Highly honored sir, you call Joachim only the leading German violinist? I find him to be the leading performing musician altogether — an ideal of perfection. With his incomparable mastery he has terrified me and laid me low — but the feeling of artistic elevation that I owe to him won out in the end.
Hans von Bülow to Franz Wüllner, 1 December, 1866
(Berlin SBPK: Mus. ep. Hans von Bülow 1537)
This website is dedicated to the life and art of Joseph Joachim. The information on the site derives from my ongoing research and writing, which I am publishing here in the spirit of modern, open-source scholarship. For copyright reasons having to do with source material, some of it remains password protected, and not available to the public. Information on this site is grouped in categories. The detailed Biographical Posts begin here (“Kittsee, 1831”), and continue as a series of linked articles. There are some gaps in the links — this is, as I say, an ongoing project. A Brief Biography begins below (“Joseph Joachim”).
In general, if you wish to use anything you see on this site, especially copyright material, please acknowledge the source. Those few with whom I have shared protected information are requested to keep their password secret, and not to make public any information that is not already in the public domain.
The WordPress blog format does not allow me to organize posts as I wish: it organizes posts by date, which is to say, randomly. I am, however, linking the Biographical Posts in sequence, and organizing all of the material in the INDEX. Content is also searchable using the “search” function.
I wish to acknowledge the invaluable and generous support of the University of New Hampshire, without which this work would not have been possible.
Robert W. Eshbach Associate Professor of Music Emeritus
University of New Hampshire
reshbach (at) unh.edu
Sold at Sotheby’s on December 13, 2022:
Joachim. Collection of printed and manuscript music belonging to Joachim and his family.
Collection of printed and manuscript music belonging to Joachim and his family, WITH A MANUSCRIPT FULL SCORE OF JOACHIM’S OVERTURE DEMETRIUS,REVISED BY JOACHIM
the printed scores including by Bach (including a Breitkopf edition of six violin sonatas with piano accompaniments by Schumann, INSCRIBED BY SCHUMANN TO JOACHIM), Beethoven (Peters editions of the quartets op.18, arranged for piano four hands, inscribed “Joh. Joachim Pforta, d. 12 Sept. 1883”, and the violin concerto op.61), Gluck (a Peters edition of Iphigénie en Aulide, belonging to Marie Joachim), Mozart (a Peters vocal score of La clemenza di Tito inscribed by Marie Joachim), Tartini, Leclair, Spohr, Schubert, Mendelssohn (including a Peters edition of overtures arranged for piano four hands belonging to Johannes Joachim), Joachim (op.2 no.1, Romance), Schumann (first editions of Bunte Blätter, op.99, and Albumblätter, op.124), Ernst Rudorff (Variations op.24, inscribed by the composer), Brahms (including Ungarische Tänze, arranged for violin and piano, vols.1-3, vol. 3 without the violin part), and Heinrich von Herzogenberg (full score of Symphony no.2, inscribed by the composer “Seinem lieben Freunden Joseph Joachim Weihnacht 1890 HH”)
the manuscript comprising a scribal full score of Joachim’s orchestral overture Demetrius, op.6, notated in brown ink on one 16-stave system per page, dated by the scribe at the end (“Berlin, den 28sten August 1854″), WITH EXTENSIVE PENCIL ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS IN JOACHIM’S HAND, the title-page annotated by Joachim (“Umarbeitung einer frühern Ouverture”), 79 pages, oblong 4to (25.5 x 33.5cm), contemporary cloth, no place, [1854 and later]
33 volumes in all, various sizes, bound in with the volume containing Beethoven’s op.61 some manuscript items, including a sonata by Tartini, possibly marked up by Joachim, mostly cloth, nineteenth century, the inscription by Schumann on one edition cropped
A remarkable collection of volumes from the library of arguably the greatest violinist of the nineteenth century. Of particular interest is the score of Joachim’s Demetrius overture, composed 1853-1854 and later revised – a fine example of what the composer himself termed ‘psychological music’.
I would be delighted to hear from the buyer of this collection. The manuscript copy of the Demetrius Overture is of great historical importance, and should not be lost to scholarship. Please contact me at: reshbach(at)unh.edu. Thank you!
Introduction: The Creative Worlds of Joseph Joachim Robert Whitehouse Eshbach
PART ONE: Identity
1. “Of the Highest Good”: Joachim’s Relationship to Mendelssohn R. Larry Todd
2. Joseph Joachim and His Jewish Dilemma Styra Avins
3. Joachim and Romani Musicians: Their Relationship and Common Features in Performance Practice Mineo Ota
PART TWO: Joachim as Performer
4. Joachim’s Violins: Spotlights on Some of Them Ruprecht Kamlah
5. (Re-)Enchanting Performance: Joachim and the Spirit of Beethoven Karen Leistra-Jones
6. “Thou That Hast Been in England Many a Year”: The British Joachim Ian Maxwell
7. Joachim at the Crystal Palace Michael Musgrave
8. “Music Was Poured by Perfect Ministrants”: Joseph Joachim at the Monday Popular Concerts, London Therese Ellsworth
9. “Das Quartett-Spiel ist doch wohl mein eigentliches Fach”: Joseph Joachim and the String
Quartet Robert Riggs
10. Professor Joachim and His Pupils Sanna Pederson
11. Performers as Authors of Music History: Joseph and Amalie Joachim Beatrix Borchard
12. At the Intersection of Performance and Composition: Joseph Joachim and Brahms’s Piano
Quartet in A Major, Op. 26, Movement III William P. Horne
PART THREE: Joachim as Composer
13. Re-considering the Young Composer-Performer Joseph Joachim, 1841-53 Katharina Uhde
14. “Franz Liszt gewidmet”: Joseph Joachim’s G-minor Violin Concerto, Op. 3 Vasiliki Papadopoulou
15. Drama and Music in Joachim’s Overture to Shakespeare’s Henry IV Valerie Woodring Goertzen
16. “So Gleams the Past, the Light of Other Days”: Joachim’s Hebräische Melodien for Viola and Piano, Op. 9 (1853) Marie Sumner Lott
17. Tovey’s View of Joachim’s “Hungarian” Violin Concerto Robert Riggs
Bibliography
Index
2) I am interested in finding birth records from the Kittsee Kehilla from the late 1820s to the early 1830s. As far as I know, birth records exist only from the mid 1830s onward — too late to include Joachim.
3) I would be very grateful to hear from the owner of Joachim’s Hamlet overture, sold at Sotheby’s on June 9, 2010.
4) I would like to find Margaret Alsager Ayrton’s unpublished diary.
5) I am always interested in seeing letters, photographs, memorabilia, etc. connected with Joachim. Please email me at the above address.
Joseph Joachim at the time of his Adelskasino debut
This priceless historical artifact was erroneously sold by Stair Galleries on September 13, 2008 as “Joseph Joachim Guernier — The Young Violinist,” “Oil on panel, 8 3/4 x 6 3/4 in. Provenance: Property from the New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.” It’s whereabouts are currently unknown.
* 28 June 1831 Kittsee (Kopčany/Köpcsény) Hungary (now Austria)
† 15 August 1907 Berlin
Violinist, Composer, Conductor, and Pedagogue. Founding director of the Königlich Akademischen Hochschule für ausübende Tonkunst (now Universität der Künste) Berlin. Joachim studied violin with Stanisław Serwaczyński and Joseph Böhm; composition with Gottfried Preyer and Moritz Hauptmann. He was a protégé of Felix Mendelssohn and Robert Schumann, and, in the early 1850s, Franz Liszt. In adulthood, he became a close friend and collaborator of Johannes Brahms and a celebrated opponent of the New German School of Wagner and Liszt. He is widely regarded as one of the most significant and influential musical personalities of the long 19th century.
LIFE
oseph Joachim was born in Kittsee (Kopčany/Köpcsény) Hungary, in what is now the Burgenland region of Austria. He was the seventh child of Fanny (Franziska) Figdor Joachim (* ca. 1791 — † 1867), the daughter of a prominent Kittsee wool wholesaler then residing in Vienna, and Julius Friedrich Joachim (* ca. 1791 — † 1865), also a wool merchant, born 20 miles to the south in the town of Frauenkirchen (Boldogasszony). [1] Joachim’s birth date, now commonly accepted as June 28, 1831, has never been authenticated. [2]
Joachim was an Austro-Hungarian Jew, whose ancestors had been banished from Vienna by Emperor Leopold I in the early 1670s and settled in the Kittsee Kehilla, one of the culturally prominent Sheva Kehillot (“Seven Jewish Communities”) that arose in the late 17th century, and stood under the protectorate of the powerful Esterházy family. [3] The Sheva Kehillot were among the wealthiest of the Hungarian Jewish communities, and their members were among the best-educated of Hungary’s Jews. Many were traders, who enjoyed considerably more privileges than the ghetto Jews of nearby Pressburg (Bratislava). As merchants, they travelled freely throughout the region, maintaining close contact with Vienna’s Jewish population, as well as with the large numbers of their co-religionists in Pressburg and Pest. In the early 1820’s Joachim’s maternal grandparents, Isaac (* 1768 — † 1850) and Anna (* 1770 — † 1833) Figdor, left Kittsee and settled in the Viennese Vorstadt of Leopoldstadt, the district along the Danube canal that was home to most of Vienna’s Jewish population. That the Figdors, as Jews, were permitted to live in Vienna at that time, before the loosening of residential restrictions in 1848, is an indication of special status, and suggests affluence. [4] Amongst the Figdors’ other grandchildren was Fanny Figdor Wittgenstein, the mother of the industrialist Karl Wittgenstein and the grandmother of the pianist Paul Wittgenstein and the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. Fanny Wittgenstein served as a surrogate mother to Joachim throughout much of his youth.
In 1833, the Joachim family settled in Pest, then the capital of Hungary’s thriving wool industry. [5] Joseph’s interest in music was stimulated by hearing his older sister, who studied voice and accompanied herself on the guitar. He became fixated on the violin when his father brought him a toy violin from a fair.
[1] The siblings were: Friedrich (*1812 — †1882, m. Regine Just *1825 — †1883), Josephine (*1816 — †1883, m. Thali Ronay), Julie (*1821 — †1901, m. Joseph Singer, *ca. 1818 — †1870), Heinrich (*1825 — †1897, m. Ellen Margaret Smart *ca. 1844 — †1925), Regina (*ca. 1827 — †1862, m. William Östereicher, *ca. 1817, and later Wilhelm Joachim, *ca. 1812 — †1858), Johanna (*1829 — †1883, m. Lajos György Arányi, *1812 — †1877 and later Johann Rechnitz, *ca. 1812), and Joseph (*1831 — †1907, m. Amalie Marie Schneeweiss *1839 — †1899). An 1898 interview with Joachim [Musical Times, April 1, 1898, p. 225] claims that Joachim was “the youngest of seven children.” In his authorized biography, however, Andreas Moser claims that Joseph was “the seventh of Julius and Fanny Joachim’s eight children.” The name and fate of the eighth and last sibling is unknown.
[2] Joachim himself was unsure of his birth date. For the first 23 years of his life, he believed he had been born in July — either the 15th or the 24th (Carl Ferdinand Becker, for example, in his Die Tonkünstler des Neunzehnten Jahrhunderts, (Leipzig, 1849, p. 82), gives Joachim’s birthdate as July 15, 1831. Joachim was living in Leipzig at the time, and was, undoubtedly, the source of this information). Joachim apparently discovered the date of June 28 after receiving a Hochzeit-Geburts-Schein from Kittsee (see letter to Clara Schumann dated 21 August, 1863 [Schumann/BRIEFEDITION II, 2.1, p. 735]. Joachim’s boyhood friend Edmund (Ödön) Singer (* 14 October 1831, Totis, Hungary — † 1912) also calls into question the year of Joachim’s birth. “All reference books gave 1831 as Joachim’s birth year, as well as the birth-year of my humble self. […] Joachim himself asked me one day: ‘How does it happen that we are always mentioned as having been born in the same year? I am at least a year older than you!’ — I, myself, finally established my glorious birth-year after many years, while Joachim tacitly allowed the wrong date to persist.” [Edmund Singer, “Aus meiner Künstlerlaufbahn,” Neue Musik-Zeitung (Stuttgart), Vol. 32, No. 1, (1911), p. 8.]
[3] Deutschkreutz, Eisenstadt, Frauenkirchen, Kittsee, Kobersdorf, Lackenbach and Mattersburg (Hungarian: Német-Keresztur, Kismarton, Boldogasszony, Köpcsény, Kábold, Lakompak and Nagy Marton, respectively). Before 1924, Mattersburg was called Mattersdorf. Principal among these closely cooperating communities was Eisenstadt (Kismarton).
[4] Joseph’s maternal grandparents were Isaac [Israel, Isak] Figdor [Avigdor, Vigdor, Victor] (*1768 — †1850), k.k. priv. Großhändler [Imperial and Royal Wholesaler], and Anna Jafé-Schlesinger Figdor (*1770 — †April 12, 1833). Isaac and Anna had ten children: Regine, Karoline, Ferdinand, Fanny, Michael, Nathan, Bernhard, Wilhelm, Eduard, and Samuel. [E. Randol Schoenberg, GENI website: http://www.geni.com/people/Isak-Figdor/6000000008300436213?through=6000000007800493942 accessed 2/14/2011.]
[5] Wool was one of Hungary’s principal articles of commerce and a major source of capital for the Hungarian economy, primarily because it was one of the few export commodities that the Austrian government did not tax. Due to improved farming methods and the introduction of Spanish merino sheep to the region, Hungarian wool was of exceptional quality and highly prized by English woolen manufacturers. Each year, nearly 9 million pounds of wool were offered for sale at the spring trade fair in Pest, most of it bought by German merchants for resale in England. This trade in wool was largely carried on by strategically networked Jewish families, many of whom, like the Figdors, had relatives placed in each of the wool-trading capitals of Europe. The Figdor family connections extended from Pest and Vienna to Leipzig, London, and Leeds. This network of family and business connections was critical to the establishment, guidance, and promotion of Joachim’s musical career, which in its early years, not coincidentally, was centered in those same cities.
elov’d of all to whom that Muse is dear
Who hid her spirit of rapture from the Greek,
Whereby our art excelleth the antique,
Perfecting formal beauty to the ear;
Thou that hast been in England many a year
The interpreter who left us nought to seek,
Making Beethoven’s inmost passion speak,
Bringing the soul of great Sebastian near.
Their music liveth ever, and ’tis just
That thou, good Joachim, so high thy skill,
Rank (as thou shalt upon the heavenly hill)
Laurel’d with them, for thy ennobling trust
Remember’d when thy loving hand is still
And every ear that heard thee stopt with dust.
Robert Bridges, May 2, 1904
First published in the Times, May 17, 1904, p. 11
The Times, London, Issue 18621 (May 28, 1844), p. 4.
Joseph Joachim acknowledging the audience, drawing thought to be by Mendelssohn, ca. May 1844 (?), with autograph texts by Julius Benedict and Felix Mendelssohn.
Brahms-Institut an der Musikhochschule Lübeck, D-LÜbi, ABH 6.3.97
Illustration in Valerie Woodring Goertzen and Robert Whitehouse Eshbach, The Creative Worlds of Joseph Joachim, Woodbridge: Boydell (2021), 28.
PHILHARMONIC SOCIETY
___________
The fifth concert took place last night, and the following was the programme:—
Sinfonia in B Flat (No. 4)—Beethoven.
Duet, “Stung by horror,” Miss Rainforth and Herr Staudigl (Pascal Bruno)—J. L. Hatton.
Concerto, violin, Herr Joachim—Beethoven.
Overture (Faust)—Spohr.
Duetto, “Pazzerello, O qual ardir,” Mr. Machin and Herr Staudigl (Faust)—Spohr.
Quintetto e Coro, “Ah! goda lor felicitatie,” the principal parts by Miss Rainforth, Miss A. Williams, Mr. Manvers, Mr. Machin, and Herr Staudigl (Faust)—Spohr.
PART II.
Overture (A Midsummer Night’s Dream)—Mendelssohn Bartholdy.
Scherzo (A Midsummer Night’s Dream)—Mendelssohn Bartholdy.
Song, with chorus, “You spotted snakes,” Miss Rainforth, and Miss A. Williams (A Midsummer Night’s Dream)—Mendelssohn Bartholdy.
Notturno, march, and finale chorus (A Midsummer Night’s Dream)—Mendelssohn Bartholdy.
Song, with chorus, “Joy, ’tis a glorious thought,” Herr Staudigl (Fidelio)—Beethoven.
Hunting chorus (The Seasons)—Haydn.
Leader, Mr. Loader [sic; recte: (John David) Loder]; conductor, Dr. F. Mendelssohn Bartholdy.
The society may almost be said in this concert to have taken a new position; in the selection of the music and in the style of its execution it was one of the finest public performances we have ever attended. For once the character of the vocal may be said to have approached that of the instrumental music, and hence this perfect ensemble.
Beethoven’s symphony is that one which, next to the Pastorale, may be said to be the most clear and obvious in its beauties. It has always, therefore, commanded public attention during its progress, and under the baton of Mendelssohn, might be said almost to chain down the ears of the audience. The slow movement, the first portion of it, was played with a degree of perfection in which the nicest ear could not discover a fault.
Beethoven’s violin concerto, which belongs to the class of symphonies, so grand and varied in its design, was played by young Joachim in a manner which caused astonishment in the oldest musicians and professors of that instrument, who discover in a boy of only 13 years of age [sic], all the mastery of the art which it has cost most of them the labour of a life to attain, if indeed any of them have reached to the same excellence by which he is in all respects distinguished. This concerto, however attractive and beautiful as an orchestral composition, has been seldom played by professors of the violin, because the passages, though excessively difficult, convey no notion of that difficulty to those who hear it played, and the merit of the performer has no chance of being appreciated by those who have listened through their attendances on concerts to the gorgeous displays of other writers. Joachim has contrived to throw all this aside, and by his clear and distinct articulation, his perfect intonation, and a conception of his subject which denotes almost a mind kindred with that of the composer, has produced a perfect whole, and so blended the solo instrument with the rest of the composition as to present this great masterpiece with the effect which the author intended. The piece is one of those of which Beethoven himself—and no one exercised a severer judgment on his own writings than he did—was proud. But the extraordinary talent of Joachim is but described in part by what has been said of his manner of playing this concerto. He appeared himself as a composer also, having constructed two beautiful cadences, one for the first and the other for the last movement, into which he has infused the spirit of the author; has varied while he adopted his subjects, introducing into them still greater difficulties of execution, yet never deviating from the main design. Many will hardly believe that Joachim could himself have written these cadences, but of the fact there is, we believe, no doubt; no other hand has touched them. The applause bestowed on him was great, but not more so than his deserts; one universal feeling governed the whole audience. He was interrupted by plaudits wherever they could be permitted, sometimes even to the injury of the composition; and at the close they lasted some minutes.
Till last night there has been no performance from Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream in this country, except the overture. The curtain is now raised, and we are made acquainted with some pieces which are blended with Shakespeare’s play as incidents merely, for the Germans have not tortured it into an opera, and which may take rank with any of the compositions of this master. The scherzo is a most original movement, intricate and difficult, and taxing the powers of the orchestra to the utmost; the march, a magnificent piece, simple yet new. Both of these were encored. With respect to the latter and incident occurred, too characteristic of the great care of Mendelssohn in conducting an orchestra to be passed over. The desire of the audience to have the march repeated had been shown in the usual manner, and could not be doubted. At the moment when it was expected to recommence, the conductor suddenly disappeared from his post, and was seen slowly advancing to the top of the orchestra, the audience all the time keeping silence. Some notes had been omitted, which he must set right before he could allow it to begin again. He then resumed his station, raised his baton, and the march was resumed amidst a thunder of applause. In the finale he returns to that subject which closes the overture, and interweaves the chorus with it, and nothing of the kind could be more perfect. We must adopt these things on our stage, or allow that the Germans go beyond us in their illustration of our own great bard.
The opera of Pascal Bruno, from which the duet of Miss Rainforth with Staudigl is taken, is the work of a countryman, Mr. J. L. Hatton, who has just returned from Vienna, where the entire piece has been performed with a degree of success which has raised the estimation of English talent in that refined capital. The specimen given proves that the success was well deserved. He has formed himself, in his orchestral combinations, upon Mozart, and commits the fault of overlaying the voice by the fulness of them, but many of his effects are quite his own, and his general talent is undoubted. The duet was very finely sung, both by Miss Rainforth and by Staudigl.
In the selections from Faust also the boundary of the overture was passed to introduce us to the opera itself, and the acquaintance with it was most satisfactory. The overture is one of the finest Spohr has written; the hint of the double orchestra, employed in the minuet which leads from the overture into the opera itself, is taken obviously from Don Giovanni, but he has worked the subject after his own admirable manner.
We ought not to take leave of this concert without noticing the marked improvement in the discipline and general effect of the orchestra in the short time since Mendelssohn has become the conductor and assumed the absolute control over it. Except perhaps in some portion of the vocal music, when the accompaniment was too powerful for the voices, not a fault, not a slip was to be detected. All lovers of music and all professors must acknowledge their great obligation to him; he has solved the great problem of the occasional inefficiency of this orchestra in showing that its component parts were most excellent, and that nothing was wanted but a good conductor who could acquire their confidence, and bring out their inherent powers. He has proved, what has often been asserted, that the same conductor must act uniformly in order to insure the success of a great concert. That there are artists already here, English as well as foreign, who could accomplish this, is not to be denied; but to produce willing obedience a great name is wanted, and that name is Mendelssohn. He was received with the most cordial and vehement applause, not only on his first appearance, but whenever he presented himself in the orchestra.
Originally published in: Hermann Erler, “Niels Wilhelm Gade (geboren 22 Februar 1817). Eine Erinnerung an seinen 91. Geburtstag mit ungedruckten Briefen von Joseph Joachim und Clara Schumann.” Berliner Tageblatt und Handels-Zeitung, Vol. 37, No. 96 (Saturday, 22 February 1908), 1. Beiblatt.
Ein junger Geiger aus Ungarn, Leopold Auer, den Du, glaube ich, bei mir schon gesehen hast, bittet mich bei seiner bevorstehenden Reisen nach Kopenhagen um einige Zeilen an Dich. So ungern ich eigentlich “Empfehlungen” gebe, eine so große Freude gewährt es mir in dem vorliegenden Falle meinen jungen Kollegen und Landsmann Dir vorzustellen und Dich zu bitten, ihn anzuhören, damit er selbst sich Dir empfehlen könnte. Es wird gewiß nicht mehr bedürfen, um Dir das lebendigste musikalische Interesse für ihn einzuflößen, der ja als Violinspieler allen seinen Altersgenossen, die ich gehört, weit vorgeschritten ist! Aber auch als Lieber, bescheidener, braver Junge wird sich Auer gewiß Dein Wohlwollen erwerben, und so hoffe ich Du wirst gern Deinen großen Einfluß zu seinen Gunsten geltend machen. Der Vater meines Schützlings, der mit nach Kopenhagen reist, würde Dir für Deinen Rath von Herzen dankbar sein, wenn Du gleich Anfangs über seine Pläne mit ihm sprechen wolltest. An Toofte [2] [Valdemar Tofte] will ich ihm selbst einen Gruß mitgeben.
Und nun will ich Dir noch die Dir gewiß willkommene Nachricht mitteilen, daß ich meine Direktion der Concerte hier beibehalte und bloß während der Dauer derselben (4 Monate) in Hannover zu sein brauche. Der König hat mir, nach meiner Kündigung, diese dankenswerthen Vorschläge gemacht. So werde ich (Dich) dann leicht künftighin einmal besuchen können.
Wir studiren jetzt hier den ganzen Schumannschen Faust, den ich dirigiren werde. Stockhausen wird drin mitwirken, und ich freue mich darauf.
Herzlich grüßend
Dein
Joseph Joachim
Hannover
Dear, esteemed Gade
A young violinist from Hungary, Leopold Auer, whom I believe you have already seen at my place, asks me for a few lines to you before his upcoming travels to Copenhagen. As much as I do not like to give “recommendations,” it gives me great pleasure to introduce my young colleague and compatriot to you and to ask you to listen to him, so that he can recommend himself to you. It will certainly not take more to instill in you the liveliest musical interest in him, who as a violinist is far ahead of all his peers that I have heard! But Auer will certainly also earn your goodwill as a dear, modest, good young man, and so I hope you will gladly use your great influence in his favor. The father of my protégé, who is traveling with him to Copenhagen, would be heartily grateful for your advice if you would talk to him right away about his plans. I will give him a greeting to Toofte myself.
And now I want to tell you the news, which is certainly welcome, that I will keep my direction of the concerts here and only need to be in Hanover for their duration (4 months). After my resignation, the King made these grateful suggestions to me. So I will then easily be able to visit (you) sometime in the future.
We are now studying the entire Schumann Faust, which I will conduct. Stockhausen will participate in it, and I am looking forward to it.
With cordial greetings
Your
Joseph Joachim
[1] See: Georg Fischer, Musik in Hannover, Hannover & Leipzig: Hahn’sche Buchhandlung, 1903, p. 263.
[2] Danish violinist and pedagogue Valedmar Tofte (*21 October 1832 – †28 May 1907). At Gade’s suggestion, Tofte studied with Joachim from 1853 to 1856.
SBSchumann Briefedition, Serie II Köln: Dohr, 2019, 2 vols.
1839
17/3/1839:Adelskasino, Pest Debut recital. Joseph Joachim, Stanislaus Serwaczyński; Johann Friedrich Eck Double Concerto, Franz Pechaˇcek Variations on Schubert’s Trauerwalzer. Ref: JJ
1840
25/3/1840 [Der Adler, Vienna, 30/3/1840 p. 6]:
1843
30/4/1843 Royal Redoutensaal, Vienna Fourth ever subscription concert of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra Vieuxtemps Violin Concerto no. 4 in D Minor; Adagio religioso and Finale marziale
16/11/1843 Gewandhaus, Leipzig Seventh Subscription Concert of the Gewandhaus Orchestra, Ernst: Othello Fantasie. Ref: NZfM, 11/12/1843, p. 3. /AmZ , 12/1843, no. 49, p. 888. Program: Stadtgeschichtliches Museum, Leipzig.
1844
29/1/1844: Gewandhaus, Leipzig Concert by Charlotte Birch (as assisting artist). Spohr, Violin Concerto no. 8 op. 47 Gesangscene. Ref: AmZ No. 5 (31 January 1844): 74-75. Program included Cherubini Ouverture zum Wasserträger, Arie von Marliani, Bellini Arie aus der Sonnambula, Beethoven Ouverture zu Fidelio (No. 4, E dur), Englische und schottische Nationallieder, Moscheles Hommage à Handel, Duo für zwei Pianoforte, Rode Variationen (Miss Birch).
7/6/1844: Princess’ Concert Room, London G. A. Macfarren’s and J. W. Davison’s Third Concert of Chamber Music. Mendelssohn Trio in D Minor, op. 49 (Joachim, Mendelssohn, Hausmann), Bach Adagio and Fugue G Minor, BWV 1001, Mendelssohn Quartet in D, op. 44 (Joachim, Goffrie, Hill, Hausmann); program also included songs by Mendelssohn and Macfarren, sung by Marshall, Dolby, and Rainforth.
29/11/1844: Soirée at Herman Härtel’s house, Leipzig Mendelssohn Octet with Joachim. Ref: Friedrich Schmidt, Das Musikleben der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft Leipzigs im Vormärz (1815-1848), Langensalza: Beyer & Mann, 1912. 181.
1845
18/10/1845: Gewandhaus, Leipzig A Beethoven string quartet, together with David, Gade, and Grabau. Concert given by Lisa B. Cristiani. Ref: Program Stadtgeschichtliches Museum, Leipzig.
10/11/1845: Hôtel de Saxe, Dresden JJ plays Mendelssohn’s violin concerto and David’s Variations on Schubert’s Lob der Thränen for Violin and Orchestra, op. 15 under Robert Schumann’s direction. This Dresden premiere would be Joseph’s first performance of the Mendelssohn Concerto, and the third public performance of the work outright.
4/12/1845: Gewandhaus Leipzig Adagio und Rondo für die Violine mit Orchester, komponiert und vorgetragen von Herrn Joseph Joachim; Caprice für die Violine mit Orchesterbegleitung, über ein Thema aus dem Piraten von Bellini, komponiert von H.W. Ernst, gespielt von Herrn Joseph Joachim. Conducted by Felix Mendelssohn; the only performance at which Mendelssohn performed a work of Joachim’s publicly.
Erster Theil: Symphonie von W.A. Mozart (D dur, ohne Menuett ; Arie aus Norma von Bellini [Keusche Göttin, im silbernen Glanze], gesungen von Fräulein Jenny Lind ; Adagio und Rondo für die Violine mit Orchester, componiert und vorgetragen von Herrn Joseph Joachim ; Duett aus “I Capuleti e Montechi” von Bellini [Si, fuggire!], gesungen von Fräulein Jenny Lind und Miss Helene Dolby — Zweiter Theil: Ouverture zu Oberon von C. Maria von Weber ; Recitativ und Arie aus Don Juan von Mozart [Ich grausam! .. Ueber Alles bleibst du theuer], gesungen von Fräulein Lind ; Caprice für die Violine mit Orchesterbegleitung, über ein Thema aus dem Piraten von Bellini, componirt von H.W. Ernst, gespielt von Herrn Joseph Joachim — Lieder mit Pianofortebegleitung, gesungen von Fräulein Lind.
11/1/1846: Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, Vienna Ref: Wiener Zeitung, No. 11 (11 January, 1846), p. 84.
1847
9/2/1847: Dresden, Saxony Joachim’s first public performance of the Bach Chaconne. Ref: Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (Nr. 43), Friday, 12 February, 1847, p. 369.
18/2/1847: Gewandhaus, Leipzig Seventeenth Subscription Concert. Historical concert (composers from before a century ago). Bach: Adagio and Fugue in G minor; Chaconne (Joachim’s second public performance). Ref: Programs, Stadtgeschichtliches Museum, Leipzig
19/4/1847: Beethoven Rooms, London Beethoven Quartet Society. Beethoven: Quartet in C minor, Op. 18, No. 4; Quartet in E flat Major, Op. 74; Quartet in A minor, Op. 132. Ref. The Musical World, No. 22 (24 April, 1847), p. 262.
7/6/1847: Liverpool, England
Liverpool Mercury: Friday, June 11, 1847, p. 326:
21/6/1847: Manchester, England Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, Ernst Adagio and Rondo. Ref: Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser, Wednesday, 23 June, 1847.
1848
11/3/1848: Hamburg Beethoven Violin Concerto, Ernst Otello Fantasie. The concert is attended by the young Johannes Brahms, who hears Joachim for the first time. Hamburger Nachrichten of 27 March gives a concert review: “In dem Violin-Virtuosen Hrn. J. Joachim, der das Beethoven’sche Violin-Concert und die bekannte Othello-Phantasie von Ernst vortrug, lernte unser Publikum einen Künstler von bedeutendem Talent und der solidesten Kunstrichtung kennen. Die Bemerkung, daß derselbe das großartige Beethovensche Concert — ein Werk, für das sich in mehr denn einer Beziehung wohl der Name Concert-Symphonie eignen möchte — in vortrefflicher Auffassung und sicherer Haltung mit Geschmack, mit Geist und Gefühl ausführte, zeigt den Standpunct dieses Künstlers zur Genüge an und macht jede weitere Erörterung überflüssig. Der laute Beifall aller Anwesenden, dessen er sich zu erfreuen hatte, war nur eine gerechte Anerkennung der ausgezeichneten Leistung —” Ref
19/10/1848: Gewandhaus, Leipzig Weber, Overture to “Freischütz;” Mozart, Recitative and Aria sung by Minna Marpurg; Beethoven Violin Concerto (Joachim); Spohr, Finale from the opera “Zemire und Azor,” sung by Minna and Auguste Marburg, Frl. Stark, Herrn Wideman and Behr; Ferdinand David, Symphony after Goethe’s poem “Verschiedene Empfindungen auf einem Platze” (new, manuscript). Ref: Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 291 (17 December 1848) p. 3824.
17/12/1848: Leipzig “Am 17. Dec. veranstaltete die blinde Sängerin Frl. Anna Zinggeler aus Zürich ein Morgenconcert in der Buchhändlerbörse. Ihre Leistungen waren anerkenneswerth und fanden Beifall. Unterstützt wurde das Concert durch die HH. Joachim und Behr, Kapellmeister Rietz begleitete. Ein Hr. Pelz aus Prag debütierte minder glücklich mit einer Composition wie sie das Leipziger Publicum nicht zu hören gewohnt ist.” Ref: Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 354 (19 December 1848) p. 4562
1849
30/4/1849: Philharmonic Society, Dublin 23rd season, 4th grand concert. Principal performers: Miss A. Williams, Miss M. Williams, Signor Marras, Herr Joachim. Leader: Mr. Levey. Conductor: Mr. Bussell. Ref
Dublin Evening Mail No. 4763, page 3 (2/5/1849):
7/5/1849: The Globe No. 14,862, p. 3. (10/5/1849)
7/5/1849: The Morning Post No. 23,532 (9/5/1849):
30/9/1849: Gewandhaus, Leipzig Mendelssohn Violin Concerto. Ref: Program Stadtgeschichtliches Museum, Leipzig.
10/12/1849: Gewandhaus, Leipzig Maurer Concerto for Four Violins. Ref: Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (Nr. 346), Friday, 12 December, 1849, p. 3788
1850
19/10/1850: Hof-Theater, Weimar Hof-Kapelle Weimar (Liszt), Joachim, Agthe, Coßmann, Graumann, Beethoven violin concerto, Joachim Fantasie über ungarische Motive. Ref: THULB
1851
16/2/1851 Hof-Theater, Weimar
1852
31/5/1852: Philharmonic Society, London Joachim, Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, Joachim Fantasia on Scottish Airs. Ref: Bell’s,
Review: London Evening Standard 1 June, 1852:
12/6/1852: Queen’s Concert Rooms, Hanover Square, London Beethoven Violin Concerto, ‘Hungarian’ Fantasy, Paganini 24th Caprice. Ref: Illustrated London News, 12 June, 1852, p. 458; The Morning Advertiser, Saturday, 26 June, 1852, p. 6.
23/6/1852: Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford Joachim, Bottesini, various artists, Joachim Phantasie über ungarische Motive (Fantasia on Hungarian Airs). Ref: The Era.
13/11/1852: Joachim debuts in Hanover with Mendelssohn Concerto — audition concert for his new position. Ref: FMH1853
8/1/1853: Hanover Spohr Gesangscene. (Kömpel played Beethoven Concerto) Ref. and complete program: FMH
22/1/1853: Hanover Spohr Gesangscene (Kömpel played Beethoven Concerto) Ref. and complete program: FMH
26/2/1853: Hanover Bach Chaconne, Ernst Concerto Allegro Pathétique. Ref. and complete program: FMH
19/3/1853: Hanover Ernst Othello Fantasie. Ref. and complete program: FMH
17/5/1853: Niederrheinische Musikfest, Düsseldorf Beethoven Violin Concerto, Bach Chaconne (Mendelssohn arrangement, accompanied by Clara Schumann).
8/1853: Summer concerts in Göttingen Der Humorist, 30 August 1853, p. 794:
25/10/1853:
The Athenæum, 3968 (14 November 1903): 659
10/12/1853: Hanover Beethoven Concerto. Ref. and complete program: FMH
20/12/1853: Casinosaal, Cologne Ferdinand Hiller, conducting: Beethoven Concerto, unnamed composition of his own. Review: RMZ p. 1454.
22/12/1853: Casinosaal, Cologne Recital Joachim, Hiller, and Koch for the benefit of “Herrn Clef, früheren Regisseurs des hiesigen Vaudeville – Theaters.” Joachim Romanze, Paganini 24th caprice, with Hiller Bach sonata in E Major, three Etudes by Hiller for Piano and Violin, and Beethoven Kreutzer Sonata. Ref: BMZ
1854
7/1/1854: Hof-Theater, Hanover Joseph Joachim conducting: Franz Liszt Fantasie über Ungarische Volksmelodien; Hans von Bülow, pianist. Ref: LdKFMH
4/3/1854: Hof-Theater, Hanover Joachim, “Romanze v. Beethoven” “Präludium v. Bach,” “Capriccio v. Paganini.” Ref. and complete program: FMH
1/4/1854: Hof-Theater, Hanover Joachim, Berlioz Romanze “Tendresse et Caprice.” Ref. and complete program: FMH
8/9/1854: Norderney Concert with Jenny Lind to benefit the poor. Ref: Signale, vol. 12, no. 37 (September, 1854), p. 302
10/12/1854: Singakademie, Berlin Joachim and Clara Schumann joint recital. Ref: Neue Berliner Musikzeitung, vol. 8 no. 50, (13 December, 1854), p. 396:
16/12/1854: Singakademie, Berlin Second Joachim and Clara Schumann joint recital. Schumann Violin Sonata D Minor, Bach Prelude and Fugue for Violin Solo, Bach Prelude E Major, Paganini Caprice no. 24. Ref: ALP Neue Berliner Musikzeitung, vol. 8 no. 51, (20 December, 1854), p. 403.
20/12/1854: Singakademie, Berlin Third Joachim and Clara Schumann joint recital. Beethoven Romanze G Major, Bach, Sarabande and Double, Bach Bourée and Double, Schumann Fantasiestucke for Pianoforte and Violin, op. 73, Bach, Andante and Allegro from the Third Sonata for Violin, Beethoven, Violin Sonata C Minor, op. 30.
1856
5/11/1856: Gasthof zur Stadt London, Göttingen Joseph Joachim, Clara Schumann, Beethoven Sonata G Major, op. 96, Schubert 2 Moments musicals, op. 94 (pf.), Mendelssohn Scherzo à capriccio F sharp minor (pf.), Schumann Fantasie, op. 131, Mozart Sonata in A Major, Bach Adagio and Allegro (vln. solo), Schumann Carnaval, op. 9 (pf.). Ref: Michelmann/SIEBOLD, p. 112.
1857
14/2/1857: Hanover All-Beethoven Program with Clara Schumann for King George V Violin Sonata A Major, op. 47 (Kreutzer), Variations E flat Major, op. 35, Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, op. 58, Violin Sonata C minor, op. 30/2. Ref: SB 2/1, p. 323.
18/2/1857: Mengershausen’s Saal, Göttingen J. O. Grimm (cond.), Clara Schumann, pno. Beethoven Sonata G Major (not known which), Bach Praeludium and Fugue. Ref: Michelmann/SIEBOLD, pp. 112-113.
22/11/1857: Hamburg Philharmonic
Notice from Dwight’s Journal of Music, vol. 10, no. 15 (10 January 1857): 119
1858
1/6/1858: 7:45 p.m. Liverpool Philharmonic Society Madame Viardot Garcia, Miss Kemble, Signor Luchesi, Joachim (“His first appearance in Liverpool since 1847”), J. Zeugheer Herrmann, cond. Ref: Liverpool Mail, (29 May, 1858).
1859
24/5/1859: St. James’s Hall, London Joseph Joachim and Clara Schumann. Clara Schumann’s first concert in St. James’s Hall. Ref: SB 2/1, p. 43.
Irish Tour with Jenny Lind Goldschmidt and Otto Goldschmidt
26&28/9/1859: Antient Concert Rooms, Dublin Madame Lind Goldschmidt with Signor Belletti, Herr Joachim and Mr. Otto Goldschmidt. Ref: CP
[Dublin Evening Freeman, 30 September, 1859]
3/10/1859: 1:00 p.m. Railway Hotel, Killarney Jenny Lind Goldschmidt, Otto Goldschmidt, Signor Belletti, Joachim. Rondo from Mozart “Il re Pastore,” Andante con Variation from Beethoven Sonata, op. 47, Tartini Sonata (Larghetto — Tempo Giusto — Finale), Mozart duo for violin and piano. Ref: TraleeChronicle (2 September, 1859).
22/11/1865:Singakademie, Berlin Joachim, Clara Schumann. Ref: National-Zeitung, Berlin, vol. 18, no. 547 (22 November, 1865).
29/11/1865:Singakademie, Berlin Joachim, Clara Schumann. Ref: National-Zeitung, Berlin, vol. 18, no. 555 (26 November, 1865).
1866
22/2/1866: Free Trade Hall, Manchester Mr. Charles Hallé’s Grand Concerts: Vocalist, Madame Lemmens-Sherrington — Solo violin, Herr Joachim — Solo pianoforte and conductor, Mr Charles Hallé, E. de Jong. Ref: AHRC
8/3/1866: Free Trade Hall, Manchester Mr. Charles Hallé’s Grand Concerts: Vocalists Madame Lemmens-Sherrington, Mr Santley — Solo violin, Herr Joachim — Solo pianoforte and conductor, Mr Charles Hallé — Organist, Mr Henry Walker. Ref: AHRC
19/1/1867: Free Trade Hall, Manchester Instrumentalists, Madame Schumann, Herr Joachim, Herr L. Ries, Mr Zerbini, Signor Piatti — Vocalist, Miss Louisa Pyne. Ref: AHRC
7/2/1867: Free Trade Hall, Manchester Mr Charles Hallé’s Grand Concerts: Vocalist, Louise Pyne — Solo violin, Herr Joachim — Solo violoncello, Signor Piatti — Solo pianoforte and conductor, Mr. Charles Hallé. Ref: AHRC
7/3/1867: Free Trade Hall, Manchester Mr Charles Hallé’s Grand Concerts: Vocalist, Madame Lemons-Sherrington — Solo violin, Herr Joachim — Solo pianoforte and conductor, Mr Charles Hallé. Ref: AHRC
16/3/1867: Crystal Palace, London Beethoven Violin Concerto; Bach, Prelude and Presto;Romanze from Joachim Hungarian concerto, op. 11. Ref: London Evening Standard, Thursday, 28 March, 1867, p. 6.
1868
St. James’s Hall, London
22/02/1868:St James’s Hall, London Saturday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, Henry Blagrove, J. B. Zerbini, Alfredo Piatti, Elena Angele, Ernst Pauer, Henry Lazarus, C. Harper, John Winterbottom, Mr. Reynolds. Ref: AHRC
24/02/1868:St James’s Hall, London Monday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, Henry Blagrove, Alfredo Piatti, Vernon Rigby, Clara Schumann. Ref: AHRC
29/02/1868:St James’s Hall, London Saturday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, Henry Blagrove, Alfredo Piatti, Cecilia Westbrook, Clara Schumann. Ref: AHRC
02/03/1868:St James’s Hall, London Monday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, Henry Blagrove, J. B. Zerbini, Alfredo Piatti, Charlotte Sainton Dolby, Clara Schumann. Ref: AHRC
07/03/1868:St James’s Hall, London Saturday popular concerts. Ernst Pauer, Joseph Joachim, Henry Blagrove, Alfredo Piatti, Anna Jewell, Henry Lazarus, Mr. Reynolds, C. Harper, John Winterbottom. Ref: AHRC
09/03/1868:St James’s Hall, London Monday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, Henry Blagrove, J. B. Zerbini, Alfredo Piatti, Vernon Rigby, Charles Hallé. Ref: AHRC
14/03/1868:St James’s Hall, London Saturday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, Henry Blagrove, C. Harper, Mr. Standen, Alfredo Piatti, Elena Angéle, Clara Schumann. Ref: AHRC
16/03/1868:St James’s Hall, London Monday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, Henry Blagrove, J. B. Zerbini, Alfredo Piatti, Sims Reeves, Arabella Goddard, Mr. Reynolds. Ref: AHRC
21/03/1868:St James’s Hall, London Saturday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, Henry Blagrove, J. B. Zerbini, Alfredo Piatti, Vernon Rigby, Clara Schumann. Ref: AHRC
23/03/1868:St James’s Hall, London Monday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, Henry Blagrove, Alfredo Piatti, Cecilia Westbrook, Charles Hallé. Ref: AHRC
28/03/1868:St James’s Hall, London Saturday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Henry Blagrove, Henry Lazarus, C. Harper, John Winterbottom, Mr. Reynolds, Alfredo Piatti, Elena Angéle, Arabella Goddard. Ref: AHRC
30/03/1868:St James’s Hall, London Monday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, Henry Blagrove, Alfredo Piatti, Cecilia Westbrook, Charles Hallé, Sims Reeves, Arabella goddard, Clara Schumann. Ref: AHRC
1869
04/01/1869:St James’s Hall, London Monday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, Henry Blagrove, Alfredo Piatti, Edith Wynne, Arabella Goddard. Ref: AHRC
11/01/1869:St James’s Hall, London Monday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, J. B. Zerbini, Alfredo Piatti, Annie Edmonds, Ernst Pauer. Ref: AHRC
18/01/1869:St James’s Hall, London Monday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, Henry Blagrove, Alfredo Piatti, Emily Spiller, Henry Lazarus, Charles Hallé, Adolf Pollitzer, Mr. Watson, J. B. Zerbini, Mr. Aylward, Mr. Reynolds. Ref: AHRC
23/01/1869:St James’s Hall, London Saturday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, Henry Blagrove, J. B. Zerbini, Alfredo Piatti, Charlotte Sainton-Dolby, Arabella Goddard. Ref: AHRC
25/01/1869:St James’s Hall, London Monday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, Henry Blagrove, Alfredo Piatti, Vernon Rigby, Arabella Goddard, Adolf Pollizer, Mr. Watson, J. B. Zerbini, Mr. Aylward, Charles Reynolds. Ref: AHRC
30/01/1869:St James’s Hall, London Saturday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, Henry Blagrove, J. B. Zerbini, Alfredo Piatti, Charlotte Sainton-Dolby, Arabella Goddard, Madame Osborne Williams, Clara Schumann. Ref: AHRC
01/02/1869:St James’s Hall, London Monday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, Henry Blagrove, Alfredo Piatti, Edith Wynne, Clara Schumann. Ref: AHRC
06/02/1869:St James’s Hall, London Saturday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, Henry Blagrove, J. B. Zerbini, Alfredo Piatti, Anna Jewell, Clara Schumann. Ref: AHRC
08/02/1869:St James’s Hall, London Monday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, Henry Blagrove, J. B. Zerbini, Alessandro Pezze, Karl Wallenreiter, Clara Schumann. Ref: AHRC
13/02/1869:St James’s Hall, London Saturday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, Henry Blagrove, Alfredo Piatti, Anna Jewel, Henry Lazarus, Ernst Pauer, John Radcliff, Appollon Barret, Charles Harper, Mr. Reynolds. Ref: AHRC
15/02/1869:St James’s Hall, London Monday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, Henry Blagrove, Alfredo Piatti, Vernon Rigby, Charles Hallé. Ref: AHRC
20/02/1869:St James’s Hall, London Saturday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, Henry Blagrove, Alfredo Piatti, Karl Wallenreiter, Charles Hallé. Ref: AHRC
22/02/1869:St James’s Hall, London Monday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, Adolf Pollitzer, Mr. Amor, Henry Blagrove, J. B. Zerbini, Guillaume Paque, Alfredo Piatti, Edith Wynne, Clara Schumann, Prosper Sainton, Josef Ludwig, Mr. Reynolds. Ref: AHRC
27/02/1869:St James’s Hall, London Saturday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, Henry Blagrove, J. B. Zerbini, Alfredo Piatti, Miss Banks, Clara Schumann. Ref: AHRC
01/03/1869:St James’s Hall, London Monday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, Henry Blagrove, Alfredo Piatti, Charlotte Sainton Dolby, Clara Schumann. Ref: AHRC
06/03/1869:St James’s Hall, London Saturday popular concerts. Le Jeune, Arthur, Charlotte Sainton Dolby, Charles Hallé, Joseph Joachim, Louis ries, Henry Blagrove, Henry Lazarus, Charles Harper, John Winterbottom, Charles Reynolds, Alfredo Piatti. Ref: AHRC
08/03/1869:St James’s Hall, London Monday popular concerts. Le Jeune, Arthur, Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, Henry Blagrove, Alfredo Piatti, Madame Osborne Williams, Charles Hallé, Clara Schumann. Ref: AHRC
13/03/1869:St James’s Hall, London Saturday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Prosper Sainton, Alfredo Piatti, Louis Ries, Adolf Pollitzer, Mr. Watson, J. B. Zerbini, Mr. Aylward, Mr. Reynolds, Edith Wynne, Arabella Goddard. Ref: AHRC
15/03/1869:St James’s Hall, London Monday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, Henry Blagrove, Alfredo Piatti, Annie Edmonds, Arabella Goddard. Ref: AHRC
31/10/1869: Singakademie, Berlin Inaugural concert of the Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Ernst Schiever, Heinrich de Ahna, Wilhelm Müller)
1870
29/01/1870:St James’s Hall, London Saturday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, Ludwig Straus, J. B. Zerbini, Alfredo Piatti, Blanche Cole, Ernst Pauer. Ref: AHRC
31/01/1870:St James’s Hall, London Monday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, Ludwig Straus, Alfredo Piatti, Blanche Cole. Ref: AHRC
05/02/1870:St James’s Hall, London Saturday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, Ludwig Straus, J. B. Zerbini, Alfredo Piatti, Edith Wynne, Charles Hallé. Ref: AHRC
07/02/1870:St James’s Hall, London Monday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, Ludwig Straus, Alfredo Piatti, Natalie Carola, Franklin Taylor.. Ref: AHRC
8/3/1870: Free Trade Hall, Manchester Pianoforte, Madame Schumann — Violin, Herr Joachim — Vocalist, Miss Edith Wynne. Ref
1871
20/02/1871:St James’s Hall, London Monday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, Ludwig Straus, J. B. Zerbini, Hugo Daubert, Charles Santley, Charles Hallé. Programme mis-bound in volume. Piatti unwell. Ref: AHRC
13/02/1871:St James’s Hall, London Monday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, Ludwig Straus, J. B. Zerbini, Alfredo Piatti, Miss Enriquez, Clara Schumann. Ref: AHRC
27/02/1871:St James’s Hall, London Monday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, Ludwig Straus, Edward Howell, Arthur Byron, Clara Schumann. Piatti unwell. Ref: AHRC
06/03/1871:St James’s Hall, London Monday popular concerts. Franklin Taylor, Joseph Joachim, Alfredo Piatti, William Hayman Cummings, Ludwig Straus, Henry Lazarus, Paquis, Mr. Hutchins, Mr. Reynolds, Alfredo Piatti. Ref: AHRC
8/3/1871: Philharmonic Society, London Mr Santley and Miss Edith Wynne (vocal) and Herr Joachim (violin), including a number of words by Gounod being given for the first time. Ref: AHRC
18/03/1871:St James’s Hall, London Saturday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, Ludwig Straus, Alfredo Piatti, Rebecca Jewell, Clara Schumann.. Ref: AHRC
20/03/1871:St James’s Hall, London Monday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, Ludwig Straus, Mr. Paquis, Mr. Standen, Mr. Reynolds, Alfredo Piatti, Amalie Joachim, Emma Brandes. Ref: AHRC
25/03/1871:St James’s Hall, London Saturday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, Ludwig Straus, J. B. Zerbini, Alfredo Piatti, Amalie Joachim, Clara Schumann, Julius Benedict. Ref: AHRC
27/03/1871:St James’s Hall, London Monday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, Ludwig Straus, Alfredo Piatti, Charles Santley, Arabella Goddard. Ref: AHRC
01/04/1871:St James’s Hall, London Saturday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, J. B. Zerbini, Alfredo Piatti, Sims Reeves, Emma Brandes, Clara Schumann, Mr. Reynolds, Julius Benedict. Ref: AHRC
03/04/1871:St James’s Hall, London Monday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, Ludwig Straus, Alfredo Piatti, Charles Santley, Amalie Joachim, Clara Schumann, Ernst Pauer, Wilma Norman Neruda, Charles Hallé, Mr. Reynolds, Julius Benedict. Ref: AHRC
1872
22/2/1872: Free Trade Hall, Manchester Mr Charles Hallé’s Grand Concerts: Vocalists, Miss Helen D’alton, Mr Maybrick — Solo violin, Herr Joachim — Solo pianoforte and conductor, Mr Charles Hallé. Ref
27/2/1872: Royal Albert Hall, London Grand Evening Concert on Thanksgiving Day, with Mr Cummings, Mr Maybrick, Mr Sims Reeves, Mademoiselle Enriquez, Mademoiselle J. Sherrington and Madame Lemmens Sherrington (vocal), Joseph Joachim (violin) and Mr G. Carter (organ), conducted by Sir Julius Benedict, including the first performance of Julius Benedict, Hymn of Thanksgiving. Ref: AHRC
1873
1874
14/02/1874: Crystal Palace, London Elena Corani, Signor Agnesi, Joseph Joachim, Mr. Wedemeyer. Ref: AHRC
1875
10/01/1875: Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, Vienna:
Photo: Brahms Institut Lübeck
13/03/1875: Crystal Palace, London Edith Wynne, Helene Arnim, Joseph Joachim, August Manns. Ref: AHRC
18/3/1875: Philharmonic Society, London Miss Edith Wynne, Madame Patey, Mr W. H. Cummings and Mr Santley (vocal) and Herr Joachim (violin), including the first performance of W. Sterndale Bennett, Funeral March from Music of Sophocles. Ref: AHRC
1876
04/03/1876: Crystal Palace, London Wilhelmine Gips, George E. Fox, Joseph Joachim, August Manns. First performance of Joachim’s orchestration of Schubert’s Grand Duo for piano, D812. Ref: AHRC
7/3/1876: Cambridge University Musical Society, Cambridge Concert including Haydn, String Quartet in G, op.76/1 and Schumann, Piano Quintet in E flat, op.44, given by J. Joachim, Rev. F. Hudson, Mr Burnett and Rev. T.P. Hudson. Also, Mr G.F. Cobb and F. Pownall (vocal) and C.V. Stanford (piano).
18/03/1876: Crystal Palace, London Thekla Friedländer, Annie Butterworth, Jospeh Joachim, August Manns. First performance in England of Rubinstein’s Ballet music and Wedding march from Feramors. Ref: AHRC
1877
03/02/1877: Crystal Palace, London Edward Lloyd, Crystal Palace Choir, Joseph Joachim, August Manns. Concert to mark the 30th anniversary of Mendelssohn’s death. Ref: AHRC
8/3/1877: Cambridge University Musical Society, Cambridge Concert in aid of Addenbrooke’s Hospital, including Brahms, Song of Destiny and Symphony in C minor, the latter receiving its first performance in England. Also, Beethoven, Violin Concerto (Joachim, violin) and the first performance of Joachim, Elegiac Overture in Commemoration of Kleist (composed especially for the concert) (with historical and analytical notes the Brahms symphony and the Joachim Overture and a historical note, by Stanford, on CUMS). Ref: CP
12/03/1877:St James’s Hall, London Monday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, Ludwig Straus, J. B. Zerbini, Alessandro Pezze, Alfredo Piatti, Sophie Löwe, Clara Schumann. Ref: AHRC
1878
27/2/1878: Cambridge University Musical Society, Cambridge Concert including Beethoven String Quartets op.95 and 130 (Messrs Joachim, Ries, Straus and Piatti) and a vocal quartet (‘Spring Time’) by the same composer (Rev. L. Borissow, Messrs C.A. Treherne, G.F. Cobb and A.H. Mann). Also, solo violin pieces by Joachim and Brahms (Joachim, violin), a duet for cello and piano by Schumann, and a glee by Spofforth (with historical and descriptive notes and advertisements for the Popular Concert series and for the Easter Term performances). Bound with program is an insert detailing the necessary replacement of certain performers, including Piatti by Mr Daubert. Ref: CP
28/12/1878: Berlin Viotti Concerto a minor, Joachim “Hungarian” concerto, op. 11. Ref: NZfM (2/1/1879)
1879
1/1/1879: Gewandhaus, Leipzig First Performance of Brahms violin concerto, Beethoven violin concerto, Brahms violin concerto, Bach chaconne. Ref: NZfM (17/1/1879).
8/1/1879: Budapest Johannes Brahms conducting, Johannes Brahms violin concerto. Ref: Wolfgang Ebert, “Johannes Brahms in Ungarn,” Studien zur Musikwissenschaft, vol. 37 (1986) p. 110. (With review)
18/2/1879: St James’s Hall, London Grand Orchestral and Vocal Concerts with Miss Emma Beasley (vocal) and Herr Joachim (violin), including the first English performance of Baron Orezy, Hungarian Ballet Music from the opera, The Renegade (conducted by the composer). Ref: AHRC
22/02/1879: Crystal Palace, London Joseph Joachim, Anne Marriott, Charles Santley, August Manns. First British performance of Brahms violin concerto. Ref: AHRC
8/3/1879: Joseph Joachim, Anne Marriott, Charles Santley, August Manns. First British performance of Brahms violin concerto. Ref: AHRC
13/3/1879: Cambridge University Musical Society, Cambridge Concert including Schumann, Quartet in A minor, op.41/1 and Beethoven Quartet in C sharp minor, op.131, with Messrs Joachim, Ries, Zerbini and Piatti. Also, violin solos by Viotti and Joachim/Brahms, a cello and piano duet by Schumann (op.102) and songs by Brahms and Stanford, given by Mr Herbert E. Thorndike (vocal) and C.V. Stanford (piano) (with historical and descriptive notes on the Beethoven quartet, by ‘E.S.T.’).
20/3/1879: St James’s Hall, London Philharmonic Society, W. G. Cusins, cond. Brahms violin concerto. Ref: Program (Schubertiade sale).
12-26/9/1879: Concert tour with Johannes Brahms through Transylvania. Brahms violin concerto, works of Spohr, Bach, Schumann, Gluck and Schubert; Romanze from Joachim Hungarian concerto, op. 11; Brahms Cappricios, op. 73; Beethoven Kreutzer sonata. Ref: Renate and Kurt Hofmann, p. 146.
13/9/1879: Piano salon Pirnitzer, Budapest Concert with Johannes Brahms.
15/9/1879: Timișoara Concert with Johannes Brahms.
19/9/1879: Kronstadt Concert with Johannes Brahms.
21/9/1879: Hermannstadt Concert with Johannes Brahms.
23/9/1879: Klausenburg Concert with Johannes Brahms.
26/12/1879-15/2/1880: Concertizing in Austria-Hungary. Ref: PT
1880
6/1/1880: Milan Joachim and Bonawitz (piano), Joachim Hungarian Concerto, Hungarian Dances. Ref: Musical Times (1 February, 1880), p. 85.
30/1/1880: Budapest Brahms violin concerto. Ref: Wolfgang Ebert, “Johannes Brahms in Ungarn,” Studien zur Musikwissenschaft, vol. 37 (1986) p. 111. (With review)
11/2/1880: Sophieninselsaal, Prague 5:00 p.m. Recital with Johannes Brahms; Spohr Gesangsscene, 2 Rhapsodies of Brahms (Brahms), Bach Chaconne, Brahms sonata (unspecified), Hiller Adagio, Spohr Barcarolle, Paganini Caprice, Brahms-Joachim “Dva uherské tauce.” Ref: Prager Tagblatt, 11 February 1880.
28/2/1880: Crystal Palace, London Spohr Concerto no. 12 in A, op. 79, Joachim Theme and Variations WoO in E minor first performance. August Manns, conductor. Ref: program, Crystal Palace, London, 28 February 1880
18/3/1880: St James’s Hall, London Philharmonic Society (W. G. Cusins, cond.), Brahms Violin Concerto. Ref: Morning Post (16 March, 1880), p. 1.
1881
22/2/1881: Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra cond. Max Bruch, Liverpool Bruch Scottish Fantasy Op.46 (UK premiere), Soloist Joseph Joachim Ref: Christopher Fifield: Max Bruch: His Life and Works
The Scottish Fantasy was dedicated to Sarasate. Bruch felt that Joachim played poorly, and wrote “He calls Sarasate a clown, and makes fun of our relationship. It was exactly Joachim’s untrustworthiness and partisanship which drove me directly into Sarasate’s arms. Sarasate cares about modern works, because he has respect for them … Joachim takes no interest in them (apart from Brahms’ works), and plays them half-heartedly, and with inadequate technique, doing them more harm than good.” Christopher Fifield, Max Bruch: His Life and Works (London: Victor Gollancz, 1988; repr. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2005), pp. 168–9.
7/2/1881: Cambridge University Musical Society (C. V. Stanford, cond.): Stanford “Elegiac” Symphony, Brahms violin concerto, Joachim violin variations e minor. Ref: Musical Times (1/4/1882); Bury and Norwich Post (14/3/1882).
10/3/1881: Cambridge University Musical Society Beethoven, String Quartet in F Major, op.35 and Brahms, String Quartet in A minor, op.51/2 (Messrs Joachim, Gompertz, Ludwig and Hausmann). Also, Beethoven, Violin Sonata in G Major, op.26, Schumann, Märchenbilder for Cello and Piano, op.113 and a violin solo by Brahms-Joachim. Stanford and Miss Arnold (piano) (Program with brief historical notes). Ref: CP
11/11/1881 Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, de Ahna, Wirth, Hausmann), 3. Abend; Schumann Quartet F Major, op. 40, Cherubini Quartet d minor, Beethoven Quartet C sharp minor, op. 131. Ref: JJC
14/11/1881: Cambridge University Musical Society Brahms, Piano Quartet in G minor, op.26 (Messrs Stanford, Gompertz, Donkin and Whitehouse) and Beethoven, Serenade, Trio for Violin, Viola and Violoncello, op.8. Also, violin solos by Joachim and Sarasate (Gompertz), a cello solo by Boccherini (Whitehouse) and songs by Pergolesi, Scarlatti, Parry and Stanford (Mr Thorndike). Ref: CP
26/11/1881Gewandhaus, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Mozart Sinfonia Concertante (Engelbert Röntgen, viola), Mendelssohn Violin Concerto. Ref: AMZ (30/11/1881) p. 766.
1882
7/2/1881: Cambridge University Musical Society (C. V. Stanford, cond.): Stanford “Elegiac” Symphony, Brahms violin concerto, Joachim violin variations e minor. Ref: Musical Times (1/4/1882); Bury and Norwich Post (14/3/1882).
23/2/1882: Hallé’s Concert, Manchester Brahms violin concerto, Joachim violin variations e minor. Ref: Musical Times (1/4/1882); London Standard (27/3/1882).
27/02/1882:St James’s Hall, London Monday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, Gustav Hollander, Alfredo Piatti, Agnes Zimmermann, Mr. Abercrombie. Ref: AHRC
7/3/1882: Cambridge University Musical Society, Cambridge Concert including the first public performance of C.V. Stanford, Symphony (MS) in D minor ‘Elegiac’. Also, Beethoven, Overture ‘Coriolanus’, Wagner, Siegfried Idyll and concertante music for violin by Brahms and Joachim (Joachim, violin) (with brief historical notes). Ref: CP
18/03/1882: Crystal Palace London Mrs Hutchinson, Miss Hope Glenn, Jospeh Joachim, August Manns. Brahms Violin Concerto, Joachim “Elegiac” Overture, op. 13. Ref: AHRC, Musical Times (1/4/1882):
4/2/1883: Seventh Concert of the Musikgesellschaft, Basel Mendelssohn a minor Symphony, Brahms Violin Concerto (first Swiss performance), Ouverture by Joachim (unspecified), Adagio by Viotti, Brahms-Joachim Hungarian Dances, Weber Freischütz Ouverture. Ref: Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, vol. 50, no. 7 (9 February, 1883). p. 79.
10/03/1883: Crystal Palace, London Joseph Joachim, Herr Krause, August Manns. Ref: AHRC
04/12/1882:St James’s Hall, London Monday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, Ludwig Straus, Alfredo Piatti, Carlotta Elliot, Dora Schirmacher, Adolf Pollizer, J. B. Zerbini, Mr,. Wiener, Alessandro Pezze. Ref: AHRC
1884
25/02/1884:St James’s Hall, London Monday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, Gustav Hollander, J. B. Zerbini, Alessandro Pezze, Alfredo Piatti, Agnes Zimmermann, Edith Santley. Ref: AHRC
03/03/1884:St James’s Hall, London Monday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, Gustav Hollander, Alfredo Piatti, Clara Schumann, Miss Badia. Ref: AHRC
15/3/1884: Crystal Palace, London Joachim, Manns (cond.), Mozart violin concerto in A Major, Joachim Variations for violin and orchestra. Ref: The South London Press, 22 March 1884: “This great Hungarian violinist introduced for the first time to an English audience a concerto by Mozart, in A Major, for violin and orchestra. The concerto was composed in 1775, at Salzburg, where Joachim discovered it some 25 years back, made a copy of it, and played it in Hanover. […] Herr Joachim later in the afternoon gave one of his compositions, ‘Variations for violin and orchestra,’ during which one of his violin strings broke, which accident was, however, soon remedied.”
22/03/1884: St James’s Hall, London Saturday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, Ludwig Straus, J. B. Zerbini, Alfredo Piatti, Clara Schumann, Raimund von Zur Mühlen. Ref: AHRC
13/12/1884: Gewandhaus, Leipzig Drittes Fest-Concert zur Einweihung des neuen Gewandhauses zu Leipzig Mozart, Concerto no. 5 in A Major; Spohr, Adagio from Concerto no. 6 (op. 28)
28/02/1885: Crystal Palace, London Harper Kearton, Joseph Joachim, Robert Heckmann, Alfred Eyre, Crystal Palace Choir, August Manns. Ref: AHRC
13/03/1885:Guildhall, Cambridge Cambridge University Musical Society. Joachim, “Hungarian” concerto; Bach, Prelude and Fugue in G minor; Beethoven Namensfeier Overture; Stanford, Elegaic Ode; Mozart, Symphony in D. Ref: Cambridge Chronicle and University Journal (6 March, 1885); CP
14/03/1885:St James’s Hall, London Saturday Popular Concerts. Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, Ludwig Straus, Alfredo Piatti, Edward Lloyd, Fanny Frickenhaus, Sidney Naylor, Charles Ould. Ref: AHRC
6/11/1885: Philharmonic Hall, Berlin Mendelssohn-Feier, Stern’scher Gesang-Verein (Rudorff), All-Mendelssohn Program: 114 Psalm, op. 51, Violin Concerto, op. 64 (Joachim), Die erste Walpurgisnacht, op. 60. Ref: JJC
1886
15/3/1886: St. James’s Hall, London Monday Popular Concerts. Joseph Joachim, Wilhelmine Norman-Neruda, Bach Concerto for Two Violins (accompanied on the piano by Miss Agnes Zimmermann); Mendelssohn Quintet in B flat for two Violins, two Violas, and Violoncello, Joachim, Norman-Neruda, Straus, Gibson, and Piatti. Ref: Program.
19/3/1886: Cambridge University Musical Society Concert including Beethoven Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, given by J. Joachim (with historical and analytical notes by George Grove. Ref: CP
22/3/1886: St. James’s Hall, London Monday Popular Concerts. Joachim, Ries, Straus, and Piatti, Beethoven Quartet in C sharp Minor, O. 132; Bach Chaconne; Beethoven Trio in G Major, Fanny Davies, Joachim, Piatti. Ref: Program.
1887
16/2/1887: St. James’s Hall, London, London Symphony Concerts. Brahms violin concerto, Beethoven Romanze in F. Ref: The Graphic (5 March, 1887), p. 238; London Standard (16 February, 1887), p. 2.
24/2/1887: St. James’s Hall, London London Symphony Concerts. Brahms violin concerto, Beethoven Romanze in F. Ref: Morning Post (23 February, 1887) p. 1.
19/03/1887: Crystal Palace, London Adelaide Mullen, Joseph Joachim, August Manns. First performance in England of Widor’s Symphony no. 2 in A, op. 54. Ref: AHRC
1/11/1887: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, de Ahna, Wirth, Hausmann), 2. Abend; Schumann Quartet a minor, op. 41, Bargiel Quartet E flat Major, op. 74, Beethoven Quartet E flat Major, op. 74. Ref: JJC
15/11/1887: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Recital with Fanny Davies. Beethoven Sonata in E-flat, Bach Chaconne, Brahms Sonata in A Major. Ref: Program.
1888
15/02/1888: London George Henschel, Joseph Bennett, Joseph Joachim, Robert Hausmann. Henschel’s London symphony Concerts, Programme notes by Joseph Bennett. First performance in England of Brahms double concerto. Programme belonging to E. L. Jenkinson. Ref: AHRC
5/3/1888: Crystal Palace, London London Standard review of Crystal Palace Saturday Concerts Bach Concerto for Two Violins (with Geraldine Morgan), Brahms violin concerto. “Dr. Joachim rendered the performance of Brahms’ Concerto for Violin and Orchestra incomparably beautiful, and the applause at its close was tumultuous. This is the third time Dr. Joachim has played this concerto here, the first being in February, 1879, and the second in March, 1882.” Ref: London Standard (5 March, 1888). [Joachim also played a Sarabande and Bourée by Bach] Review
23-25/6/1888: Stuttgart Musikfest Brahms Violin Concerto in D Major, op. 77. Ref: SB 2/2, p. 1340 n. 4.
26/11/1888: Berlin, Berlin Philharmonic Hans von Bülow, cond. Joachim Violin Concerto No. 3, Schumann Fantasie, op. 131.
1889
23/1/1889: Große Saal, Berlin Berlin Philharmonic, Woldemar Bargiel, cond. Concert of Clara Schumann and Joseph Joachim. This was the last time Joachim and Clara Schumann appeared together. For the preparations, see: SB 2/2 p. 1361 ff. Program: Schumann Fantasy, Joachim Hungarian Concerto (Clara Schumann played Chopin, Concerto No. 2 in F Minor). Ref: ALP
Rudolfinum, Prague
29/1/1889: Rudolfinum, Prague Recital with Carl Heinrich Barth, piano.
11/2/1889: Grosser Musikvereinssaal, Vienna K.k. Hofopernorchester, Hans Richter, cond., Beethoven violin concerto, Spohr Adagio, Schumann Abendlied (orch. Joachim), Brahms violin concerto. Ref: Program RWE
22/2/1889: Grosser Musikvereinssaal, Vienna Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Hans Richter, cond., Joseph Joachim “Hungarian” Violin Concerto, Hugo Reinhold Intermezzo scherzoso für Orchester, Robert Schumann Fantasie für Violine, op. 131, Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy Concerto for Violin in E minor, op. 64. Ref: VPO
19/3/1889 Cambridge University Musical Society Program and wordbook for various solo and ensemble vocal pieces sung during a dinner held by the Cambridge University Musical Society in honor of Dr Joachim. The program includes a seating plan listing all those in attendance, including George Grove and C.V. Stanford. Ref: CP
1890
22/02/1890:St James’s Hall: Saturday popular concerts Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, Ludwig Straus, Alfredo Piatti, Lilian Henschel, Agnes Zimmermann. Ref: AHRC
08/03/1890:St James’s Hall, London Saturday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, Ludwig Straus, Alfredo Piatti, Reginald Groome, Caroline Geisler-Schubert, Mary Carmichael. Ref: AHRC
15/3/1890: Crystal Palace, London 15 March: Miss Alice Whitacre (vocal), Joseph Joachim (violin) and Ernest Gillet (cello) Brahms Concerto for Violin and Violoncello, Bach Chaconne. Ref: AHRC, STRAD
26/3/1890: Kinnaird Hall, Dundee Joachim, Piatti, Davies, Spohr Adagio in e minor from the 11th concerto, two Brahms/Joachim Hungarian Dances. Ref: Dundee Advertiser (17 March, 1890), p. 5.
Joseph Joachim, Heinrich de Ahna, Emanuel Wirth, Robert Hausmann
Royal Academy of Music, Museum & Collections, 2004.1969, bequeathed by Norman McCann, 1999.
1891
10/01/1891: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, de Ahna, Wirth, Hausmann), 1. Abend (II Cyclus); Beethoven Quartet A Major, op. 18, Beethoven Quartet F Minor, op. 95, Beethoven Quartet C Sharp Minor, op. 131. Ref: Program
09/02/1891:St James’s Hall, London Monday popular concerts. Fanny Davies, Joseph Joachim, Franz Friedrich Paersch, Bertha Moore, Ludwig Straus, Julian Egerton, William Wotton, Mr. Reynolds. Ref: AHRC
14/02/1891:St James’s Hall, London Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, Ludwig Straus, Alfred Gibson, Alfredo Piatti, Orlando Harley, Max Pauer, Oliver King. Ref: AHRC
21/02/1891:St James’s Hall, London Saturday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, Ludwig Straus, Alfred Gibson, W. E. Whitehouse, Alfredo Piatti. Braxton Smith, Agnes Zimmermann. Saturday popular concerts. Ref: AHRC
07/03/1891:St James’s Hall, London Saturday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, Ludwig Straus, Alfred Gibson, Alfredo Piatti, Charles Santley, Fanny Davies, Sideny Naylor. Ref: AHRC
6/10 – 9/10/1891: Prospectus for 1891 Birmingham Musical Festival at the Town Hall. Performers: Emma Albani, Anna Williams, Edward Lloyd, Charles Santley, Mr Brereton, Mrs Brereton, Miss Macintyre, Hilda Wilson, Madame Hope Glenn, Iver McKay, Watkin Mills, George Henschel, Joseph Joachim, Hans Richter. Ref: AHRC
14/10/1891: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, de Ahna, Wirth, Hausmann), 1. Abend (I Cyclus); Haydn Quartet B Major (49 in the Peters Edition), Mozart Quartet D Major, No. 10, Beethoven Quartet E flat Major, op. 127. Ref: JJC
28/10/1891: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, de Ahna, Wirth, Hausmann), 2. Abend (I Cyclus); Bargiel Quartet d minor, op. 47, Schubert Quartet a minor, op. 29, Beethoven Quartet C Major, op. 59. Ref: JJC
9/11/1891: Berlin Concert Direction Hermann Wolf: REF
5/12/1891: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Mozart-Feier, Concert celebrating the 100th anniversary of Mozart’s Death, for the benefit of a monument for Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven in Berlin, Mozart Violin Concerto A Major. Ref: JJC
12/12/1891: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Richard Mühlfeld, Joachim Quartet (Joachim, de Ahna, Wirth, Hausmann), 3. Abend (I Cyclus); Brahms Trio a minor for Piano, Clarinet and Violoncello (Mscrpt.), Mozart Quartet G Major, Brahms Quintet B minor for Clarinet, two violins, viola and violoncello (Mscrpt.). Ref: JJC
29/12/1981: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, de Ahna, Wirth, Hausmann), 4. Abend (I Cyclus); All Beethoven Program, Quartet F major, op. 18, Quartet E flat Major, op 74, Quartet A Minor, op 132. Ref: JJC
1892
3/2/1892: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, de Ahna, Wirth, Hausmann), 2. Abend (II Cyclus); Haydn Quartet D Major, op. 50 (No. 27 in the Peters Edition), Cherubini Quartet D Minor, Beethoven Quartet E Minor, op. 59, no. 2. Ref: JJC
16/2/1892: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, de Ahna, Wirth, Hausmann), 3. Abend (II Cyclus); Herzogenberg Quartet G Major, op. 42, Beethoven Quartet F Minor, op. 95, Schubert Quartet D Minor. Ref: JJC
12/3/1892: Crystal Palace, London Madame Hope Glenn (vocal) and Joseph Joachim. Ref: AHRC
24/5/1892: Hoftheater, Weimar:
15/10/1892: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Kruse (for the ill de Ahna), Wirth, Hausmann), 1. Abend (I Cyclus); Haydn Quartet E flat Major, op. 64, Mozart Quartet D Minor, Beethoven Quartet B Major, op. 130. Ref: JJC
29/10/1892: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, de Ahna, Wirth, Hausmann), Bram Eldering, 2nd viola, 2. Abend (I Cyclus); Beethoven Quartet B Major, op. 18, Herzogenberg Quintet C Minor, op. 77, Schumann Quartet A Major, op. 41. Ref: JJC
14/12/1892: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Kruse, Wirth, Hausmann), H. Dechert, 2nd violoncello, 3. Abend (I Cyclus); Mendelssohn Quartet E flat Major, op. 12, Haydn Quartet B Minor, Schubert Quintet C Major, op. 163. “Zur Erinnerung an Heinrich de Ahna, gest. am 1. November 1892” Ref: JJC
29/12/1892: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Kruse, Wirth, Hausmann), 4. Abend (I Cyclus); Prinz Reuss Quartet F Major, Mozart Quartet D Major, no. 7, Beethoven Quartet E flat Major, op. 127. Ref: JJC
1893
1/1/1893: Gewandhaus, Leipzig Mozart A major Concerto; Schumann Gartenmelodie, Gade Caprice in A Minor (Reinecke ed.), Bach, Bourée and Double from the solo sonata in B Minor. Ref: Signale
14/1/1893: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Kruse, Wirth, Hausmann), 1. Abend (II Cyclus); All Beethoven Program: Quartet A Major, op. 18, Quartet F Minor, op. 95, Quartet C sharp Minor, op. 131. Ref: JJC
28/1/1893: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Kruse, Wirth, Hausmann), Bram Eldering, 2nd viola, 2. Abend (II Cyclus); Haydn Quartet D Minor, op. 76, Mozart Divertimento E flat Major for Violin, Viola and Violoncello, Brahms Quintet G Major, op. 111. Ref: JJC
9/2/1893: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Kruse, Wirth, Hausmann), 3. Abend (II Cyclus); Cherubini Quartet E flat Major, Schumann Quartet A Minor, op. 41, Beethoven Quartet E flat Major, op 74. Ref: JJC
12/4/1893: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Kruse, Wirth, Hausmann), 4. Abend (II Cyclus); Mozart Quartet B Major, no. 9, d’Albert Quartet II E flat Major, op. 11 (neu), Beethoven Quartet E Minor, op. 59, no. 2. Ref: JJC
14/10/1893: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Kruse, Wirth, Hausmann), Bram Eldering, 2nd viola, 1. Abend (I Cyclus); Haydn Quartet F Major, op. 77, Beethoven Quartet F Minor, op. 95, Mozart Quintet G Minor. Ref: JJC
1894
31/1/1894: Scottish Orchestra Company, Popular Orchestral Concerts Beethoven violin concerto. Ref: AHRC , Dundee Evening Telegraph (1/2/1894).
14/4/1894:
13/10/1894: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Kruse, Wirth, Hausmann), 1. Abend (I Cyclus); Haydn Quartet C Major, Mozart Quartet G Major, Beethoven Quartet E Minor, op. 59, no. 2. Ref: JJC
27/10/1894: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Kruse, Wirth, Hausmann), 2. Abend (I Cyclus); Beethoven Quartet C Minor, op. 18, Brahms Quartet B Major, op. 67, Schubert Quartet C Major, op. 163, Ref: JJC
13/12/1894: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Kruse, Wirth, Hausmann), Schrattenholz, 2nd violoncello, 3. Abend (I Cyclus); Klughardt Quintet for 2 violins, viola and 2 violoncelli G Minor, op. 62 (neu), Mozart Quartet E flat Major, Brahms Sextet B Major, op. 18. Ref: JJC
14/12/1894: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Gedächtnisfeier für Hermann von Helmholtz / Memorial Concert for Hermann von Helmholtz, Schumann Abendlied. Ref: JJC
28/12/1894: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Kruse, Wirth, Hausmann), 1. Abend (II Cyclus); All-Beethoven Program: Quartet A Major, op. 18, Quartet C Major, op. 59, Quartet A Minor, op. 132. Ref: JJC
1895
12/1/1895: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Kruse, Wirth, Hausmann), 2. Abend (II Cyclus); Haydn Quartet G Major, op. 77, Dvorák Quartet E flat Major, op. 51, Beethoven Quartet F Minor, op. 95. Ref: JJC
24/1/1895: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Kruse, Wirth, Hausmann), Andreas Moser, 2nd viola, 3. Abend (II Cyclus); Mozart Quintet D Major, Cherubini Quartet E flat Major, Brahms Quintet G Major, op. 111. Ref: JJC
30/03/1895: Crystal Palace, London Agnes Janson, Joseph Joachim, Emily Shinner, Sir Arthur Sullivan. Ref: AHRC
27/4/1895: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Kruse, Wirth, Hausmann), 4. Abend (II Cyclus); Haydn Quartet C Major, op. 54, no. 2, Mozart Quartet F Major, Beethoven Quartet C sharp Minor, op. 131. Ref: JJC
12/10/1895: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Kruse, Wirth, Hausmann), 1. Abend (I Cyclus); Haydn Quartet G Major, Mozart Quartet A Major, Beethoven Quartet B Major, op. 130. Ref: JJC
26/10/1895: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Kruse, Wirth, Hausmann), 2. Abend (I Cyclus); Mozart Quartet D Minor, Dvorák Quartet C Major, op 61, Beethoven Quartet E flat Major, op. 127. Ref: JJC
11/12/1895: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Kruse, Wirth, Hausmann), Dechert, 2nd violoncello, 3. Abend (I Cyclus); Haydn Quartet F Major (no. 14 in the Peters Edition), Brahms Quartet A Minor, op. 51, Schubert Quintet C Major, op. 163. Ref: JJC
28/12/1895: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Halir (for Kruse), Wirth, Hausmann), 4. Abend (I Cyclus); All-Beethoven Program: Quartet E-flat Major, op. 74, Quartet G Major, op. 18, Quartet C sharp Minor, op. 131. Ref: JJC
11/1/1896: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Kruse, Wirth, Hausmann), Moser, 2nd viola, Dechert, 2nd violoncello, 1. Abend (II Cyclus); Mozart Quartet D Major, no. 10, Brahms Sextet G Major, op. 36, Beethoven Quartet E Minor, op. 59. Ref: JJC
22/1/1896: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Kruse, Wirth, Hausmann), 2. Abend (II Cyclus); Haydn Quartet B Major, op. 76, H. von Herzogenberg Quartet F Minor, op. 63, Beethoven Quintet C Major, op. 29 (Andreas Moser, 2nd viola). Ref: JJC
1/2/1896: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Kruse, Wirth, Hausmann), 3. Abend (II Cyclus); Mendelssohn Quartet e minor, op. 44, no. 2, Beethoven Quartet A Major, op. 18, Schubert Quartet D Minor. Ref: JJC
07/03/1896: St James’s Hall, London Saturday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Louis Ries, George A. Clinton, Paul Ludwig, Ada Crossley, Gospodin Sapellnikoff, Henry Bird. Ref: AHRC
15/4/1896: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Kruse, Wirth, Hausmann), 4. Abend (II Cyclus); Haydn Quartet B Minor, no. 32 in Peters Edition, Mozart Quartet B Major, no. 9, Beethoven Quartet A Minor, op. 132. Ref: JJC
7/5/1896: Philharmonic Hall, Berlin Jubelfeier des 200jährigen Bestehens, Königliche Akademie der Künste zu Berlin. Spitta/Bruch Moses, op. 67 (Joachim, cond.). Ref: JJC
10/10/1896: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Kruse, Wirth, Hausmann), 1. Abend (I Cyclus); Haydn Quartet B Major, op. 64, Mozart Quartet E flat Major, Beethoven Quartet F Major, op. 59. Ref: JJC
28/10/1896: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Kruse, Wirth, Hausmann), 2. Abend (I Cyclus); Beethoven Quartet B Major, op. 18, Schubert Quartet G Major, op. 161, Brahms Quintet F Major, op. 88 (Andreas Moser, 2nd viola). Ref: JJC
13/12/1896: Saale des Saalbaues, Frankfurt
1897
24/1/1897: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Kruse, Wirth, Hausmann), 1. Abend (II Cyclus); All-Beethoven Concert: Quartet D Major, op. 18, Quartet f minor, op. 95, Quartet F Major, op. 135. Ref: JJC
2/2/1897: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Kruse, Wirth, Hausmann), 2. Abend (II Cyclus); Haydn Quartet B Major, op. 71, no. 1, Brahms Quartet A Minor, op. 51, Schubert Quartet D Minor. Ref: JJC
17/2/1897: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Kruse, Wirth, Hausmann), 3. Abend (II Cyclus); Mendelssohn Quartet E flat Major, op. 12, Beethoven Quartet A Minor, op. 132, Mozart Quintet G Minor (Andreas Moser, 2nd viola). Ref: JJC
22/4/1897: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Kruse, Wirth, Hausmann), 4. Abend (II Cyclus); Johannes Brahms zum Gedächtniss/Johannes Brahms Memorial Concert: Quartet C Minor, op. 51, Sextet B Major, op. 18, Quintet G Major, op. 111 (Andreas Moser, 2nd viola; Hugo Dechert, 2nd violoncello). Ref: JJC
16/10/1897: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Halir, Wirth, Hausmann), 1. Abend (I Cyclus); Haydn Quartet C Major, Mozart Quartet D Minor, Beethoven Quartet C sharp Minor, op. 131. Ref: JJC
31/10/1897: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Halir, Wirth, Hausmann), 2. Abend (I Cyclus); Schumann Quartet F Major, op. 41, Stanford Quartet D Minor, op. 64, Beethoven Quartet E Minor, op. 59. Ref: JJC
24/11/1897: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Halir, Wirth, Hausmann), 3. Abend (I Cyclus); Haydn Quartet G Minor, op. 74, Brahms Quartet B Major, op. 67 (“Herrn Prof. Engelmann gewidmet”), Beethoven Quartet E flat Major, op. 74. Ref: JJC
8/12/1897: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Halir, Wirth, Hausmann), 4. Abend (I Cyclus); Mozart Quartet G Major, Mendelssohn Quintet B Major, op. 87 (Andreas Moser, 2nd viola), Beethoven Quartet E flat Major, op. 127. Ref: JJC
21/03/1898:St James’s Hall, London Saturday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Johann Secundus Kruse, Emanuel Wirth, Robert Hausmann, Beatrice Spencer, Henry Bird. Ref: AHRC
28/03/1898:St James’s Hall, London Monday popular concerts. Joseph Joachim, Johann Secundus Kruse, Emanuel Wirth, Robert Hausmann, Lilian Henschel, Henry Bird, Ref: AHRC
1899
28/2/1899Town Hall, Birmingham Mr. Halford’s Orchestral Concerts. Ref: AHRC
1901
25/4 – 10/5 1901: Joseph Joachim, Carl Halir, Emmanuel Wirth, Robert Hausmann. Handbill for Joachim Quartet concerts 1901. Ref: AHRC
27/04/1901: Joseph Joachim, Carl Halir, Emmanuel Wirth, Robert Hausmann, Alfred Hobday, Percy Such. Second Joachim Quartet concert. Ref: AHRC
4/5/1901:Queen’s Hall (afternoon), London Harold Bauer (piano, first appearance at Queen’s Hall) and Dr. Joachim (violin), conducted by Henry J. Wood. Ref: AHRC, AHRC(2)
9/5 – 23/5 1901: Donald Francis Tovey. Handbill for three recitals. Ref: AHRC
1902
26/4 – 15/5 1902: Joseph Joachim, Carl Halir, Emmanuel Wirth, Robert Hausmann, Handbill for Joachim Quartet concerts 1902. Ref: AHRC
26/04/1902: Joseph Joachim, Carl Halir, Emmanuel Wirth, Robert Hausmann. First Joachim Quartet concert 1902. Ref: AHRC
28/04/1902: Joseph Joachim, Carl Halir, Emmanuel Wirth, Robert Hausmann. Second Joachim Quartet concert 1902. Ref: AHRC
08/05/1902: Joseph Joachim, Carl Halir, Emmanuel Wirth, Robert Hausmann, Alfred Gibson. Fifth Joachim Quartet concert 1902. Ref: AHRC
03/11/1902: Konzertsaal der Hochschule für Musik, Berlin G. F. Handel, Messiah, Joseph Joachim, conductor. Ref: Chronik der Königlichen Akademie der Künste (1903), 53.
25/4 – 14/5 1903:St. James’s Hall, London Joseph Joachim, Carl Halir, Emmanuel Wirth, Robert Hausmann. Handbill for Joachim Quartet concerts 1903. Ref: AHRC
1/5/1903
5-14/5/1903
17/5 – 21/5 1903:Beethoven Chamber Music Festival, Bonn.
23/4 – 12/5 1904: Joseph Joachim, Carl Halir, Emmanuel Wirth, Robert Hausmann. Handbill for Joachim Quartet concerts 1904. Ref: AHRC
25/04/1904: Joseph Joachim, Carl Halir, Emmanuel Wirth, Robert Hausmann. Second Joachim Quartet concert 1904. Ref: AHRC
02/05/1904: Joseph Joachim, Carl Halir, Emmanuel Wirth, Robert Hausmann. Fourth Joachim Quartet concert 1904. Ref: AHRC
09/05/1904: Joseph Joachim, Carl Halir, Emmanuel Wirth, Robert Hausmann. Sixth Joachim Quartet concert 1904. Ref: AHRC
13/10/1904: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Halir, Wirth, Hausmann), 1. Abend (I Cyclus); Mozart Quartet B Major, no. 3, Haydn Quartet F Minor(Peters no. 47), Beethoven Quartet B Major, op. 130. Ref: JJC
24/11/1904: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Halir, Wirth, Hausmann), 3. Abend (I Cyclus); Haydn Quartet C Major, op. 54, no. 2, Brahms Quartet B Major, op. 67, Beethoven Quartet E Minor, op. 59, no. 2. Ref: JJC
29/12/1904: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Halir, Wirth, Hausmann), 4. Abend (I Cyclus); Schubert Quartet A Minor, op. 29, Beethoven Quartet B Major, op. 18, no. 6, Brahms Quintet no. 2 G Major, op. 111 (Andreas Moser, 2nd viola). Ref: JJC
1905
12/1/1905: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Halir, Wirth, Hausmann), 1. Abend (II Cyclus); All-Beethoven Program: Quartet A Major, op. 18, no. 5, Quartet F Minor, op. 95, Quartet E flat Major, op. 127. Ref: JJC
28/2/1905: (Berlin Cathedral) Geistliches Konzert für die Frauenhilfe, Emmy Dessin, Marie Götze, Joseph Joachim, Kawerau and H. Prüfer (conds.), Königl. Hof- und Domchor, members of the Königl. Kapelle and Königl. Hochschule für Musik. Joachim: J. S. Bach Concerto A Minor, Beethoven Romanze G Major, op. 40. Ref: JJC
2/3/1905: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Halir, Wirth, Hausmann), 3. Abend (II Cyclus); Haydn Quartet B Major, op. 76, L. 2, Mendelssohn Quartet E Minor, op. 44, Beethoven Quartet A Minor, op. 132. Ref: JJC
6/4/1905: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Halir, Wirth, Hausmann), 4. Abend (II Cyclus); Beethoven Quartet C Minor, op. 18, no. 4, Mozart Quintet E flat Major, Brahms Sextet no. 2, G Major, op. 36 (Andreas Moser, 2nd viola; Hugo Dechert, 2nd violoncello) Ref: JJC
10/4/1905: Philharmonic Hall, Berlin Concert zum Besten des Pensionsfonds des Berliner Philharmonischen Orchesters, (Nikisch, cond.), All-Beethoven Concert: Leonore Overture no. 2, Triple Concerto, op. 56 (Joachim, Hausmann, Georg Schumann), Symphony no. 3 in E flat Major, op. 55 (Eroica). Ref: JJC
12/10/1905: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Halir, Wirth, Hausmann), 1. Abend (I Cyclus); Haydn Quartet G Major, op. 17, Mozart Quartet D Minor, Beethoven Quartet E flat Major, op. 74. Ref: JJC
9/11/1905: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Halir, Wirth, Hausmann), 2. Abend (I Cyclus); Haydn Quartet G Minor, op. 74, no. 3, Brahms Quartet A Minor, op. 51, no. 2, Beethoven Quintet C Major, op. 29 (Andreas Moser, 2nd viola). Ref: JJC
30/11/1905: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Halir, Wirth, Hausmann), 3. Abend (I Cyclus); Schumann Quartet A Major, op. 41, no. 3, Mozart Quartet B Major (Peters No. 9), Beethoven Quartet C sharp Minor, op. 131. Ref: JJC
28/12/1905: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Halir, Wirth, Hausmann), 4. Abend (I Cyclus); Beethoven Quartet D Major, op. 18, no. 3, Brahms Quartet C Minor, op. 51, no. 1, Schubert Quintet C Major, op. 163 (Hugo Dechert, 2nd violoncello). Ref: JJC
1906
1/2/1906: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Halir, Wirth, Hausmann), 2. Abend (II Cyclus); All-Mozart Program: Quartet A Major, Trio (Divertimento) E flat Major, Quintet C Major (Andreas Moser, 2nd viola). Ref: JJC
1/3/1906: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Halir, Wirth, Hausmann), 3. Abend (II Cyclus); Haydn, Quartet F Major, op. 77, no. 2, Cherubini Quartet no. 1, D Minor, Schubert Quartet G Major, op. 161. Ref: JJC
15/3/1906: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Halir, Wirth, Hausmann), 4. Abend (II Cyclus); All-Brahms Program: Quartet no. 3, B Major, op. 67, Quintet no. 1, F Major, op. 88, Sextet no. 1, B Major, op. 18 (Andreas Moser, 2nd viola; Hugo Dechert, 2nd violoncello). Ref: JJC
3/5/1906:
7/5/1906:
10/5/1906: Bechstein Hall, London Joachim, Borwick, Sonatas of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms. Ref: The Times, London, 5 May, 1906.
12/5/1906:
14/5/1906: Bechstein Hall, London Joachim, Davies, Hausman, Trios of Beethoven and Brahms. Ref: The Times, London, 5 May, 1906.
11/10/1906: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Halir, Karl Klingler substituting for Wirth, Hausmann), 1. Abend (I Cyclus); Haydn Quartet C Major, op. 74, no. 1 (Peters no. 28), Mozart Quartet D Major, no. 24 (KV 499), Beethoven Quartet E flat Major, op. 127. Ref: JJC
13/10/1906: Sing-Akademie, Berlin All-Bach Program for the benefit of the Bach Birth-house in Eisenach, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra (Georg Schumann, cond.), Jeannette Grumbacher – de Jong, Frieda Kwast – Hodapp, Joseph Joachim, Carl Halir, Bruno Hinze-Reinhold, August Scharrer; Bach Double Violiin Concerto (Joachim, Halir). Ref: JJC
8/11/1906: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Halir, Karl Klingler substituting for Wirth, Hausmann), 2. Abend (I Cyclus); Schubert Quartet A Minor, op. 29, Beethoven Quartet F Major, op. 18, no.1, Schumann Quartet A Minor, op. 41, no. 1. Ref: JJC
13/12/1906: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Halir, Karl Klingler substituting for Wirth, Hausmann), 3. Abend (I Cyclus); Mendelssohn Quartet E flat Major, op. 12, no. 2, Brahms Quartet A Minor, op. 51, no. 2, Beethoven Quartet F Major, op. 59., no. 1. Ref: JJC
1907
Photo: Elliott and Frye
10/1/1907: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Halir, Karl Klingler substituting for Wirth, Hausmann), 1. Abend (II Cyclus); All-Beethoven Concert: Quartet A Major, op. 18, no. 5, Quartet F Major, op. 135, Quartet op. 59, no. 3. Ref: JJC
31/1/1907: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Halir, Karl Klingler substituting for Wirth, Hausmann), 2. Abend (II Cyclus); Haydn Quartet G Major, op. 64, no. 4 (Peters no. 34), Beethoven Quartet B Major, op. 18, no. 6, Schubert Quintet C Major, op. 163 (Hugo Dechert, 2nd violoncello). Ref: JJC
28/2/1907: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Halir, Karl Klingler substituting for Wirth, Hausmann), 3. Abend (II Cyclus); Mozart Quartet B Major (“Hunt”), Schumann Quartet F Major, op. 41, no. 2, Brahms Quintet G Major, op. 111, no. 2 (Andreas Moser, 2nd viola). Ref: JJC
7/3/1907: Bösendorfer Saal, Vienna Third Joachim Chamber Music Soiree, Joachim Quartet. Beethoven, String Quartet in C Minor, Op. 18, No.4, G Major, Op. 18, No. 2, F minor, Op. 95, F major, Op. 135. Ref: Schenker
8/3/1907: Bösendorfer Saal, Vienna Fourth Joachim Chamber Music Soiree, Joachim Quartet. Beethoven String Quartet in B flat Major, Op. 18, No. 6, F Major, Op. 59, No. 1, A Minor, Op. 132. Ref: Schenker
9/3/1907: Bösendorfer Saal, Vienna Fifth Joachim Chamber Music Soiree, Joachim Quartet. Beethoven, String Quartet in A Minor, Op. 18, No. 5, E flat Major, Op. 74 (“Harp”), C# Minor, Op. 131. Ref: Schenker
6/4/1907: Sing-Akademie, Berlin Joachim Quartet (Joachim, Halir, Wirth, Hausmann), 4. Abend (II Cyclus); Haydn Quartet E flat Major, op. 64, no. 6, Beethoven Quartet D Major, op. 18, no. 3, Schubert Quartet D Minor, op. posth. (“Death and the Maiden”). Ref: JJC
New-York Tribune, 7 May, 1899, Illustrated Supplement
JOACHIM’S JUBILEE.
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HOW THE SIXTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF
THE GREAT VIOLINIST’S FIRST AP-
PEARANCE WAS CELEBRATED
IN BERLIN.
Berlin, April 28.
The great hall of the Philharmonie was filled to overflowing on Saturday night, April 23, for the celebration of the jubilee of Joseph Joachim, who sixty years ago, a little boy, eight years old, made his first public appearance as a virtuoso in Budapest, and began the career which has made him the master violinist of Germany, and in the opinion of many of the whole world. Bach, Schumann, Mendelssohn, and the entire “noble army” of musicians, who as cameo reliefs on the pale green wall keep watch over the splendid hall, looked down on one of the most brilliant assemblies of famous men and women ever gathered together in Berlin to honor a man great “by the grace of God.” Musicians, artists, men of letters and learning, high officers and Ministers of State, with countless orders gleaming on their breasts, crowded the parquet, the boxes and the gallery to bear witness to the esteem in which they held Germany’s “grand old man.”
He sat there among them in the centre of the hall, in his big chair of honor, decorated with gorgeous azaleas, smiling on them all, pleased as a child and modest as only a great man can be. Only a few minutes before every one of those thousands of men and women, from the highest dignitary to the humblest music student at the far corners of the hall, had risen and cheered at his entrance, while the trumpets of three of the finest regiments in Berlin sounded a fanfare of welcome. How simple he was, as he came in, accompanied by a few devoted men, stopping to shake hands with a friend in the box above him, or laying his hand affectionately on the shoulder of an old colleague as he passed him on his way down the aisle! The shouts of the people and the blare of the trumpets did not for one moment distract his attention from the familiar faces that beamed on him from all sides.
Indeed, they were all familiar faces. Robert von Mendelssohn, the banker and ‘cellist, descendant of the great Felix, and Joachim’s friend for many years, sat in the chair to his right. Across the passage to his left was the beloved old professor, Hermann Grimm, who had composed the prologue for the occasion, and coming toward him to welcome him was his friend and neighbor, Herr von Keudell. In the orchestra, every member of which was standing and waving his or her handkerchief, stood Wirth and Hausmann, Halir, and Moser and Markees, the two capable instigators and managers of the festival, and, besides these, old friends and pupils from all over the world, gray-haired men, middle-aged men, boys and girls, and no one could make noise enough. When the trumpets had ceased and the vast audience was seated, Fraulein Poppe, of the Royal Theatre, came to the front of the stage and recited the anniversary poem which Professor Grimm had written. It was a touching tribute, which grew in eloquence and feeling up to the last words, which were addressed to the orchestra, and as one exquisite mellow voice 144 stringed instruments responded with the opening strains of the overture to Weber’s “Euryanthe.” If ever an orchestra was inspired, that one was! No one who was not there can realize how perfectly the love and devotion to Joachim which every performer felt were breathed into that beautiful music. The audience sat spellbound. And no wonder, for such a collection of artists never played together before. Every city in Germany which could boast of a violin virtuoso sent him to play on this unique occasion, and not only Germany, but England, whose devotion to the great master is almost, if not quite, as great as that of his own country, sent the best two professors of the London Conservatory to represent her. Scattered among the older men were a few young ones, present pupils of Joachim, and about a dozen young girls in their light dresses, some of them with their hair still hanging in braids down their backs—German, English, American.
After the Joachim Variations, played by Petri, of Dresden, and after the overtures of Schumann and Mendelssohn, the “Genoveva” and “Midsummer Night’s Dream” and the Brahms Symphony in C Minor, there were three stars on the Programme. “What did they mean?” Every one looked at every one else and nobody knew, but a surprise was evidently in store. Then a note from some one on the stage was carried to Joachim, and at the same moment the whole orchestra rose and began to croon softly the first measures of the Beethoven Concerto. Then all understood and cheered and clapped, but the master himself was of a different mind. He could be seen expostulating and gesticulating and shaking his head and sitting down, only to get up again to expostulate further. But the orchestra never stopped; the soft music went on insistently—it would not be denied. The people behind the boxes, standing on tables and chairs, leaned forward, not to lose a sight or sound. “They’re bringing his violin,” the whisper ran through the excited crowd; and, sure enough, there came three girls, a deputation of his favorite pupils, down the aisle toward him, holding out his wonderful Stradivarius.
When he took it in his hand the music suddenly ceased, and every drum and horn and fiddle began to pound and toot and shriek in a most enthusiastic “Tusch.” When he had taken his stand, the noble old man turned to the audience in a modest, deprecating way and said: “I haven’t practiced for three days and my hands ache. I have clapped so hard. There are many men in this orchestra who can play this better than I can, but if you really wish me to, I’ll do my best.” A pinfall could have been heard when he began. Every one sat breathless, expectant, and no one was disappointed. If another man in the world could have played better, no one in the audience would have conceded as much, for to a German a false note by Joachim, the “violin king,” is more inspired than the most perfect note of any other violinist living.
When he was through and had returned to his comfortable chair, they made him come back again and again and bow and bow, and were not satisfied until he took the baton in his hand and himself conducted the last number on the programme, the Bach Concerto in G Major. It was written for three violins, three violas, three ‘cellos and basso continuo, but was played by sixty-six violins, the number of the other instruments being increased in proportion. The whole orchestra remained standing throughout in honor of the director, and he deserved it, for Bach, in Joachim’s hands, has beauties which the most stubborn Philistine must feel.
The public had been requested to depart immediately after the close of the concert, that the room might be cleared for the banquet that was to be held there in honor of the hero of the evening, so the rank and file went early, leaving the more fortunate to enjoy the speeches and reminiscences of bygone times.
N. B.: Obituaries are posted for historical interest only, and should not be taken as sources of accurate biographical information.
JOSEPH JOACHIM DEAD.
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Celebrated Violinist Passes Away in Berlin.
Berlin, Aug. 15.—Joseph Joachim, the celebrated violinist, conductor of the Royal Academy of Music, Berlin, and music director of the Royal Academy of Arts, died at 1:45 p.m. to-day. He had been suffering for a long time from asthma and had been unconscious for several days.
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Joseph Joachim was born in Hungary, on July 15, 1831, [sic] and early in life attracted much attention by his rare skill as a violinist. He studied under the great masters and appeared at all the capitals of Europe while still a young man. He was created an honorary musical doctor of the University of Cambridge in 1877, and in 1882 was appointed conductor of the Royal Academy of Music in Berlin and music director of the Royal Academy of Arts.
Herr Joachim’s first appearance was made at Pesth, when, after two years’ study, he had attained his seventh year. He first became acquainted with the violin at Kitsee, [sic] a small village in the neighborhood of Pressburg, where he was born. At the age of five he began to learn the instrument. On his first appearance Joachim played a duet with his professor, a Polish maestro named Szervacsinsky, who directed the music at the Pesth Opera House. From Pesth he moved to Vienna, and from Vienna to Leipsic, where, in 1842, he visited Ferdinand David, the eminent violinist, for whom Mendelssohn wrote his famous concerto. David declined to give lessons to one who, he said, already played better than himself. But the experienced virtuoso helped the young player with his advice, and behaved in a fatherly way toward him during his stay at Leipsic, where he studied composition under Hauptmann, chiefly known in the present day as the friend and frequent correspondent of Spohr. In the early part of 1844 Joachim went to London with introductions from Mendelssohn, who, in a letter to Sterndale Bennett, said of him: “I assure you that, although he is only thirteen, I already regard him as one of my most intimate and dearest friends.” Soon afterward Mendelssohn himself went to London, and at a Philharmonic concert given under his direction the brilliant young violinist played in marvellous style the Beethoven concerto.
In 1848, at the age of eighteen, [sic] Joachim was nominated to the post of concert master and professor of the Leipsic Conservatory, in association with his friend, Ferdinand David. A year or two afterward he became, on Liszt’s invitation, concert master at Weimar, and later on received from the King of Hanover a like appointment at the Hanoverian court. Most of the artistic and literary centres of Germany were, indeed, well known to Herr Joachim when he was still a young man; and it must be mentioned that, apart from his musical instruction, he went through a course of study at Göttingen. At Paris he played with great success the year after his first visit to London. This visit was repeated from time to time with brief intervals until 1859; and since that year, from which dates the establishment of the popular concerts, he appeared in London almost every year. His visits to London were broken in 1905, and on August 27 of that year the music critic of The Tribune wrote, on receipt of news that Joachim was too ill to make the journey to England, “whither he has gone with great regularity to preach the evangel of his noble art for half a century,” as follows:
In 1889 he celebrated the semi-centenary of the beginning of his artistic career, and $25,000 was raised as the beginning of a fund for providing poor students at the Hochschule für Musik, which he founded in 1869, with fitting instruments. Last year the diamond jubilee of his first appearance in England was celebrated in Queen’s Hall, London, when a portrait painted by J. S. Sargent, R. A., was presented to him by the Right Hon. A. J. Balfour, and at a concert he conducted his own overture to “Henry IV” and played the Beethoven Concerto, which he had played in London for the first time at a concert of the Philharmonic Society under the direction of Mendelssohn on May 27, 1844. At a similar celebration in Berlin in 1899 past and present pupils of his to the number of 116 violins and violas, with twenty-four violoncellists who had attended his ensemble classes, took part in a concert conducted by Fritz Steinbach. From these circumstances it may be gathered how significant a figure Joachim has been in the musical life of the world since his advent as a prodigy nearly two generations ago.”
The critic of the Tribune quotes as follows from a monograph written by J. A. Fuller Maitland, the music reviewer of “The London Times.”
“Though it were universally conceded that the personal character and disposition of eminent men were to be guarded never so strictly from public inspection, yet in the case of public performers, where technical skill has reached its highest perfection, a kind of self-revelation takes place in every performance; and, besides the ideal interpretation of the music which he plays, Joachim unconsciously tells every one who has ears to hear what manner of man he is in himself. Truth, rectitude, earnestness of purpose, singleness of artistic aim, a childlike clarity of the inner vision, combined with the highest dignity—all these are evident to any but the most superficial listener, and there is a certain quiet ardor, eloquent of strong emotion strongly controlled, such as distinguishes only those who possess the highest imagination. It is recorded that on one occasion, when he played at first sight Schumann’s ‘Fantasia,’ for violin, the composer, instead of bursting into ecstasies over the player’s immediate grasp of the inner meaning of the music or the cleverness of his execution, whispered to his neighbor, ‘One can never love him enough.’ It is, perhaps, this power of stirring up a real personal affection in worthy hearers that is the greatest of all the player’s attributes, and such a power is indeed of priceless value.
“If one had to say in a word what was the secret of Joachim’s influence as an artist, one would surely say that this quality was that in which he stands alone among all the musicians who have ever lived. To hear him lead the Cavatina in Beethoven’s Quartet in B flat, Op. 130, or the Canzona in mode lidico from that in A minor, Op. 132, is to be allowed to gaze into the uttermost profundity of human emotion, into a depth far below the source of tears. In the former quartet two contrasting qualities of the great violinist’s art are set in close proximity, for the beginning of the finale is one of those things in which his youthful impetuosity is almost startlingly displayed. No one who has ever heard him lead a quartet of Haydn can have failed to realize that the dignity of a noble old age is associated with the insouciance, the buoyant fun and frolic of a schoolboy.”
Zum Gedächtnis Joseph Joachims. Worte, gesprochen bei der Beisetzung am 19. August 1907, von Pfarrer W. Nithack-Stahn. [Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtnis-Kirche, Berlin]
Eckart: Ein deutsches Literaturblatt, Jahrgang 1907/8, Nr. 1, Oktober: 66-68.
Translation by Robert W. Eshbach below
Jakobus 1, Vers 17: “Alle gute Gabe und alle vollkommene Gabe kommt von oben herab, von dem Vater des Lichts.”
Ein Lied ist verhallt, die Melodie eines großen Menschenlebens. Und wie wenn der Meister seine Geige sinken läßt und alles in tiefem Schweigen verharrt, den nachschwingenden Tönen im Inneren lauschend — so ist uns zu Mute an dem Sarge. Euch vor allem, die ihr aus dem Vollklang dieses Lebens den schönsten Laut heraushören durftet: den der Vaterliebe. Aber weit hinaus über den Kreis derer, die ihm menschlich verbunden waren, weit über Länder und Meere, wo nur irgend ein Ohr und ein Herz ist, in das je ein Ton von ihm gedrungen, zittert ein Etwas von diesem Leben nach.
Uns aber ziemt es, nun das große Schweigen gekommen ist, in das alles Lebendige einmal versinkt, wie vor allen bedeutenden Wirklichkeiten, so auch vor dieser nachzusinnen, woher sie kam, und was sie uns bedeutet.
Und wenn wir dieses Menschendasein überblicken, wir können kaum anders, als in den Ruf ausbrechen: Welch ein Leben! Glück nennt man das, was einem Gutes scheinbar in den Schoß fällt — und was wäre ihm nicht zugefallen? Von sorglichen Eltern gepflegt, von verständnisvollen Freunden gefördert, in bester Schule gebildet, entzückt er als Kind schon Tausende, und der damaligen Welt nennt ihn “eine herrliche Erscheinung”. Und doch, kein überreitzter Wunderknabe — im gesunden Körper reift eine gesunde Seele heran. Als Jüngling steht er ebenbürtig neben den Meistern seiner Kunst, von ihnen neidlos bewundert und geliebt. Die Besten seiner Zeit werden ihm Freunde. Ein kunstliebender Fürst wirbt um seine Dienste. Eine Meisterin des Gesanges tritt ihm als Lebensgefährtin zur Seite. Und während das neue Deutsche Reich zu erstehen beginnt, wird ihm der Ruf zuteil, in dessen Hauptstadt diese hohe Schule der Musik zu gründen. Fast vierzig Jahre währt seine Künstlerlaufbahn. In einem Alter, wo wir anderen noch in der Kinderstube spielen, dient er schon, ein kleiner Priester des Schönen. In Jahren, wo die meisten längst ihren Feierabend halten, waltet er seines Amtes, ohne an Muße zu denken. Was die Welt einem Künstler an Lorbeeren zu vergeben hat, hat er geerntet. Und als die Todeskrankheit über ihn kommt, darf er, getragen von Kindesdankbarkeit, zufrieden sprechen: “Es ist so schön, wenn man geliebt wird”, und endlich ohne Kampf entschlummern. Wahrlich, ein Erdenwallen, das an die Sonnenbahn des größten Dichters erinnert. Sollen wir von ihm sagen: er war ein Günstling des Schicksals. Oder sollen wir sagen: er hat sich seines Lebens Glück geschmiedet? Beides würde schwerlich in seinem Sinne sein. Das eine wäre ihm zu wenig fromm gedacht, das andere zu unbescheiden. “Die Kunst ist mir ein Heiligtum, ich könnte mein Leben mit Freude für sie hinopfern”, schreibt er als Achtzehnjähriger. Wer so spricht, der mißt sich selbst einen adeligeren Ursprung bei, als den, ein Produkt blinder Mächte oder eigenen Verdienstes zu sein. Sondern, was er ist und kann, gilt ihm als eine Gabe. Gute Gaben waren ihm in die Wiege gelegt, und zur Vollkommenheit hat er sie entwickelt, soweit das von einem Menschen gesagt werden kann. “Alle gute Gabe aber und alle vollkommene Gabe, — er wußte es, — kommt von oben herab “; sagen wir auch: “von unten herauf”, was liegt daran? Das Beste, was wir in uns tragen, was uns mit Schauern der Ehrfurcht und Liebe erfüllt, es stammte aus den höchsten Höhen, zu denen unser Gedanke schwindelnd emporsteigt, — es stammt aus den tiefsten Tiefen, in die wir staunend hinabblicken, dorther, wo die Quellen des Lebens rinnen; es stammt, — auch unser Toter hat sich dazu bekannt, — von dem “Vater des Lichts”, von dem alles Gute und Schöne geheimnisvoll ausstrahlt.
Und weil er seinen Genius ansah als etwas, das ihm gehörte und doch auch wieder nicht gehörte, darum gab er weiter, was ihm gegeben war, in selbstverständlicher Pflicht. Daher der eigentümliche Lebensernst, der schon an dem Knaben wohltuend auffiel und ihn von dem genialischen Gebahren schied, zu dem so mancher Hochbegabte sich berechtigt glaubt. Wahrlich, man kann zweifeln, was das Größere war von dem, was er uns gegeben hat: seine Kunst oder seine Persönlichkeit. Beides doch unzertrennlich. Was ein Künstler sei, er hat es uns wieder einmal gepredigt. Künstler sein, heißt nicht nur, ein Könner sein, — wer war ein solcher, wenn nicht er? — aber Künstler sein bedeutet mehr: ein ganzer Mensch sein, der eine eigene Welt im Busen trägt, eine Welt, die in heiligen Akkorden tönt, und der sie den Mitmenschen erschließt. Und wiederum daraus folgte die selbstlose Sachlichkeit dieses Künstlers, der in seinem Werke unterging. War’s nicht der Zauber, den er immer wieder übte, daß man den Tondichter selbst zu hören glaubte, den er wiedergab? Nenne man das ein seltenes Stilgefühl. Es war doch mehr: eine sittliche Kraft, die da wirkte; ja, eine religiöse Auffassung der Kunst, über der auch das Wort des Meisters von Nazareth schwebt: “Ich bin nicht gekommen, daß ich mir dienen lasse, sondern daß ich diene.” — Wer so den ganzen Menschen an die große Sache setzt, der kann nicht anders, als sein eigenes Menschentum nach allen Seiten hin vertiefen. So wundern wir uns nicht, daß dieser Musiker auch die Hochschule der Wissenschaft besucht; daß er, ein Lehrer von Weltruf, noch lernend im Hörsaale sitzt. Er war überzeugt: Man kann nicht genug sein, um aus sich etwas hervorzubringen. Und was war die treibende Kraft in ihm, ob er als Knabe mit Anspannung aller Sinne die Saiten des Lebens unter dem atemlosen Schweigen Tausender Beethovens Seele herausbeschwor; ob er als Leiter dieses Hauses nüchterne Tagesgeschäfte gewissenhaft erledigte oder ein Geschlecht von Schülern nach dem anderen bildete; ob er im engsten Kreis der Seinen der Hausmusik pflegte; ob er sein Können in den Dienst des Wohltuns stellte?
“Wenn ich mit Menschen- und mit Engelzungen redete, und hätte der Liebe nicht, so wäre ich ein tönendes Erz und eine klingende Schelle!” Ja, nennt es, wie ihr wollt, dieses wunderbare Etwas, ohne das auch die höchste Kunstfertigkeit, wie alles Menschentum, hohler Klang bleibt, nennt es: Liebe zur Sache, Liebe zur Idee — es ist doch im tiefsten Grunde Gottesliebe.
Darum: ein deutscher Künstler war’s. Es ist wohl keine Überhebung, sondern auch nur dankbare Anerkennung dessen, was unserem Volke von oben herab gegeben wurde, wenn wir sagen: diese völlige Versenkung in die innere Welt ist deutsche Art. Er hatte sie. Auf fremdem Boden erwachsen, auf deutschen verpflanzt, hat er auch jene andere deutsche Gnadengabe bewährt: zu allen Völkern allverstehend und allverständlich zu reden in der Weltsprache der Töne.
Und ein Erzieher zur Kunst ist er gewesen. Zu der Kunst, die nicht nach Beifall hascht oder nach Golde drängt; zu jener verinnerlichten Kunst, die rein um ihrer selbst willen da ist und sich einfach gibt, ohne zu begehren.
In dieser Eigenart seines Wesens war es wohl tief begründet, daß sein Herz vornehmlich an den alten Meistern und ihren unmittelbaren Erbfolgern hing. Was Goethe einst aus Italien heimbrachte: Einfalt und Stille, das gaben ihm die Klassiker deutscher Musik. Das hat er nach kurzem Schwanken für immer festgehalten. Nicht, daß er neuen Bahnen sich verschloß. Nicht, daß er, der Landsmann Liszts, nicht auch mit diesem Freunde gefühlt hätte. Aber die Linie seines Innersten lief in anderer Richtung. Von dem geliebtesten Lehrer seiner Jugend, Mendelssohn, erbte er mehr als den Taktstock, seines Geistes Hauch. Und ganz aus der Seele war ihm der Ruf des Großen von Bayreuth:
“Ehrt eure deutschen Meister! So bannt ihr gute Geister!”
Großes war ihm gegeben — gute und vollkommene Gaben — Größeres gab er zurück.
Nun hat der, der ihn uns schenkte, diese seine Gabe wieder gefordert. Es ist ein sonderlicher und wehmütiger Gedanke, daß die Töne, die seine Saiten klangen, so, in dieser Persönlichkeitsstimmung, nie wieder durch die Welt erklingen werden.
Und wieder einmal geht ein Mitwirkender aus Deutschlands Heldenzeit dahin. Während man mit den Massen das Reich erkämpfte, hat er hier in der Hauptstadt sein klingendes Reich begründet und beherrscht und unser Volk groß machen helfen durch deutsche Art und Kunst. Hier war er für Unzählige das musikalische Gewissen. Nun ist er all den Meistern nachgegangen, die längst vor ihm verstummten.
“Aber, Freunde, nicht solche Trauertöne! Sondern laßt uns freudigere anstimmen!” Es gibt ein Gesetz von der Erhaltung der Kraft auch im geistigen Leben. Töne sind Wellen, die weiter fluten, unmeßbare Wirkung zeugend, durch die Äonen. Und mehr noch! Wenn in antiker Zeit ein Gottgeliebter starb, so tröstete man sich: “Ist der Leib zu Staub zerfallen, lebt der große Name noch.”
Er, der hier vor uns ruht, glaubte Höheres. Nach Mendelssohns Tode schrieb er: “Wir wollen sehen, daß wir in seinem Geiste weiterarbeiten, auf daß wir dem erhabenen Ziele immer näher rücken, damit wir einst mit gutem Gewissen vor unseren Meister treten können” Das ist es, was wir hoffen. Und jedes Scheiden einer Persönlichkeit wie dieser stärkt uns von neuem in dem Glauben, daß wir mit dem, was licht in uns war, begnadet von ewiger Liebe, am Ziele unserer Erdentage eingehen dürfen zu dem Vater des Lichts.
Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtnis-Kirche, Berlin, ca. 1900
A song has died away, the melody of a great human life. And as when the master lowers his violin and everything remains in deep silence, listening to the resonating notes within – that is our mood at the coffin. Above all for you, who, out of the full resonance of this life, have been able to perceive the most beautiful sound: that of the Father’s love. But far beyond the circle of those who were humanly bound to him, far across lands and seas, where there is but one ear and one heart into which a single note of his has ever penetrated, something of this life reverberates.
But now that the great silence has come, into which all living things shall sink, it behooves us to reflect, as before all great realities, so also before this one, on whence it came and what it means to us. And as we survey this human existence, we can hardly help exclaiming: “What a life!” We call happy the good things that seem to fall into our lap — and what would not have befallen him? Nurtured by attentive parents, encouraged by understanding friends, educated in the best schools, he delighted thousands while still a child, and the world at that time called him “a marvelous phenomenon.” And yet, no overwrought Wunderkind — a healthy soul grows in a healthy body. As a young man, he stands on a par with the masters of his art, admired and loved by them without envy. The best of his time become his friends. An art-loving prince solicits his services. A maestra of song joins him as a companion in life. And as the new German Empire begins to emerge, he is called upon to found this high school of music in its capital. His artistic career lasts almost forty years. At an age when the rest of us are still playing in the nursery, he is already serving, a little priest of beauty. In years when most people have long since retired, he performs his duties without a thought of leisure. What the world has to give an artist in the way of laurels, he has reaped. And when the fatal illness comes over him, he may, carried by childlike gratitude, say contentedly: “It is so beautiful to be loved,” and finally pass away without struggle. Truly, an earthly passage reminiscent of the sun’s-orbit of the greatest poet. Shall we say of him: he was a darling of destiny? Or shall we say: he has forged his own life’s happiness? Scarcely would either be true for him. The one would be too little respectful for him, the other too immodest. “Art is holy to me; I could gladly sacrifice my life for it,” he wrote as an eighteen-year-old. He who speaks in this way attributes to himself a nobler source than that of being a product of blind powers or of his own merit. Rather, what he is and can do comes to him as a gift. Good gifts were laid in his cradle, and he developed them to perfection as far as that can be said of a man. “But all good gifts and all perfect gifts,” — he knew it — “come down from above”; let us also say: “from below” — what is the matter with that? The best that we carry within us — what fills us with shivers of awe and love — came from the highest heights to which our thought dizzily ascends — it comes from the deepest depths into which we gaze down in wonder, from where the springs of life flow; it comes — even our departed one has confessed to this — from the “Father of Light” from whom all that is good and beautiful mysteriously radiates.
And because he saw his genius as something that belonged to him and yet did not belong to him, he passed on what was given to him as a matter of self-evident responsibility. Hence the peculiar seriousness about life, which was already agreeably noticeable in the boy and distinguished him from the genial behavior to which so many highly gifted people believe themselves entitled. Truly, one can question which was the greater of what he gave us: his art or his personality. Both are, after all, inseparable. He has admonished us once again what an artist is. To be an artist is not just to be an expert — who was such, if not he? — but being an artist means more: being a whole person who carries a world of his own in his bosom, a world that resounds in sacred chords, and who opens it up to fellow human beings. And again from this followed the selfless objectivity of this artist, who was submerged in his work. Wasn’t it in the magic he repeatedly worked that one thought to hear the tone-poet himself, whose composition he reproduced? One may call that a rare sense of style. It was more than that: it was a moral force at work; indeed, a religious conception of art, over which the words of the Master of Nazareth also hover: “I have not come that I might be served, but that I might serve.” — He who thus sets the whole man to the great cause cannot but deepen his own humanity on all sides. So we are not surprised that this musician also attends the University; that he, a teacher of world renown, still sits learning in the lecture hall. He was convinced: one can never be good enough to call forth something out of yourself. And what was the driving force in him, when he, as a boy, conjured up Beethoven’s soul, straining all his senses with the strings of life amid the breathless silence of thousands; when, as director of this house, he conscientiously attended to sober daily business or educated one generation of pupils after another; when he cultivated Hausmusik in his own intimate circle; when he put his skill at the service of charity?
“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.” Yes, call it what you will, this wonderful something, without which even the highest artistry, like all humanity, remains hollow sound; call it: love of the subject, love of the idea — it is, after all, in the deepest essence, love of God.
Therefore: it was a German artist. It is no exaggeration, but only grateful recognition of what has been given to our people from above, when we say: this complete immersion in the inner world is German in character. He had it. Reared on foreign soil, transplanted to German, he also proved that other German gift of grace: to speak to all peoples in an all-comprehending and all-comprehensible way in the world-language of tones.
And he was an educator for art. To the art that does not seek applause or strive for gold; to that innermost art that exists purely for its own sake and simply gives itself without demanding.
It was perhaps from this deeply rooted peculiarity of his nature that his heart was especially attached to the old masters and their immediate successors. What Goethe once brought home from Italy: simplicity and stillness — the classics of German music gave to him. After a short period of wavering, he held on to that forever. Not that he closed himself to new paths. Not that he, Liszt’s compatriot, did not also feel sympathy for this friend. But the line of his inner being ran in a different direction. From the most beloved teacher of his youth, Mendelssohn, he inherited more than the baton: the breath of his spirit. And completely from his soul was the call of the Master of Bayreuth:
“Honor your German masters! This is how you summon good spirits!
Great things were given to him — good and consummate gifts — greater things gave he back.
Now the one who gave him to us has reclaimed his gift. It is a strange and melancholy thought that the notes which his strings sounded will never again resound through the world with his temperament.
And yet again, a member of Germany’s heroic era passes away. While struggling with the masses for the empire, he founded and ruled his sounding empire here in the capital, and helped to make our people great through German character and art. Here he was the musical conscience for countless people. Now he has followed all the masters who long before him fell silent.
“But, friends, not such sounds of mourning! Rather, let us sing more joyful ones!” There is a law of conservation of energy even in spiritual life. Sounds are waves that continue to flow, producing immeasurable effect, through the ages. And more! In ancient times, when a beloved of God died, people consoled themselves, “When the body has turned to dust, the great name lives on.”
He, who rests here before us, believed in higher things. After Mendelssohn’s death he wrote: “We wish to see to it that we continue to work in his spirit, so that we come ever closer to the sublime goal; so that we can one day stand before our master with a clear conscience.” That is what we hope. And every departure of a personality like this one strengthens us anew in the belief that we, with what light was in us, graced by eternal love, may approach the Father of Light at the end of our days on earth.
Translation: Ⓒ 2021 Robert W. Eshbach. Please acknowledge the source.
Portrait of Joseph Joachim at age 59, etching on paper by Gustav Eilers (1834–1911), Berlin, 1890.
Published by Paul Bette. Printer: Bruno Fischer. Height 347 mm x width 268 mm. High-resolution image. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Object number RP-P-1951-612.
A signed copy of this portrait hangs in the venerable Zum Arabischen Coffe Baum in Leipzig, near Robert Schumann’s Stammtisch.
Available from New York Public Library Music Division Shelf locator: Muller Collection (Joachim, Joseph #12) NYPL catalog ID (B-number): b16492080 Barcode: 33433017231303 Universal Unique Identifier (UUID): 287bf6a0-c59f-012f-711d-58d385a7bc34
Opera Performances in Weimar During Joachim’s Tenure as Concertmaster as Advertised in the Weimarische Zeitung
1850
16. 10. 1850 Donizetti Die Favoritin
22. 10. 1850 Donizetti Lucia von Lammermoor 27. 10. 1850 Mozart Die Zauberflöte (Neu einstudirt)
2. 11. 1850 Flotow Martha 13. 11. 1850 Donizetti Marie, oder: Die Tochter des Regiments 16. 11. 1850 Meyerbeer Robert der Teufel 20. 11. 1850 Donizetti Die Favoritin 24. 11. 1850 Donizetti Marie, oder: Die Tochter des Regiments 26. 11. 1850 Spontini Die Vestalin (Neu einstudirt)
30. 11. 1850 Flotow Stradella 1. 12. 1850 Boieldieu Johann von Paris 7. 12. 1850 Boieldieu Johann von Paris 10. 12. 1850 Boieldieu Johann von Paris 15. 12. 1850 Spontini Die Vestalin 22. 12. 1850 Weber Der Freischütz 26. 12. 1850 Mozart Die Zauberflöte 29. 12. 1850 Kauer Die Saalnixe (Neu einstudirt)
1851
5. 1. 1851 Rossini Othello, der Mohr von Venedig 11. 1. 1851 Bellini Die Familien Capuleti und Montecchi 18. 1. 1851 Rossini Othello, der Mohr von Venedig 25. 1. 1851 Donizetti Marie, oder: Die Tochter des Regiments 1. 2. 1851 Lortzing Czaar und Zimmermann (Zum Erstenmale: Auf höchsten Befehl zum Vortheil der Hinterbliebenen des am 21. Januar 1851 verstorbenen Componisten)
8. 2. 1851 Donizetti Marie, oder: Die Tochter des Regiments 16. 2. 1851 Raff König Alfred (Zum Erstenmale) (not performed)
16. 2. 1851 Wegen Krankheit der Frl. Agthe und Heiserkeit mehrerer Mitglieder anstatt der angekündigten Oper “König Alfred”: Konzert. Unter Direktion und gefälliger Mitwirkung des Hof-Kapellmeisters Dr. F. Liszt (program listed)
2. 3. 1851 Lortzing Czaar und Zimmermann
5. 3. 1851 Donizetti Lukrezia Borgia 9. 3. 1851 Raff König Alfred (Premiere: Raff Cond.)
11. 3. 1851 Raff König Alfred (Wiederholung)
15. 3. 1851 Wagner Tannhäuser und der Sängerkrieg auf Wartburg 19. 3. 1851 Rossini Othello der Mohr von Venedig 23. 3. 1851 Lortzing Zaar und Zimmermann 29. 3. 1851 Donizetti Die Favoritin 1. 4. 1851 Bellini Die Familien Kapuleti und Montecchi 6. 4. 1851 Wagner Lohengrin 12. 4. 1851 Wagner Lohengrin 22. 4. 1851 Mozart Don Juan 30. 4. 1851 Donizetti Die Favoritin 3. 5. 1851 Raff König Alfred [Liszt?]
7. 5. 1851 Beethoven Fidelio 11. 5. 1851 Wagner Lohengrin 18. 5. 1851 Meyerbeer Robert der Teufel 25. 5. 1851 Auber Die Stumme von Portici [Große Oper in fünf Akten]
1. 6. 1851 Auber Fra Diavolo, oder Das Gasthaus in Terracina 9. 6. 1851 Flotow Martha, oder Der Markt von Richmond 14. 6. 1851 Bellini Norma 16. 6. 1851 Auber Die Stumme von Portici 18. 6. 1851 Donizetti Die Favoritin 21. 6. 1851 Mozart Don Juan [Letzte Abonnements-Vorstellung]
28. 6. 1851 Wagner Tannhäuser und der Sängerkrieg auf Wartburg [Zum Schluß der Bühne]
14. 9. 1852 Play: Goethe Clavigo [Zur Wiedereröffnung der Bühne]
20. 9. 1851 Lortzing Zaar und Zimmermann (not performed)
20. 9. 1851Konzert der Fräul. Dulcken 24, 9. 1851 Bellini Die Familien Capuleti und Montecchi 28. 9. 1851 Spontini Ferdinand Cortez oder Die Eroberung von Mexico 4. 10. 1851 Flotow Martha, oder: Der Markt von Richmond 12. 10. 1851 Spontini Ferdinand Cortez oder Die Eroberung von Mexico
18. 10. 1851 Weber Der Freischütz 26. 10. 1851 Mozart Don Juan 30. 10. 1851 Weigel Die Schweizerfamilie 1. 11. 1851 Spontini Ferdinand Cortez oder Die Eroberung von Mexico 5. 11. 1851 Weber Der Freischütz 16. 11. 1851 Flotow Stradella 23. 11. 1851 Herold Zampa, oder Die Marmorbraut 26. 11. 1851 Herold Zampa, oder Die Marmorbraut 30. 11. 1851 Bellini Norma 3. 12. 1851 Bellini Die Familien Kapuleti und Montecchi 7. 12. 1851 Herold Zampa, oder Die Marmorbraut substituted for Donizetti Lukrezia Borgia 10. 12. 1851 Donizetti Lukrezia Borgia 14. 12. 1851 Weber Preziosa 21. 12. 1851 Lortzing Zaar und Zimmermann 25. 12. 1851 Mozart Die Zauberflöte 29. 12. 1851 Mozart Don Juan
1852
4.1.1852 Mozart Die Zauberflöte 11. 1. 1852 Wagner Lohengrin 18. 1. 1852 Boieldieu Johann von Paris 24. 1. 1852 Wagner Lohengrin 26. 1. 1852 Donizetti Marie, oder: Die Tochter des Regiments 28. 1. 1852 Rossini Der Barbier von Sevilla 31. 1. 1852 Flotow Martha, oder: Der Markt von Richmond [Special guest appearance by Henriette Sonntag]
7. 2. 1852 Meyerbeer Die Hugonotten [4th act, together with ballet performance]
15. 2. 1852 Donizetti Der Liebestrank 22. 2. 1852 Donizetti Der Liebestrank 28. 2. 1852 Weber Preciosa 29. 2. 1852 Wagner Tannhäuser und der Sängerkrieg auf Wartburg 7. 3. 1852 Weber Der Freischütz 14. 3. 1852 Flotow Stradella 20. 3. 1852 Berlioz Benvenuto Cellini [Zum Erstenmale]
24. 3. 1852 Berlioz Benvenuto Cellini 28. 3. 1852 Lortzing Zaar und Zimmermann 4. 4. 1852 Konzert der Großherzogl. Hofkapelle im Hoftheater zum Besten des Pensionsfonds für die Witwen und Waisen verstorbener Hofkapellmitglieder. 17. 4. 1852 Berlioz Benvenuto Cellini 25. 4. 1852 Mozart Die Hochzeit des Figaro 2. 5. 1852 Kauer Die Saalnixe 1. Theil
9. 5. 1852 Kauer Die Saalnixe 1. Theil
15. 5. 1852 Wagner Tannhäuser und der Sängerkrieg auf Wartburg 29. 5. 1852 Wagner Tannhäuser und der Sängerkrieg auf Wartburg 31. 5. 1852 Flotow Stradella 1. 6. 1852 Lortzing Zaar und Zimmermann 3. 6. 1852 Wagner Tannhäuser und der Sängerkrieg auf Wartburg 5. 6. 1852 Wagner Lohengrin 13. 6. 1852 Schumann Manfred [Zum Erstenmale]
15. 6. 1852 Wagner Tannhäuser und der Sängerkrieg auf Wartburg 17. 6. 1852 Schumann Manfred 19. 6. 1852 Wagner Tannhäuser und der Sängerkrieg auf Wartburg
12. 9. 1852 Verdi Hernani [Zur Wiedereröffnung der Buhne: Zum Erstenmale] 19. 9. 1852 Verdi Hernani 26. 9. 1852 Mehul Jacob und seine Söhne 2. 10. 1852 Wagner Lohengrin 7. 10. 1852 Mehul Jacob und seine Söhne 13. 10. 1852 Donizetti Die Favoritin 16. 10. 1852 Donizetti Die Favoritin 24. 10. 1852 Spohr Faust [Zum Erstenmale]
27. 10. 1852 Spohr Faust 31. 10. 1852 Bellini Norma 7. 11. 1852 Flotow Martha, oder Der Markt von Richmond 14. 11. 1852 Spohr Faust 17. 11. 1852 Berlioz Benvenuto Cellini
Statistics
Auber Die Stumme von Portici (2) Fra Diavolo, oder Das Gasthaus in Terracina Beethoven Fidelio Bellini Die Familien Capuleti und Montecchi (4) Die Nachtwandlerin Norma (4)
Berlioz Benvenuto Cellini (5)
Boieldieu Johann von Paris (4)
Donizetti Der Liebestrank (2) Die Favoritin (7) Lucia von Lammermoor Lukrezia Borgia (2) Marie, oder: Die Tochter des Regiments (5)
Flotow Martha, oder Der Markt von Richmond (5) Stradella (4)
Herold Zampa, oder Die Marmorbraut (3)
Kauer Die Saalnixe (1) plus 2 x 1. Theil
Lortzing Czaar und Zimmermann (7)
Mehul Jacob und seine Söhne (2)
Meyerbeer Meyerbeer Die Hugonotten [4th act] Robert der Teufel (2)
Mozart Die Hochzeit des Figaro Don Juan (4) Die Zauberflöte (4)
Raff König Alfred 3 Rossini Othello, der Mohr von Venedig (3) Der Barbier von Sevilla Schumann Manfred (2)
Spohr Faust (3)
Spontini Die Vestalin (2) Ferdinand Cortez oder Die Eroberung von Mexico (3)
Verdi Hernani (2)
Wagner Lohengrin (8) Tannhäuser und der Sängerkrieg auf Wartburg (10)
Weber Der Freischütz (4) Preziosa (2)
Weigel Die Schweizerfamilie
= 117 performances of 37 different operas between 16. 10. 1850 and 30. 12. 1852.
Joachim toured Italy in January of 1880, playing in Milan, Nice, Turin, Genoa, Venice, Trieste, and then Graz, Vienna, Pest, Brno, and Prague, as well as in other Hungarian and Galician towns. This portrait was presumably done at that time.
p. 4.
Josef Joachim will begin a six-week concert tour at the beginning of January, in the course of which he will visit Milan, Nice, Turin, Genoa, Venice, Trieste, Graz, Vienna, and Pest, along with some Hungarian cities, Brno, Prague, and the most outstanding cities of Galicia. In January he will be accompanied by the pianist Mr. Bonawitz and in February he will be joined by Johannes Brahms as a concert partner.
spirit of modern, open-source scholarship. For copyright reasons having to do with source material, some of it remains password protected, and not available to the public. Information on this site is grouped in categories. The detailed Biographical Posts begin here (“Kittsee, 1831”), and continue as a series of linked articles. There are some gaps in the links — this is, as I say, an ongoing project. A Brief Biography begins below (“Joseph Joachim”).
Robert W. Eshbach
1) I am trying to locate the correspondence between Joseph Joachim and Bettina von Arnim that was sold by Henrici auction house in 1929. [Karl Ernst Henrici, Versteigerungskatalog 155, Berlin: am 5. Juli 1929.] I would be very grateful for any information leading to its whereabouts.
Joseph Joachim acknowledging the audience, drawing thought to be by Mendelssohn, ca. May 1844 (?), with autograph texts by Julius Benedict and Felix Mendelssohn.
Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtnis-Kirche, Berlin, ca. 1900
