Eduard Rietz

Eduard Theodor Ludwig Ritz (17 October 1802, Berlin – 23 January 1832) was a gifted German violinist. He was the elder son of the violist Johann Friedrich Ritz, a player in the Royal Orchestra, and the elder brother of the composer Julius Ritz.

Ritz began his musical studies with his father and later took lessons from Pierre Rode. He also studied theory and composition under Carl Friedrich Zelter, including work at the Berlin Sing-Akademie, which he joined as a tenor in 1821 and where he often sang tenor parts.

He made his debut as a soloist in 1818. From 1819 to 1825 he played in the Berlin Court Orchestra and eventually became concertmaster, but later resigned following a conflict with the Kapellmeister Gaspare Spontini. His worsening health curtailed his public performances from 1824 onward.

In 1819 Ritz became the first violin teacher of the ten-year-old Felix Mendelssohn. Teacher and pupil formed a close friendship that lasted until Ritz's death and was partly continued through his younger brother. Mendelssohn, who greatly esteemed Ritz as a musician, dedicated his early Violin Concerto in D minor (1822) to him; Ritz is presumed to have given its first performance, although no reliable documentation survives. Mendelssohn also wrote for and dedicated to Ritz an octet and one of his violin sonatas, among other chamber works.

In 1826 Ritz founded the instrumental ensemble of the Philharmonic Society associated with Zelter's Berlin Sing-Akademie, serving as its conductor and leader until the end of his life. He was concertmaster in the orchestra that performed J. S. Bach's St Matthew Passion on 11 March 1829 in a concert initiated by Mendelssohn, an event often regarded as the beginning of the revival of Bach's music. Ritz died in Berlin of consumption in 1832.