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William Ritter (writer)
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[[File:William Ritter.jpg|thumb|right|200px|William Ritter]]
'''William Ritter''' (31 May 1867 – 19 March 1955) was a [[Swiss people|Swiss]] novelist, critic and painter.
==Life==
Ritter was born in [[Neuchâtel]], [[Switzerland]] on 31 May 1867,<ref name=DHS></ref> the son of Guillaume (also known as Wilhelm) Ritter (1835–1912), an architect and hydraulic engineer.<ref></ref> From 1881, Ritter studied at the Collège latin de Neuchâtel, and in 1885 he enrolled in the [[University of Neuchâtel|Academy of Neuchâtel]].<ref name=DHS/>
As a young man Ritter was a devotee of [[Richard Wagner]], and made contact with French [[Decadent movement|Decadent]] circles in Paris in his early twenties.<ref name=DHS/> After he graduated from the Academy he travelled extensively in Europe, at first in the west – Paris, Vienna, Munich – and subsequently in the east (Czechoslovakia, Poland, Montenegro, Romania and Slovakia). It was from these trips that he gathered a great deal of material for his novels.<ref name=DHS/> In 1903 he visited Prague, and lived in the Czech capital with his Slovak friend and secretary Janko Cadra for a year between 1904 and 1905.<ref name="Inti">Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (given 1, expected 2)</ref>
Ritter, who never married, died on 19 March 1955 in [[Melide, Switzerland|Melide]].<ref name=DHS/>
==Writings==
===Music criticism===
Ritter was the correspondent for the Parisian literary review ''[[Mercure de France]]'' in Prague from 1904 to 1905, writing on musical matters, and 1907 he wrote the first French-language book on [[Bedřich Smetana]].<ref name="Inti"/>
Ritter is well known today for his writings on and support for [[Gustav Mahler]]. Ritter was initially an opponent of Mahler, opposing his works, like many of Mahler's critics in Vienna, on racial and antisemitic grounds.<ref name="Foundation"></ref> Of Mahler's [[Symphony No. 4 (Mahler)|Symphony No. 4]] he wrote that it was so "moist and persuasive, tantalizing and seductive" that it provoked "lewd glances in the concert halls, the salacious dribble at the corners of the mouths of some of the old men, and above all the ugly, whoring laughs of certain respectable women!".<ref>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (given 1, expected 2)</ref> Ritter converted to the Mahler cause after seeing the composer conduct his own [[Symphony No. 3 (Mahler)|Symphony No. 3]] in Prague on 2 February 1904<ref></ref> and in time he became one of the composer's staunchest advocates, writing glowing reviews of the premieres of Mahler's [[Symphony No. 7 (Mahler)|Symphony No. 7]] (in Prague, 1908)<ref>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (given 1, expected 2)</ref> and [[Symphony No. 8 (Mahler)|Symphony No. 8]] (in Munich, 1910). Ritter viewed Mahler's music as symbolic of modern Vienna, in the same way as the architecture of [[Adolf Wagner]] and the painting of [[Gustav Klimt]] and [[Koloman Moser]].<ref>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (given 1, expected 2)</ref>
As a keen Slavophile, Ritter also did much in the promotion of the music of [[Leoš Janáček]].<ref name=Tyr>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (given 1, expected 2)</ref> Ritter had first had dealings with Janáček in 1912, agreeing to be a judge in a Club of the Friends of Art competition, but they did not meet until 1923.<ref name=Tyr/> They started corresponding in 1924, and in total 18 letters survive, including the last letter that Janáček wrote.<ref name="Inti"/> Ritter attended the rehearsal and premiere of Janáček's ''[[Glagolitic Mass]]'' in Brno in November–December 1927, and told the composer that it was best thing that he had ever written.<ref name=Wing>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (given 1, expected 2)</ref> Janácek replied to a letter from Ritter about the premiere with the words: "The way you write about my work makes me red-faced."<ref name=Wing/> The title of Janácek's incomplete Concerto for Solo Violin and Orchestra, ''Putovani dusicky'' (The pilgrimage of a little soul), bears a possible relation to Ritter's play ''L'ame et la chair'' (''Soul and Body''), the libretto of which Ritter offered to Janácek in 1924.<ref>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (given 1, expected 2)</ref> Ritter planned to write a book on Janáček, possibly the reason for the frequent meetings that the two had in July 1928, but none was ever written.<ref name="Inti"/>
===Theory of culture===
The debate about Swiss identity in Switzerland at the turn of the 19th–20th century concerned what constituted Swiss identity: geographical location or race – French, German or Italian. Ritter considered Swiss who spoke French had a Latin identity.<ref name="Pass">Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (given 1, expected 2)</ref>
Ritter's theory of culture had a profound influence on the thinking of the Swiss-French architect [[Le Corbusier]], who was a friend of Ritter in [[Munich]], where they both lived, Ritter being something of a "mentor"<ref name="Pass"/> to Le Corbusier from 1910
to 1916, assuming the fatherly role that had previously been filled by the Swiss painter [[Charles l'Eplattenier]].<ref>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (given 1, expected 2)</ref> Ritter's notion that identity was a product of rootedness in a particular location (provoking his ancillary dislike of rootless Americans, city-dwelling Germans and Jews), together with his lifelong affection for Slavs, made a deep impression on [[Le Corbusier]], and was a decisive influence on his journey through the Balkans during his trip to the east in 1911, during which he studied Balkan vernacular architecture.<ref name="Pass"/>
==Works==
* ''Aegyptiacque'', 1891
* ''Les dernières œuvres de Johann Strauss'', 1892
* ''Âmes blanches'', 1893
* ''La Jeunesse inaltérable et la vie éternelle'', 1895
* ''Fillette slovaque. Le cycle de la nationaliti'', Paris: Mercure de France, 1903)
* ''Leurs lys et leurs roses'', 1903
* ''La Passante des quatre saisons'', 1904
* ''Études d'art étranger : Josef Mehoffer, Rimskij Korsakof, Gustave Mahler'', 1906
* ''L'Entêtement slovaque'', 1910
* ''Un maître de la symphonie. M. Gustav Mahler'', 1911
* ''À propos du "Pierrot lunaire" d'Arnold Schönberg'', 1912
* ''La Moisson de Max Švabinský, histoire et esthétique d'un tableau'', 1929
===Articles===
* "Magyars, Roumains et Juifs," ''Demain'' (Lyon) Vol. 1, No. 19 (2 March, 1906), pp. 10–13.
==Works on Ritter==
*Tscherv, Josef, ''William Ritter, enfance et jeunesse'', 1867–1889, Melida, 1958
*Tscherv, Josef, ''William Ritter 1867–1955'', Bellinzona, 1971
*Rydlo, Jean-Marc, "Helvetus Peregrinus: William Ritter et la Slovaquie", ''Hispo'' (Bern), October 1989, pp. 7–20
==References==
[[Category:1857 births]]
[[Category:1955 deaths]]
[[Category:19th-century Swiss writers]]
[[Category:20th-century Swiss writers]]
[[Category:People from Neuchâtel]]
'''William Ritter''' (31 May 1867 – 19 March 1955) was a [[Swiss people|Swiss]] novelist, critic and painter.
==Life==
Ritter was born in [[Neuchâtel]], [[Switzerland]] on 31 May 1867,<ref name=DHS></ref> the son of Guillaume (also known as Wilhelm) Ritter (1835–1912), an architect and hydraulic engineer.<ref></ref> From 1881, Ritter studied at the Collège latin de Neuchâtel, and in 1885 he enrolled in the [[University of Neuchâtel|Academy of Neuchâtel]].<ref name=DHS/>
As a young man Ritter was a devotee of [[Richard Wagner]], and made contact with French [[Decadent movement|Decadent]] circles in Paris in his early twenties.<ref name=DHS/> After he graduated from the Academy he travelled extensively in Europe, at first in the west – Paris, Vienna, Munich – and subsequently in the east (Czechoslovakia, Poland, Montenegro, Romania and Slovakia). It was from these trips that he gathered a great deal of material for his novels.<ref name=DHS/> In 1903 he visited Prague, and lived in the Czech capital with his Slovak friend and secretary Janko Cadra for a year between 1904 and 1905.<ref name="Inti">Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (given 1, expected 2)</ref>
Ritter, who never married, died on 19 March 1955 in [[Melide, Switzerland|Melide]].<ref name=DHS/>
==Writings==
===Music criticism===
Ritter was the correspondent for the Parisian literary review ''[[Mercure de France]]'' in Prague from 1904 to 1905, writing on musical matters, and 1907 he wrote the first French-language book on [[Bedřich Smetana]].<ref name="Inti"/>
Ritter is well known today for his writings on and support for [[Gustav Mahler]]. Ritter was initially an opponent of Mahler, opposing his works, like many of Mahler's critics in Vienna, on racial and antisemitic grounds.<ref name="Foundation"></ref> Of Mahler's [[Symphony No. 4 (Mahler)|Symphony No. 4]] he wrote that it was so "moist and persuasive, tantalizing and seductive" that it provoked "lewd glances in the concert halls, the salacious dribble at the corners of the mouths of some of the old men, and above all the ugly, whoring laughs of certain respectable women!".<ref>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (given 1, expected 2)</ref> Ritter converted to the Mahler cause after seeing the composer conduct his own [[Symphony No. 3 (Mahler)|Symphony No. 3]] in Prague on 2 February 1904<ref></ref> and in time he became one of the composer's staunchest advocates, writing glowing reviews of the premieres of Mahler's [[Symphony No. 7 (Mahler)|Symphony No. 7]] (in Prague, 1908)<ref>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (given 1, expected 2)</ref> and [[Symphony No. 8 (Mahler)|Symphony No. 8]] (in Munich, 1910). Ritter viewed Mahler's music as symbolic of modern Vienna, in the same way as the architecture of [[Adolf Wagner]] and the painting of [[Gustav Klimt]] and [[Koloman Moser]].<ref>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (given 1, expected 2)</ref>
As a keen Slavophile, Ritter also did much in the promotion of the music of [[Leoš Janáček]].<ref name=Tyr>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (given 1, expected 2)</ref> Ritter had first had dealings with Janáček in 1912, agreeing to be a judge in a Club of the Friends of Art competition, but they did not meet until 1923.<ref name=Tyr/> They started corresponding in 1924, and in total 18 letters survive, including the last letter that Janáček wrote.<ref name="Inti"/> Ritter attended the rehearsal and premiere of Janáček's ''[[Glagolitic Mass]]'' in Brno in November–December 1927, and told the composer that it was best thing that he had ever written.<ref name=Wing>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (given 1, expected 2)</ref> Janácek replied to a letter from Ritter about the premiere with the words: "The way you write about my work makes me red-faced."<ref name=Wing/> The title of Janácek's incomplete Concerto for Solo Violin and Orchestra, ''Putovani dusicky'' (The pilgrimage of a little soul), bears a possible relation to Ritter's play ''L'ame et la chair'' (''Soul and Body''), the libretto of which Ritter offered to Janácek in 1924.<ref>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (given 1, expected 2)</ref> Ritter planned to write a book on Janáček, possibly the reason for the frequent meetings that the two had in July 1928, but none was ever written.<ref name="Inti"/>
===Theory of culture===
The debate about Swiss identity in Switzerland at the turn of the 19th–20th century concerned what constituted Swiss identity: geographical location or race – French, German or Italian. Ritter considered Swiss who spoke French had a Latin identity.<ref name="Pass">Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (given 1, expected 2)</ref>
Ritter's theory of culture had a profound influence on the thinking of the Swiss-French architect [[Le Corbusier]], who was a friend of Ritter in [[Munich]], where they both lived, Ritter being something of a "mentor"<ref name="Pass"/> to Le Corbusier from 1910
to 1916, assuming the fatherly role that had previously been filled by the Swiss painter [[Charles l'Eplattenier]].<ref>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (given 1, expected 2)</ref> Ritter's notion that identity was a product of rootedness in a particular location (provoking his ancillary dislike of rootless Americans, city-dwelling Germans and Jews), together with his lifelong affection for Slavs, made a deep impression on [[Le Corbusier]], and was a decisive influence on his journey through the Balkans during his trip to the east in 1911, during which he studied Balkan vernacular architecture.<ref name="Pass"/>
==Works==
* ''Aegyptiacque'', 1891
* ''Les dernières œuvres de Johann Strauss'', 1892
* ''Âmes blanches'', 1893
* ''La Jeunesse inaltérable et la vie éternelle'', 1895
* ''Fillette slovaque. Le cycle de la nationaliti'', Paris: Mercure de France, 1903)
* ''Leurs lys et leurs roses'', 1903
* ''La Passante des quatre saisons'', 1904
* ''Études d'art étranger : Josef Mehoffer, Rimskij Korsakof, Gustave Mahler'', 1906
* ''L'Entêtement slovaque'', 1910
* ''Un maître de la symphonie. M. Gustav Mahler'', 1911
* ''À propos du "Pierrot lunaire" d'Arnold Schönberg'', 1912
* ''La Moisson de Max Švabinský, histoire et esthétique d'un tableau'', 1929
===Articles===
* "Magyars, Roumains et Juifs," ''Demain'' (Lyon) Vol. 1, No. 19 (2 March, 1906), pp. 10–13.
==Works on Ritter==
*Tscherv, Josef, ''William Ritter, enfance et jeunesse'', 1867–1889, Melida, 1958
*Tscherv, Josef, ''William Ritter 1867–1955'', Bellinzona, 1971
*Rydlo, Jean-Marc, "Helvetus Peregrinus: William Ritter et la Slovaquie", ''Hispo'' (Bern), October 1989, pp. 7–20
==References==
[[Category:1857 births]]
[[Category:1955 deaths]]
[[Category:19th-century Swiss writers]]
[[Category:20th-century Swiss writers]]
[[Category:People from Neuchâtel]]
December 13, 2019 at 08:34PM
