Jaap Schröder

Jaap Schröder stood out for his exceptional range among the performers who helped shape the historical-performance revival. He appeared both as soloist and ensemble player across repertoire stretching from the Baroque through the Romantic era, directed and guided numerous leading period-instrument groups, and maintained an extended teaching career on two continents.

Schröder entered the world in Amsterdam in 1925. He pursued violin training in that city and in Paris while also enrolling in musicology classes at the Sorbonne. During the 1950s and 1960s he belonged to the Netherlands String Quartet, served as concertmaster of the Hilversum Radio Chamber Orchestra, and in 1960 established his own ensemble, Concerto Amsterdam.

As historically informed practice broadened in the 1970s to encompass Classical and Romantic works, Schröder helped pioneer that expansion by forming the Quartetto Esterházy in 1973. He again devoted himself to both orchestral and chamber scores. Between 1980 and 1984 he held the concertmaster post with London’s Academy of Ancient Music and shared leadership of its pioneering period-instrument cycle of Mozart’s complete symphonies. He also directed several European Baroque orchestras and the Smithsonian Chamber Orchestra in Washington.

In the United States he continued to perform as soloist and chamber musician while teaching for many years at the Yale University School of Music and accepting visiting posts at other leading conservatories. In 1982 he created the Smithsonian String Quartet in Washington. His recorded catalog featured such staples as Bach’s unaccompanied violin sonatas and Vivaldi’s Four Seasons as well as lesser-known virtuoso pieces by Biber, Veracini, and Uccellini. Chamber programs included music by Mendelssohn, Gade, and both Robert and Clara Schumann, while his solo reach extended to Hindemith’s violin concerto from Kammermusik No. 4. A living repository of knowledge and performance tradition, Schröder embodied the full breadth of the historical-performance enterprise. He died in Amsterdam on January 1, 2020.