diplomatic means at his disposal to enable Webern to travel to Switzerland. In return for this support, Webern dedicated the work to him.
Other dedications to Reinhart
- In 1944, Frank Martin
Frank Martin was a Swiss composer, who lived a large part of his life in the Netherlands.-Life:...
wrote a "Canon for Werner Reinhart" for eight voices (SSAATTBB), to a text by Pierre de RonsardPierre de Ronsard was a French poet and "prince of poets" .- Biography :Ronsard was born at the Manoir de la Possonnière, in the village of Couture-sur-Loir, Loir-et-Cher...
.
- Adolf Busch
Adolf Georg Wilhelm Busch was a German-born violinist and composer.Busch was born in Siegen in Westphalia. He studied at the Cologne Conservatory with Willy Hess and Bram Eldering...
’s Sonata for solo bass clarinet was written for Reinhart.
- Hermann Burte dedicated Gedichte Voltaires to Reinhart.
Others he was associated with
- Although he was anti-semitic, Reinhart was on good terms with Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian and later American composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
. Schoenberg wrote to Reinhart in 1923: "For the present, it matters more to me if people understand my older works ... I do not attach so much importance to being a musical bogey-man as to being a natural continuer of properly understood good old tradition!"
- In January 1933, Hans Pfitzner
Hans Erich Pfitzner was a German composer and self-described anti-modernist. His best known work is the post-Romantic opera Palestrina, loosely based on the life of the great sixteenth-century composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina.-Biography:Born in Moscow, Russia, Pfitzner spent most of his...
was so bereft of funds that he offered to sell three museum artifacts to Reinhart for the sum of RMThe Reichsmark was the currency in Germany from 1924 until June 20, 1948. The Reichsmark was subdivided into 100 Reichspfennig.-History:...
1,500. On this occasion, Reinhart did not respond.
- After World War II, Wilhelm Furtwängler
Wilhelm Furtwängler was a German conductor and composer, widely considered one of the greatest conductors of the 20th century.-Biography :...
and his wife Elisabeth escaped to Switzerland with the assistance of Ernest AnsermetErnest Alexandre Ansermet was a Swiss conductor.- Biography :Ansermet was born in Vevey, Switzerland. Although he was a contemporary of Wilhelm Furtwängler and Otto Klemperer, Ansermet represents in most ways a very different tradition and approach from those two musicians...
and were supported financially by Werner Reinhart.
- In 1920 Albert Moeschinger received a stipend from Reinhart for three years study abroad.
- It was at Werner Reinhart’s personal invitation that Petr Rybar became concertmaster for the Winterthur Orchestra, where he remained for 28 years.
- He also knew or corresponded with: Volkmar Andreae
Volkmar Andreae was a Swiss conductor and composer.Andreae received piano instruction as a child and his first lessons in composition with Karl Munzinger. From 1897 to 1900, he studied at the Cologne Conservatory and was a student of Fritz Brun, Franz Wüllner, and Friedrich Wilhelm Franke...
, Ernest AnsermetErnest Alexandre Ansermet was a Swiss conductor.- Biography :Ansermet was born in Vevey, Switzerland. Although he was a contemporary of Wilhelm Furtwängler and Otto Klemperer, Ansermet represents in most ways a very different tradition and approach from those two musicians...
, René Victor Auberjonois, Conrad BeckConrad Beck was a Swiss composer.Beck was the son of a pastor. His stay in Paris between 1924 and 1933 proved crucial to his artistic development, where he studied with Jacques Ibert and also made contact with Arthur Honegger, Nadia Boulanger, and Albert Roussel...
, Alban BergAlban Maria Johannes Berg was an Austrian composer. He was a member of the Second Viennese School with Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, and produced compositions that combined Mahlerian Romanticism with a personal adaptation of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique.-Life and work:Berg was born in...
, Alfredo CasellaAlfredo Casella was an Italian composer.- Life :The Casella family included a good many musicians; his grandfather, a friend of Paganini's, was first cello in the San Carlo Theatre in Lisbon and eventually was soloist in the Royal Chapel in Turin...
, Alexandre Cingria, Gustave DoretGustave Doret was a Swiss composer and conductor.Doret was born in 1866 in Aigle, Switzerland. He studied at the Berlin Academy of Music with Joseph Joachim, and then at the Paris Conservatory with Theodore Dubois and Jules Massenet...
, Karl Ferdinand Edmund von Freyhold, Alois HábaAlois Hába was a Czech composer, musical theorist and teacher. He is primarily known for his microtonal compositions, especially using the quarter tone scale, though he used others such as sixth-tones and twelfth-tones.-Life:Hába came from musical family, his brother Karel Hába was also a...
, Clara HaskilClara Haskil was a Jewish Romanian classical pianist, renowned as an interpreter of the classical and early romantic repertoire....
, Hermann HesseHermann Hesse was a German Swiss poet, novelist, and painter. In 1946 he received the Nobel Prize in Literature...
, Karl HoferKarl Höfer was a German officer. During World War I he became known as the Held vom Kemmelberge for his actions at the Kemmelberg....
, Heinrich KaminskiHeinrich Kaminski was a German composer.- Life :Kaminski was born in Tiengen in the Schwarzwald, the son of an Old Catholic priest of Jewish parentage. After a short period working in a bank in Offenbach, he moved to Heidelberg, originally to study politics...
, Rudolf KassnerRudolf Kassner was an Austrian writer, essayist, translator and cultural philosopher.-Early years:Rudolf Kassner was born on 11 September 1873 in Gross-Pavlowitz in southern Moravia. His maternal ancestors were peasants from Silesia. On the paternal side, also from Silesia, they were townsmen,...
, Carl Montag, Paul Müller-Zürich, Charles Ferdinand RamuzCharles Ferdinand Ramuz was a French-speaking Swiss writer.He was born in Lausanne in the canton of Vaud and educated at the University of Lausanne. He taught briefly in nearby Aubonne, and then in Weimar, Germany. In 1903, he left for Paris and remained there until World War I, with frequent...
, Ker-Xavier RousselKer-Xavier Roussel was a French painter associated with Les Nabis.Born François Xavier Roussel in Lorry-lès-Metz, Moselle, at age fifteen he studied at the Lycée Condorcet in Paris; alongside his friend Édouard Vuillard, he also studied at the studio of painter Diogène Maillart...
, Albert SchweitzerAlbert Schweitzer was a German-French theologian, musician, philosopher, and physician. He was born in Kaysersberg in the province of Elsass-Lothringen , at the time in the German Empire...
, Richard StraussRichard Georg Strauss was a German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras, particularly of operas, Lieder and tone poems...
, Regina UllmannRegina Ullmann was a Swiss poet.- Works :Lyrics* Von der Erde des Lebens, 1910* Die Landstrasse, 1921* Die Barokkirche, 1925* Vom Brot der Stillen, 2 Bände, 1932...
, and Felix WeingartnerPaul Felix von Weingartner, Edler von Münzberg was an Austrian conductor, composer and pianist.-Biography:...
.
- The Winterthur Archives include musical and literary manuscripts by Beck, Berg, Debussy
Achille-Claude Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of Impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...
, de FallaManuel de Falla y Matheu was a Spanish composer of classical music.-Biography:Manuel de Falla was born in Cádiz. His early teacher in music was his mother; at the age of 9 he was introduced to his first piano professor. Little is known of that period of his life, but his relationship with his...
, FranckCésar Franck , a Belgian composer, organist and music teacher who lived in France, was one of the great figures in Romantic music in the second half of the 19th century.- Biography :...
, Haydn Joseph Haydn was an Austrian composer. He was one of the most important, prolific and prominent composers of the classical period. He is often called the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet" because of his important contributions to these genres...
, Hindemith, Honegger, Kaminski, Krenek, LisztFranz Liszt was a Hungarian composer, virtuoso pianist and teacher....
, Frank Martin, MilhaudDarius Milhaud was a French composer and teacher. He was a member of Les Six - also known as the Groupe des Six - and one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century...
, MyaskovskyNikolai Yakovlevich Myaskovsky was a Russian composer...
, Moeschinger, MozartWolfgang Amadeus Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as...
, Müller-Zürich, Ramuz (Histoire du soldatHistoire du soldat is a 1918 theatrical work "to be read, played, and danced" set to music by Igor Stravinsky. The libretto, which is based on a Russian folk tale, was written in French by the Swiss universalist writer C.F. Ramuz...
), RegerJohann Baptist Joseph Maximilian Reger was a German composer, conductor, pianist, organist, and teacher.- Life :...
, Schoeck, SchubertFranz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...
, Richard Strauss, Stravinsky, WeberCarl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber was a German composer, conductor, pianist, guitarist and critic, one of the first significant composers of the Romantic school....
, Webern and Hugo WolfHugo Wolf was an Austrian composer of Slovene origin, particularly noted for his art songs, or Lieder. He brought to this form a concentrated expressive intensity which was unique in late Romantic music, somewhat related to that of the Second Viennese School in concision but utterly unrelated in...
.