Daniel Waitzman

After pondering the current state of contemporary music, and the history of music since the Enlightenment, Waitzman turned his attention to the composition of new music in 1992, in the belief that a revival of what he considered the aesthetic ideals and highly affective approach of the old masters was long overdue. He claimed that the current state of contemporary music reflected “a deep-seated pathology that has afflicted Western music for well over a century—a bellwether as well as a cause of the decline of the West.” He asserted that if older styles could still move modern musicians and audiences, then they must, by definition, be acceptable for use as a basis for newly composed music:

In 1978, Waitzman published The Art of Playing the Recorder, a codification of the technique of both bell-keyed and keyless recorders. He had tried to convince recorder makers to offer a series of bell-keyed recorders expressly designed to take advantage of the bell key, and had suggested that they undertake the development of a modernized recorder; and their failure to do so caused him to turn more and more to the Boehm flute, in both their conically-and cylindrically-bored forms, as his primary instrument. In 1980, he was awarded an International Bach Society Performance Award. In 1987, he received a National Endowment for the Arts Solo Recitalist Fellowship Grant to give a recital in New York’s Alice Tully Hall.

By 1976 Waitzman became convinced that it was possible to play the modern flute in a manner consistent with the aesthetic requirements of the older repertoire, using a type of embouchure very close to that of Boehm, the original inventor of the modern flute. He established himself as a performer on modern flute, and gave numerous recitals illustrating the history of the flute.

Waitzman has toured the United States and Canada as soloist and chamber musician. In 1976, he performed several of Vivaldi’s Piccolo Recorder concerti with Amor Artis at Alice Tully Hall. The New York Times reviewer Raymond Ericson called his performance of the A Minor Concerto “nothing short of miraculous.” He has served as soloist and chamber musician on flutes and recorders with The Long Island Baroque Ensemble since 1974, and performed several concerts with the Bach Aria Group, including a Telemann Concerto for Recorder and Flute (with his teacher, flutist Samuel Baron).

In 1973-74, Waitzman persuaded the brothers Bickford and Robert Brannen to revive the manufacture of conical Boehm flutes. This project led to the establishment of the flute-making firm of Brannen Brothers.

In 1971, Waitzman acquired an antique conical Boehm flute built ca. 1875 by Louis Lot. That same year, he made his formal début in Carnegie Recital Hall as a winner of the Concert Artists Guild Award, at which he performed on recorder, Baroque flute, and conical Boehm flute. Waitzman has taught flute and recorder at Queens College, CUNY, and at Hofstra University.

In 1965, Waitzman had a bell key (originally invented by Carl Dolmetsch) fitted to his recorder; and he began to develop a new technique for playing the bell-keyed recorder. He arranged three of J.S. Bach’s Organ Trio Sonatas for bell-keyed recorder and harpsichord, and also arranged J.S. Bach’s E Major Violin Concerto for bell-keyed recorder and strings. It was around this time that he became dissatisfied with the early music movement’s philosophical approach to the performance of the older repertoire, and also with the limitations of the one-keyed “Baroque” flute. Later, he published several critiques of the modern early music movement, including a book entitled Up from Authenticity, or How I Learned to Love the Metal Flute—A Personal Memoir. The original essay on which this book was based served as the subject for a feature article in The New York Times in 1990. In an article published in The American Recorder in 1980, Waitzman had called for a more flexible approach to the performance of early music:

Born in Rochester, New York, Waitzman grew up in New York City, where he graduated from the High School of Music and Art in 1961. At Columbia College (B.A. 1965), he majored in Music. He received his M.A. in Musicology from Columbia University in 1968. Waitzman studied recorder with Bernard Krainis, Baroque Flute with Claude Monteux and Paul Ehrlich, and modern flute with Samuel Baron, Harold Bennett, and Harry Moskovitz. He studied composition with Otto Luening, harmony and counterpoint with Charles Walton, Genevieve Chinn, and Peter Westergaard, orchestration with Howard Shanet, and musicology with Paul Henry Lang.

Waitzman’s professional career began in 1959, when he made the first of several recordings with his teacher, Bernard Krainis, at the age of 15. In 1962, he recorded a Frescobaldi Canzona with Krainis and lutenist Joseph Iodine on the Baroque one-keyed flute. This performance appeared on a recording entitled The Virtuoso Recorder.

Daniel Robert Waitzman (born July 15, 1943) is an American flutist and composer.

Eighteenth-Century Flute Music (On Historic Instruments), Musical Heritage Society, MHS 1860 (1974). (Conical Boehm Flute, Baroque Flute, Bell-keyed Recorder.)

Jean-Phillippe Rameau: Pièces de Clavecin in Concerts (1741)--The Queens Chamber Band, Lyrachord Discs, LEMS 8040 (1999).