Florizel von Reuter
Encyclopedia
Florizel von Reuter was an American-born violin
ist and composer
, a child prodigy
who went on to an adult career, mainly in Germany
, as distinguished soloist and teacher
of violin. He was also a psychic
and medium
and the author
of several books on his mediumistic communications with deceased musicians, and other works.
, U.S., he was the son of Jacob and Grace Reuter. His father was a musician and minor composer. Florizel had his first violin lessons with his mother. He showed extraordinary talent at a very young age, and went to London to study in 1899. He was taught by Max Bendix
, Emile Sauret
(who had also taught his father Jacob), Caesar Thompson and Henri Marteau
. In 1901 he graduated from the Geneva Conservatory, where there was a debate as to whether he should be allowed to graduate (presumably owing to his age). Several teachers refused to graduate any other pupils unless he was approved, and so the matter was settled.
His first professional concert was at La Chaux-de-Fonds
in Switzerland
in 1900. After giving 30 concerts in that country he began to tour in America
, where he was introduced as a protege of Joseph Joachim
's. However, much of his early career was spent performing and teaching in Europe.
. Florizel became closely involved with this and acted as a medium and as recorder of the findings, which were first described in The Psychic Experiences of a Musician (in Search of Truth) (1928) — with a foreword by writer Arthur Conan Doyle
— and in its sequel The Consoling Angel (1930). These in particular described conversations with famous deceased musicians. His first important claimed contacts were Paganini and Pablo de Sarasate
, and also the late Professor Heinrich Barth
of Berlin. Messages were delivered through a type of planchette
called an "Additor", used originally by his mother, and many of them were spelled out backwards.
He contributed an essay on "Nature Spirits" to the 1928 revised edition of Arthur Conan Doyle
's The Coming of the Fairies, p. 156–157, and was associated with Baron von Schrenck-Notzing
in a series of experiments with the Schneider brothers.
Other messages followed claiming to be from Tartini, Locatelli
, K. Lipinski, Pierre Baillot
, Charles de Beriot
, Henri Vieuxtemps
, Joseph Joachim
(who was also supposed to have sent etheric messages to his relatives Jelly d'Aranyi
and Adila Fachiri
), Hérold
, Lalo, Max Reger
, Rimsky-Korsakov and Eduard Grieg. While rehearsing particularly difficult Paganini études Florizel found he was compelled to adopt entirely new fingerings as if guided by an external intelligence. His philosophical exchanges with the spirits are described in his book A Musician's Talks with Unseen Friends (London, Rider 1931).
. He made various solo recordings for Polydor Records
, and also chamber ensemble works (in 1935–1936) with Elly Ney
, Max Strub (violin), Walter Trampler
(viola), Ludwig Hoelscher (cello), (the second manifestation of the Strub String Quartet) and under the direction of Willem van Hoogstraten
, husband of Elly Ney. (Ney, Hoelscher and Strub had formed the Elly Ney Trio in 1932.) It was in this period, at Munich, that he taught the young Walter Barylli
, whom (aged 15) he invited into his own home as a resident guest so that he could afford to receive violin instruction. Von Reuter also composed more than 50 original works of music, including scores, tone poems, and four operas.
and until the late 1940s, when he returned to the U.S. He settled in Waukesha, Wisconsin
and became Concertmaster of the Waukesha Symphony Orchestra, still teaching into the early 1980s. During the 1970s and 1980s he gave many "farewell performances."
He also continued writing books into later life, notably Great People I have Met (Freeman Printing, 1961); The Twilight of the Gods (Hitler's Berlin; a novel, by one who was there (Cultural Press, 1962); Maiden Worlds Unconquered, eleven fiction tales of love through the ages (Cultural Press, 1967) and a work on the Life of Jesus Christ, The Master from Afar: A Flight into the Past as it Might have Been (London, Psychic Press 1973).
Von Reuter died in his sleep on May 10, 1985.
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
ist and composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
, a child prodigy
Child prodigy
A child prodigy is someone who, at an early age, masters one or more skills far beyond his or her level of maturity. One criterion for classifying prodigies is: a prodigy is a child, typically younger than 18 years old, who is performing at the level of a highly trained adult in a very demanding...
who went on to an adult career, mainly in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, as distinguished soloist and teacher
Teacher
A teacher or schoolteacher is a person who provides education for pupils and students . The role of teacher is often formal and ongoing, carried out at a school or other place of formal education. In many countries, a person who wishes to become a teacher must first obtain specified professional...
of violin. He was also a psychic
Psychic
A psychic is a person who professes an ability to perceive information hidden from the normal senses through extrasensory perception , or is said by others to have such abilities. It is also used to describe theatrical performers who use techniques such as prestidigitation, cold reading, and hot...
and medium
Mediumship
Mediumship is described as a form of communication with spirits. It is a practice in religious beliefs such as Spiritualism, Spiritism, Espiritismo, Candomblé, Voodoo and Umbanda.- Concept :...
and the author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
of several books on his mediumistic communications with deceased musicians, and other works.
Early life
Born Florizel Reuter at Davenport, IowaDavenport, Iowa
Davenport is a city located along the Mississippi River in Scott County, Iowa, United States. Davenport is the county seat of and largest city in Scott County. Davenport was founded on May 14, 1836 by Antoine LeClaire and was named for his friend, George Davenport, a colonel during the Black Hawk...
, U.S., he was the son of Jacob and Grace Reuter. His father was a musician and minor composer. Florizel had his first violin lessons with his mother. He showed extraordinary talent at a very young age, and went to London to study in 1899. He was taught by Max Bendix
Max Bendix
Max Bendix was an American composer, conductor, and violinist; he worked for many years with Theodore Thomas, and served for a time as concertmaster of the Metropolitan Opera orchestra. He wrote a number of works for orchestra and some incidental music as well as songs...
, Emile Sauret
Émile Sauret
Émile Sauret was a French violinist and composer.-Biography:He began studying violin at the Conservatory at Strasburg at the age of six and began concertizing two years later. He studied under Charles de Bériot and later became the student of Henri Vieuxtemps.Sauret made his American debut in 1872...
(who had also taught his father Jacob), Caesar Thompson and Henri Marteau
Henri Marteau
Henri Marteau was a French violinist and composer.-Life and career:He was born in Reims, France. He was of German-French mixture. His father was a well known amateur violinist of that city, and took a great interest in musical affairs. His mother was an excellent pianist, who had studied under...
. In 1901 he graduated from the Geneva Conservatory, where there was a debate as to whether he should be allowed to graduate (presumably owing to his age). Several teachers refused to graduate any other pupils unless he was approved, and so the matter was settled.
His first professional concert was at La Chaux-de-Fonds
La Chaux-de-Fonds
La Chaux-de-Fonds is a Swiss city of the district of La Chaux-de-Fonds in the canton of Neuchâtel. It is located in the Jura mountains at an altitude of 1000 m, a few kilometres from the French border. After Geneva and Lausanne, it is the third largest city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of...
in Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
in 1900. After giving 30 concerts in that country he began to tour in America
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, where he was introduced as a protege of Joseph Joachim
Joseph Joachim
Joseph Joachim was a Hungarian violinist, conductor, composer and teacher. A close collaborator of Johannes Brahms, he is widely regarded as one of the most significant violinists of the 19th century.-Origins:...
's. However, much of his early career was spent performing and teaching in Europe.
Young adulthood
The name "von Reuter" was adopted in connection with his European career, as a significator of German aristocracy. In c 1916–1917 he became Director of the Zurich Music Academy. He retained his U.S. citizenship despite spending much of the following two decades in Europe. He published a useful introduction to the study and analysis of solo violin music, Führer durch die solo-Violinmusik, eine Skizze ihrer Entstehung und Entwicklung mit kritischer Betrachtung ihrer Hauptwerke (M. Hesse, 1926).Psychic messages
During the 1920s his mother, Grace Reuter, developed apparent psychic powers by receiving supposed spirit messages through automatic writingAutomatic writing
Automatic writing or psychography is writing which the writer states to be produced from a subconscious and/or spiritual source without conscious awareness of the content.-History:...
. Florizel became closely involved with this and acted as a medium and as recorder of the findings, which were first described in The Psychic Experiences of a Musician (in Search of Truth) (1928) — with a foreword by writer Arthur Conan Doyle
Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle DL was a Scottish physician and writer, most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, generally considered a milestone in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger...
— and in its sequel The Consoling Angel (1930). These in particular described conversations with famous deceased musicians. His first important claimed contacts were Paganini and Pablo de Sarasate
Pablo de Sarasate
Pablo Martín Melitón de Sarasate y Navascués was a Navarrese Spanish violinist and composer of the Romantic period.-Career:Pablo Sarasate was born in Pamplona, Navarre, the son of an artillery bandmaster...
, and also the late Professor Heinrich Barth
Heinrich Barth
Heinrich Barth was a German explorer of Africa and scholar.Barth is one of the greatest of the European explorers of Africa, not necessarily because of the length of his travels or the time he spent alone without European company in Africa, but because of his singular character.-Biography:Barth...
of Berlin. Messages were delivered through a type of planchette
Planchette
A planchette , from the French for "little plank", is a small, usually heart-shaped flat piece of wood that one moves around on a board to spell out messages or answer questions. Paranormal advocates believe that the planchette is moved by some extra-normal force. The motion is due to the...
called an "Additor", used originally by his mother, and many of them were spelled out backwards.
He contributed an essay on "Nature Spirits" to the 1928 revised edition of Arthur Conan Doyle
Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle DL was a Scottish physician and writer, most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, generally considered a milestone in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger...
's The Coming of the Fairies, p. 156–157, and was associated with Baron von Schrenck-Notzing
Albert von Schrenck-Notzing
Albert Freiherr von Schrenck-Notzing was a German physician, psychiatrist and notable psychic researcher, who devoted his time to the study of paranormal events connected with mediumship, hypnotism and telepathy...
in a series of experiments with the Schneider brothers.
Other messages followed claiming to be from Tartini, Locatelli
Locatelli
Locatelli may refer to:* Locatelli is the trademark of a popular brand of Pecorino Romano cheese * Gabriele Moreno Locatelli, an Italian pacifist...
, K. Lipinski, Pierre Baillot
Pierre Baillot
Pierre Marie François de Sales Baillot was a French violinist and composer.Baillot was born in Passy and studied the violin under Giovanni Battista Viotti...
, Charles de Beriot
Charles de Bériot
Charles Auguste de Bériot was a Belgian violinist and composer.-Biography:Born in Leuven, where there is now a street named in his honour, he moved to France in 1810, where he studied violin with Jean-François Tiby, a pupil of Giovanni Battista Viotti...
, Henri Vieuxtemps
Henri Vieuxtemps
Henri François Joseph Vieuxtemps was a Belgian composer and violinist. He occupies an important place in the history of the violin as a prominent exponent of the Franco-Belgian violin school during the mid-19th century....
, Joseph Joachim
Joseph Joachim
Joseph Joachim was a Hungarian violinist, conductor, composer and teacher. A close collaborator of Johannes Brahms, he is widely regarded as one of the most significant violinists of the 19th century.-Origins:...
(who was also supposed to have sent etheric messages to his relatives Jelly d'Aranyi
Jelly d'Arányi
Jelly d'Aranyi, fully Jelly Aranyi de Hunyadvár was a Hungarian violinist who made her home in London.She born in Budapest, the grand-niece of Joseph Joachim, and sister of the violinist Adila Fachiri. She began her studies as a pianist, but switched to violin at the Music Academy in Budapest...
and Adila Fachiri
Adila Fachiri
Adila Fachiri was a Hungarian violinist who had an international career but made her home in England. She was the sister of the violinist Jelly d'Arányi....
), Hérold
Herold
Herold is a brand of beer made in Herold Březnice Castle Brewery, a small brewery in Březnice, a small town 60 kilometers south of Prague, Czech Republic.Beer was first noted to have been commercially brewed here in 1506...
, Lalo, Max Reger
Max Reger
Johann Baptist Joseph Maximilian Reger was a German composer, conductor, pianist, organist, and academic teacher.-Life:...
, Rimsky-Korsakov and Eduard Grieg. While rehearsing particularly difficult Paganini études Florizel found he was compelled to adopt entirely new fingerings as if guided by an external intelligence. His philosophical exchanges with the spirits are described in his book A Musician's Talks with Unseen Friends (London, Rider 1931).
Performance, teaching and recordings
From 1931 to 1933 he was professor of violin at the Vienna Music Academy. Through the 1930s he maintained a teaching and performance career, mainly in Germany and principally at MunichMunich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
. He made various solo recordings for Polydor Records
Polydor Records
Polydor is a record label owned by Universal Music Group, headquartered in the United Kingdom.-Beginnings:Polydor was originally an independent branch of the Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft. Its name was first used as an export label in 1924, the British and German branches of the Gramophone...
, and also chamber ensemble works (in 1935–1936) with Elly Ney
Elly Ney
Elly Ney was a German romantic pianist who specialized in Beethoven, and was especially popular in Germany....
, Max Strub (violin), Walter Trampler
Walter Trampler
Walter Trampler was a German musician and teacher of the viola and viola d'amore.Born at Munich, he began to study music at the age of 6, learning from his father, a violinist. In his youth, he toured Europe performing as the violist of the Strub String Quartet...
(viola), Ludwig Hoelscher (cello), (the second manifestation of the Strub String Quartet) and under the direction of Willem van Hoogstraten
Willem van Hoogstraten
Willem van Hoogstraten was a Dutch violinist and conductor.Van Hoogstraten was born in Utrecht, Netherlands, and studied the violin from age eight including studies with Alexander Schmuller, and enrolled at the conservatory in Cologne, Germany at age sixteen where he studied with Bram Eldering...
, husband of Elly Ney. (Ney, Hoelscher and Strub had formed the Elly Ney Trio in 1932.) It was in this period, at Munich, that he taught the young Walter Barylli
Walter Barylli
Walter Barylli is an Austrian violinist who had a distinguished career based in his native Vienna, as Konzertmeister of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, founder and leader of the Barylli string quartet, and Professor of violin at the Vienna City Academy....
, whom (aged 15) he invited into his own home as a resident guest so that he could afford to receive violin instruction. Von Reuter also composed more than 50 original works of music, including scores, tone poems, and four operas.
Later career
Von Reuter remained in Germany during the WarWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and until the late 1940s, when he returned to the U.S. He settled in Waukesha, Wisconsin
Wisconsin
Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...
and became Concertmaster of the Waukesha Symphony Orchestra, still teaching into the early 1980s. During the 1970s and 1980s he gave many "farewell performances."
He also continued writing books into later life, notably Great People I have Met (Freeman Printing, 1961); The Twilight of the Gods (Hitler's Berlin; a novel, by one who was there (Cultural Press, 1962); Maiden Worlds Unconquered, eleven fiction tales of love through the ages (Cultural Press, 1967) and a work on the Life of Jesus Christ, The Master from Afar: A Flight into the Past as it Might have Been (London, Psychic Press 1973).
Von Reuter died in his sleep on May 10, 1985.
Selected compositions
- Chanson triste for Violin and Piano (1909)
- Danses roumaines for Violin and Orchestra, Op.2 No.1 (1909)
- Old American Negro Songs for Violin and Piano (1931)
- Suite after Caprices of Pietro Locatelli for Violin Solo (1925)
- Variations on a Funeral March (Original Theme) for Violin Solo (1925)