Das vor Kurzem im Stich erschienene Violinkonzert in E-moll von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy war uns schon von vornherein die liebste Nummer des Konzertprogrammes. Hr. Joachim hat durch diese Wahl seine Pietät für klassische Musik und sein geläutertes Kunststreben abermals auf das glänzendste bewährt. Über den großen Werth dieser Composition voll Duft und Leidenschaft, in welcher die Orchesterbegleitung auf eine höchst sinnige, meisterhafte Weise, mehr in konzertanter Haltung zur Principalstimme sich geltend macht — herrscht nur eine Stimme, und wir verweisen in einer Beziehung auf Nr. 15 dieser Blätter, in welchem Hr. Philokales dieses Konzert ausführlich und treffend beurtheilte. Der 1. Satz ist der Glanzpunkt dieser Tondichtung, in welchem uns der Componist ohne herkömmliches Tutti gleich durch die Violinprimstimme zum Thema geleitet, welches ein höchst elegischer Hauch durchwehet. Im weiteren Verlaufe dieses Satzes wechseln effektvolle Passagen, ungemein zarte, liebliche Melodien, bald in der Principalstimme bald in der Begleitung auf eine vollendet durchgeführte und contrapunktirte Weise, welche den Zuhörer in stete Gemüthsspannung versetzen. Von großer Wirkung ist die brillante Cadenz vor dem Schlusse des ersten Satzes, welcher Schluß eine wohlgerundete Recapitulation aller früheren Haupt- und Zwischengedanken bildet. Von hier führt uns der Tondichter durch eine höchst geistreiche harmonische Wendung unmittelbar zum Andante in C-dur, welchem zwei äußerst zarte, seelenvolle Motive, letzteres im gesteigerten Gefühlsausdrucke, zu Grunde liegen, wobei die Orchesterbegleitung in außerordentlich feinen Nuancen gehalten ist; jedoch sind wir der Meinung, daß dieses Andante überhaupt etwas zu weit ausgesponnen sei. Mit einem Motive voll Lebendigkeit und Humor in E-dur beginnt der 3. Satz des Konzertes, von welchem der Componist in eine zweite Melodie, jedoch von minder belebender Wirkung einlenkt; ungemein geistreich und überraschend ist die Durchführung dieser beiden Gedanken — doch können wir uns andererseits auch nicht der Bemerkung begeben, daß einige in diesem Satze vorkommende Passagen im flachen Style gehalten seien. Übrigens gilt diese Tondichtung im Ganzen genommen bezüglich der äußerst dankbaren Invention, und der höchst gelungenen, dem großen Componisten eigenthümlichen, geistreichen Durchführungsweise, besonders im gegenseitigen Verhältnisse zwischen der Principalstimme und der Begleitung als ein Meisterstück, wie wir deren nur wenige besitzen, und welches in den Zuhörern einen bezaubernden Eindruck hervorruft. Der jugendliche Konzertgeber hatte dasselbe vor Mendelssohn-Bartholdy in Leipzig gespielt und dessen Beifall eingeerntet, und es war uns daher der Vortrag dieser Piece von Hrn. Joachim um so interessanter, um daraus zu erfahren, wie dieselbe dem Wunsche des Autors entsprechend vorgetragen werden soll ***). Wenn man nun in Erwägung zieht, mit welch’ unendlicher Fülle der duftigsten, zartesten, elegisch und erschütternd ergreifenden Gedanken, daher auch mit welch’ üppiger Coloratur dieses Konzertstück prangt, wie ermüdend dasselbe bezüglich der darin enthaltenen kurzen Ruhepunkte für den Vortrag wird, und weiters noch, daß hierbei die so höchst geistreiche, ganz gewiß eigenthümliche und effecetvolle Begleitung sich in den Ruhm der Principalstimme theilt, und zu grell aufgetragen, wie dieß im 3. Satze des Konzertes durchghends der für den Konzertgeber und das Auditorium gleich unliebsame Fall war, den Solopart beinahe gänzlich in den Hintergrund drängte, so muß man gestehen, der Konzertgeber habe seine schwierige Aufgabe jedenfalls auf eine Weise gelöst, die seine gediegene Auffassung, seinen geläuterten Kunstsinn und die bereits erklommene hohe Stufe seiner Technik bekundet, welche Gesammtvorzüge ihm sowohl schon während und nach dem Vortrage des Konzertstückes von Mendelssohn als auch der Introduction und der schwierigen, jedoch nicht sehr dankbaren Variationen über ein Originalthema von F. David, dann der bereits im 1. Konzerte vorgetragenen “Ciaccona” von Joh. Seb. Bach für die Violine allein, den lautesten Beifall und die Ehre des oftmaligen Hevorrufens erwirkten. Was wir in Nr. 6 dieser Blätter zum Verdienste dieses sehr talentirten jugendichen Virtuosen bei Beurtheilung seines 1. Konzertes gesagt haben, finden wir in den sehr anerkennenswerthen Leistungen seines 2. Konzertes neuerdindgs auf das überzeugendste bestätiget; wir finden uns höchst befriediget durch die lobenswerthe Wahl klassischer Konzertvorlagen, befriedigt durch die Einheit, somit Klarheit und den wohlthuenden Fluß, welche seine Leistungen durchweg auszeichnen, befriedigt durch eine staunenerregende Sicherheit und Bravour im Bunde mit einer reinen Intonation und großem, markigem Tone, und wünschen ihm, der sich auf dem besten Wege in seinem Kunststreben befindet, schon im Vorhinein vom ganzen Herzen Glück zu jener Genugthuung, deren sein großes Talent und sein eifriges Mühen auf die lohnendste Weise dann einst theilhaftig werden wird, wenn als eine Frucht des fortschreitenden geistigen Verständnisses, das innere Gefühlsleben eine höhere Potenz und Weihe erreicht haben, und die Technik der gesteigerten Empfindung einmal untergeordnet sein wird, woraus allein nur das richtige Verstehen der feinsten sinnigen, zarten und bezaubernden Nuancen und Coloraturen entkeimt, wie solche in den Werken von klassischen Tondichtern so häufig vorkommen und im Vortrage somit von großem Belange zur Erzielung eines größeren Totaleffectes sind. 

Als Konzertbeigaben hörten wir 2 Gesangstücke von Otto Nicolai, gesungen von Frln. Bury in gediegener Weise, dann eine Bravourarie aus “Othello” von Rossini, von Hrn. Wieselmann in sehr manierirter Weise und in der tiefen Lage mit unerquicklicher Stimme, dagegen aber in der höheren mit Kraft vorgetragen; erstere fand vielen wohl verdieneten, letzterer vielen freunschaftlichen  Beifall. — Mit wahrem Vergnügen sehen wir wahrscheinlich noch einem Konzerte des Hrn. Joachim nach seiner Rückkunft von Pesth, wohin er sich ehestens begibt, entgegen.

Carl Schmidt.

***) Ungeachtet dessen glauben wir doch, daß die feurig aufwallende Fantasie und die jugendliche Leidenschaflichkeit den Virtuosen zu einem schnelleren Tempo hingerissen, als es der Charakter der Composition erheischt; denn bei einem Konzertstücke, wo das Accompagnement, namentlich die Blasinstrumente so konzertant gesetzt sind, wie bei Mendelssohn‘s Violinkonzert, muß der Solospieler immer auch die Möglichkeit einer präcisen Ausführung von dieser Seite im Auge haben, wenn er es sich auch zutraut die Passagen im beschleunigten Tempo rein und fehlerlos herauszubringen, wie es bei Hrn. Joachim der Fall war.

d. R.

Wiener Allgemeine Musik-Zeitung 1846

Joseph Joachim: The Musical Times, (April 1, 1893).

Siebenter Bericht des Mozart-Vereins zu Dresden 1906-1908, Dresden: Hansa-Druckerei, pp. 35-40.

Gedächtnisrede
anläßlich der Trauerfeier für Joseph Joachim
am 27. Oktober 1907
gehalten von Andreas Moser aus Berlin.

,,Der Mensch erfährt,
Er sei auch wer er mag,
Ein letztes Glück
Und einen letzten Tag!

            Die hehren Klänge Beethovens [Cavatina from String Quartet no. 13 in B-flat Major, op. 130], die soeben an uns vorübergezogen sind, dieselben, mit denen vor 2^1/2 Jahren Joachim in der Berliner Sing-Akademie den Manen Adolf Menzel’s gehuldigt hat, sind so recht dazu angetan, die bittere Wahrheit des Goetheschen Spruches, den ich vorausgeschickt habe, zu deuten und zu mildern. Mit ihrem Wechsel zwischen andachtsvollem Beten und schmerzlicher Beklommenheit, die schließlich in die demütige Ergebung vor dem Unbegreiflichen ausklingt, gemahnten sie uns daran, daß wir zwar einen unersetzlichen Verlust erlitten haben, einen Verlust aber, der zugleich etwas Versöhnendes in sich trägt. Wir wollen trauern um den großen Toten, dessen Gedenken diese Weihestunde gewidmet ist, aber wir dürfen nicht wehklagen! Denn er hat ein Leben gelebt, so lang und schön und reich, wie es nur wenigen Auserwählten beschieden ist, und alles, was uns Menschen begehrenswert scheint, ward ihm zuteil in überströmender Fülle. Generationen haben zu ihm aufgeschaut als zu dem geweihtesten Hüter seiner Kunst, und auch kommende Geschlechter noch warden in Ehrfurcht seinen Namen nennen, da mit reineren Händen nie ein Amt verwaltet ward al smit den seinen! Einem Patriarchen gleich ragte er in die Gegenwart herein als das lebendige Bindeglied zwischen uns und längst vergangenen Zeiten; eine Rieseneiche, um die so mancher Sturm gebraust, und die doch grünte bis ans Ende, da die tötliche Axt sie fällte.

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Einem Patriarchen gleich! Denn wie die sanfte Morgenröte den jungen Tag küßt, der, traumverloren und taubeschwert, noch nicht weiß, daß ihn in wenigen Stunden schon der leuchtende Sonnenball am Firmament in vollem Glanz bestrahlen wird, so grüßt in Joachims Kindheit der hehre Name “Beethoven” hinein. Hat er doch “die unsterbliche Geliebte” des Tongewaltigen noch gekannt, in Joseph Böhm einen Lehrer besessen, dem als Leiter eines Streichquartetts Beethoven und Schubert ihren künstlerischen Odem eingehaucht hatten, und schon als 13jähriger Knabe das Violinkonzert von Beethoven öffentlich gespielt!

Nachdem er in der Schule Mendelsohns [sic] den Schlüssel gefunden hatte, der ihm das Zauberland Joh. Seb. Bachs erschloß, fan der sich alsbald zo heimisch darin, daß Schumann den damals 22jährigen “den besten Dolmetsch dieser Wundermusik” nennen konnte. Als ihm der Tod diesen Führer entrissen hatte, der ihm zugleich ein Freund für’s Leben zu warden versprach, hat er sich mit seinem “Kriegskameraden” Johannes Brahms weitergebildet in allen Zweigen seiner Kunst und teilgenommen an allem, was schön und edel ist auch außerhalb seines engeren Berufskreises. Und als man ihm die Götter rauben wollte, die er anbetete, um an deren Stelle andere zu setzen, ist er männlich eingetreten für seine Überzeugung und hat nicht gewankt, wie heftig auch die Wellenschläge der Zeit und Mode seinen Standpunkt zu gefährden schienen.

In dieser Weise im Strom der Welt und im Kampf der Meinungen ein Charakter geworden, hat sich bei ihm zugleich jenes universelle Stilgefühl ausgebildet, das ihn, den urdeutsch empfindenden Künstler, die Brücke finden ließ, die zu den französischen und italienischen Klassikern des Violinspiels hinüberführt. Andererseits hat er sich bis ins Greisenalter jenen kindlichen Frohsinn und schalkhaften Humor bewahrt, der die unerläßliche Voraussetzung für die lebendige Wiedergabe der Werke Haydns und Mozarts bildet.

Mozarts! Es ist kein Zufall, daß wir uns heute gerade im Rahmen des Vereins zusammengefunden haben, der sich die Pflege dieses göttlichen Meisters zur Aufgabe gestellt

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hat. Wir haben es vielmehr getan, um an den Manen Joachim seine Dankesschuld abzutragen. Denn vom Tag der Gründung bis zu seinem Hinscheiden hat Joachim den Bestrebungen dieses Vereins nicht nur Sympathien entgegengebracht, sondern durch wiederholte Mitwirkung bei Aufführungen bewiesen, daß ihm die Verherrlichung Mozart seine Herzensangelegenheit war. Niemals werde ich den Augenblick vergessen, als ich vor drei Jahren auf einer gemeinschaftlichen Sommerreise mit ihm entblössten Hauptes vor dem Standbild Mozarts in Salzburg stand und er mir sagte: “Weißt Du, Moser, wenn wahre Schönheit oder schöne Wahrheit den Wert eines Kunstwerkes bestimmt, dann war der da droben doch der größte Künstler von allen!” —

Leider haben wir die traurige Pflicht, heute nicht nur des Meisters zu gedenken, der seine Sendung hienieden erfüllt hat, sondern noch eines zweiten Ehrenmitgliedes des Mozartvereins, den der Tod in der Blüte seiner Jahre dahingerafft hat. Am 3. dieses Monat sist Alfred Reisenauer in Libau an einem Herzschlag plötzlich verstorben. Wenn ich bedenke, was dieser feinsinnige Künstler in den 25 Jahren seines Wirkens in der Öffentlichkeit geleistet hat und was von ihm noch zu erwarten stand, so bin ich sicher, daß nicht nur die Mitglieder des Mozartvereins, sondern weiteste Kreise das frühe Hinscheiden des reichbegabten “Musikers am Klavier” und liebenswürdigen Menschen auf das innigste bedauern warden. Sein Andenke wird bei allen, die ihn gehört und gekannt haben, unvergessen bleiben. —

Muß bei der Würdigung eines Künstlers der Nachdruck ganz naturgemäß auf seine Kunstleistungen gelegt warden, so überkommt uns doch auch wieder ein wohltuendes Gefühl der Befriedigung, wenn wir erfahren, daß der betreffende Künstler nicht nur Bewunderung ausgelöst, sonder nob seiner menschlich schönen Eigenschaften auch Liebe verdient hat. Als Joachims langjähriger Freund und Mitarbeiter habe ich einen solchen Einblick in sein Innenleben gewonnen, daß ich sagen darf: nur Wenige haben, wie er, das Goethesche Wort erfüllt: “Hilfreich sei der Mensch, edel und gut!” Man braucht nr die Briefe Mendelssohns und Schumanns an

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und über Joachim zu lessen, um sich sofort darüber klar zu sein. Die freudigste Genugtuung aber warden Sie empfinden, wenn erst der von mir vorbereitete Briefwechsel zwischen Brahms und Joachim zur Ausgabe gelangt sein wird. Ein Charakterbild wird sich Ihnen daraus erschließen, in seiner schlichten Einfalt zo rührend groß, daß es mich unwillkürlich an den Vers erinnert, in dem Franz Grillparzer das Wesen des Instrumentes besungen, mit dessen meisterlicher Beherrschung sich Joachim so oft in unsere Seelen hineingespielt hat:

“Vier arme Saiten — es klingt wie ein Scherz —
Für alle Wunder des Schalles;
Hat doch der Mensch nu rein einziges Herz,
Und reicht doch hin für alles!”

            In seiner edelsten Gestalt tritt uns das Menschentum Joachims namentlich in seiner Eigenschaft als Lehrer und Bildner der Jugend entgegen. Er war seinen nach vielen Hunderten zählenden Schülern nicht nu rein künstlerischer Berater, sondern zugleich ein väterlicher Freund und Helfer, von dem keener ungetröstet fortging. So manche Geige, die da klingt und singt an dem verschiedensten Orten der Welt, ist ein Geschenk von ihm, der ihrem gegenwärtigen Besitzer damit den Weg geebnet hat zur Ausbildung und zum weiteren Fortkommen. Und dann seine Geige, seine Finger und sein Bogen! Wie viel Tränen haben sie getrocknet, wie viel Sorge verscheucht und Not gelindert durch ihre stete Bereitschaft einzutreten für die Armen und Mühseligen! Aus all’ dem erkennen wir, daß Joachim nicht nur einer der größten Künstler aller Zeiten gewesen ist, sondern zugleich ein Mann, den die edelsten Eigenschaften des Herzens geziert haben.

Er hat aber auch den schönsten Lohn dafür geerntet. Wie seine ganze Künstlerlaufbahn vom hellsten Sonnenschein bestrahlt wurde, so hat auch über seinem Sterbebette ein gutter Stern geleuchtet. In Schönheit dürfte er sanft entschlummern, ohne von dem Kuß des Todesengels auch nur die leiseste Ahnung gehabt zu haben.

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Sein Name gehört der Geschichte an; sein Menschentum aber ist eingegraben in unsere Herzen, unauslöschich, tief und treu! —

Die Weihestunde, die mich heute nach Dresden geführt hat, um mit Ihnen vereint den Manen des größten ausübenden Tonkünstlers unserer Zeit zu huldigen, ruft in mir die Erinnerung an eine Totenfeier wach, die vor über zweihundert Jahren dem größten schaffenden Musiker seiner Zeit gegolten hat. Als 1672 Heinrich Schütz gestorben war, richtete der Magister Herzog vor der Beisetzung der Leiche in der Vorhalle der hiesigen alten Frauenkirche die folgenden Wrote an die versammelten Mitglieder der Chors und Orchesters:

“Nun, ihr edlen Musici, ihr Virtuosi und treue Clienten eures eisgrauen Senioris, umfanget und begleitet mit Thränen den Cörper des seeligen Herrn Capellmeisters zu seiner Grabstätte. Machet und haltet anitzo ihm nach Churfürstlicher gnädiger Anordnung die angestellte Kirchenmusik bei der Bestattung auf das Beweglichste, und wisest, daß ihm seine letzte Ehre zwar hiedurch erwiesen, die eurige aber hiedurch wachsen und euch bei Hohen und Niedrigen noch mehr beliebt machen. wird.

Hiermit trägt man Schützens Kunst
samt seiner Hand zu Grabe,
Die unserer Hofcapell den besten
Zierrath gabe;
Ein Mann, der seinen Gott und
Fürsten true geliebt;
Dieß ist die Grabeschrift, die ihm
Chursachsen giebt.” —

So bitte ich nun auch Dich, lieber Freund und Genosse Petri, den unser heimgegangener Meister stets “eines seiner liebsten Kinder” genannt hat: Nimm Geig’ und Bogen in die Hand und ehre Dich, uns und den großen Toten mit den Klängen, die er seinerzeit erdacht, um das Andenken seiner Freundin Gisela von Arnim festzuhalten [Joachim, Violin Concerto no. 3 in G Major, dedicated to the memory of Gisela von Arnim].Und wenn sich

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dann in der Mitte des zweiten Satzes allmählich der düstere Wolkenschleier zur Seite schiebt und sich wie aus klarblauem Himmel tröstend und mild eine Lichtgestalt herniedersenk, die uns zuflüstert, daß im Jenseits Ruh’ und Frieden, so wird dieses B ild auch in unseren Herzen nicht nur das Gefühl der Befreiung auslösen, sondern, versöhnt mit dem Schicksal, warden wir mit dankbarem Stolz sagen dürfen: Der herrliche Künstler und Mensch, zu dessen Ehrung wir uns heute zusammengefunden haben, er war unser!

Herman Grimm by Ludwig Emil Grimm, 1848

Plenary Address
American Liszt Society Festival
Tempe, Arizona
October 26, 2019

            On a dark evening in November, 1841, with the north wind whistling through the bare boughs of the trees, newly-wed Robert and Clara Schumann sat conversing with actor/singer Eduard Genast in the restaurant of Weimar’s Hotel Russischer Hof when they saw a tall, slim person enter the room, his long, light-brown hair swept back from his distinctive, chiseled face. “Bon Soir, Ihr Lieben!” the man called out to them. “Good evening, my dears!” “Liszt!” they replied with one voice. Soon, Liszt and Clara were deeply engrossed in conversation, as Genast and the characteristically taciturn Robert looked on. At one point, Clara admired Liszt’s blue enameled stick-pin, a globe sown with stars and held by a golden eagle’s claw. Liszt, with characteristic gallantry offered it to her as a gift, and would not take no for an answer.

Having just passed his thirtieth birthday, Franz Liszt was paying his first visit to Weimar, “to get to know the territory where the four greatest German poets lived and held sway,” he said — “the place that one gladly terms classical, and with pride calls the German Athens.” All Germany reverenced Weimar’s prestigious heritage as the town of Herder, Wieland, Goethe and Schiller. “This unique town,” Adolf Stahr had called it, “by whose name […] the German feels uplifted by a feeling of national solidarity. And this feeling is the more affecting, in that it rests on the awareness, that in it and in its originators the notion of a humanitarian ideal that embraces all mankind has come to its purest expression.

As every musician was aware, the capital of German letters was also once home to Johann Sebastian Bach, who for nine years had served Duke Wilhelm Ernst’s Capelle und Kammermusik as court organist, and later as Konzertmeister. There, too, Mozart’s protégé Johann Nepumuk Hummel had filled the role of Kapellmeister. After Hummel’s death in 1837, Liszt had considered offering his services to the Weimar court, and it is possible that the idea of an established position in Weimar had not left him. In any case, this small Thuringian town may well have seemed a promising arena for an artist such as Liszt, in whom “the reformation of the art of music through its more intimate union with the art of poetry” had become an artistic creed. On that turbulent night in 1841, Liszt and the Schumanns were still on good terms, and Weimar seemed ripe, in Liszt’s word, for “colonizing.” In the coming years, Liszt’s hillside home in Weimar would become the staging-ground for his audacious challenge to the German musical establishment centered a mere eighty miles away in Leipzig, and the “War of the Romantics” would begin.

In hindsight, Liszt and Weimar — Old-Weimar at least — would seem to have been a contradiction in terms, and, as we know, it didn’t work out as he planned. “The widow’s home of the muses,” as Heine called it, was certainly a strange place for a proudly independent, cosmopolitan virtuoso — a francophone futurist — a romantic of the Byronic persuasion — to set down roots and attempt to revolutionize the culture of a nation that did not yet exist, except as a culture. In its Classical heyday, Mme. de Stael had judged Weimar to be no town at all, but merely a “large château.” Half a century later, in 1854, George Eliot would similarly call it a “huge village rather than a town.” “How could Goethe live in this dull, lifeless village?” she asked. But Liszt was a man of enormous imagination and boundless energy, and what he saw there filled him with a sense of enormous potential. In 1841, the Athens on the Ilm was indeed a backward-looking parochial place, whose cultural and social life revolved around the court of Grand Duke Carl Friedrich and Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna. But on this visit Liszt formed a sympathetic acquaintance with the Grand Duke’s twenty-three year old son, Carl Alexander, who had grown up under the tutorial spirit of Goethe, and who harbored similar ambitions to return Weimar to its former position as the seat of German culture. The young hereditary Grand Duke would later write that Liszt, “by his personality … joins together a power of intelligence, a vitality of thought, a breadth of education, an energy of will, a distinctiveness of individuality, the likes of which I have never seen.” “I enjoy him endlessly. He is my intellectual champagne.

Revisiting Weimar the next year, Liszt was bigger than the Beatles. His astounding feat earlier that year of giving twenty-one different programs in fewer than ten weeks had sent musical Germany into a full-blown case of what Heine called “Lisztomania.” Liszt accepted Carl Alexander’s appointment to the post of Court Kapellmeister in Extraordinary Service, a largely honorary post that committed him to annual visits, but otherwise left him free to pursue his extensive travels as a virtuoso. In January 1844, Liszt wrote to his partner Marie d’Agoult:

Under the late Grand Duke Carl-August, Weimar was a new Athens. Let us dream today of building a new Weimar. Let us renew openly and boldly the traditions of Carl-August. Let us allow talents to move more freely in their sphere. Let us colonize as much as possible.

In February 1847, while performing in Kiev, Liszt met the Princess Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein — the beginning of a long-standing affair, which precipitated his retirement, at age 35, from the concert stage. The next year, Liszt abandoned what he called his “traveling-circus life,” and settled in the Athens on the Ilm to devote himself to composition, teaching, and the spiritual life, and to take up in earnest the project that he had contemplated in the seven years since that dark, stormy night’s conversation with the Schumanns in Weimar’s Hotel Russischer Hof.

Progressive/Pedantic

With Mendelssohn’s death in November, 1847, and with the ubiquitous revolutions of 1848, mid-19^th century Germany would experience a caesura in its musical and cultural life. The times were imbued with the Hegelian concept of Fortschritt, progress, and, unavoidably, Parteistreit, partisanship.

“The word ‘Progress’ resounds in our time more and more often, louder and louder, more and more vehemently,” wrote J. C. Lobe in the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung. “One can hardly pass a day without hearing that our time is the time of progress. In the fields of politics, religion, science and industry, and perhaps the most these days in the field of music, it is said to be so.

All who pronounce this phrase count themselves members of the progressive party. He who does not join in the daily incantation of this phrase […] will be summarily disposed of by the epithet: he is a pedant. Progressive party, then, and pedantic party! Who would gladly be counted among the latter; who would not rather belong to the former? In the beginning of this Year of Salvation 1848, I shout to the world as loudly as I can: I am for progress.”

Pedantic party. That would be the Leipzigers. Leipzig was, of course, associated with Mendelssohn and Schumann, Moscheles, Hauptmann and David, and a certain sober, didactic attitude toward music, encapsulated in Seneca’s motto which was emblazoned on the proscenium at the Gewandhaus: res severa est verum gaudium — “A serious matter is true joy,” or perhaps the other way around: “true joy is a serious matter.” Leipzig was also, of course, home to Germany’s first music conservatory, which seems constructive and innocuous enough, but the idea that music could be taught like any common trade was something of a hot potato in those days, and for some, like a certain “K. Freethought” the fact that the new musical institution seemed dominated by Jews — that is, the “people of the Book,” who reverenced the past and were perceived as slick imitators of an authentic tradition — was anathema.

Liszt, focused as he was on the future, and imbued with the concept progress, had little sympathy for the Leipzigers and what he called their “musical graveyard.”[xi] “If, at the time of my settling [in Weimar] in 48, I had wanted to attach myself to the posthumous party in music — to join in their hypocrisy, stroke their prejudices, etc.,” Liszt wrote in 1860, “given my previous connections with the principal bigwigs of that side, nothing would have been easier. […] My conviction was too sincere, my belief in the present and the future of art too keen, and at the same time too positive, for me to have been able to accept the vain formulaic rebukes of our pseudo-classicists, who attempt to say that art has lost its way, that art is lost. The waves of the spirit are not like those of the sea, and it is not said to them: ‘thus far and no farther!’ — on the contrary: ‘the spirit bloweth where it listeth,’ and the art of this century has as much right to speak its piece as that of previous times — and without fail it will do so.

“A Very Agitated Evening”

On June 9, 1848, on his way to settling in Weimar, Liszt arrived unexpectedly at the Schumanns’ home in Dresden. As they had not seen one another in nearly seven years, the Schumanns received Liszt with delight, though with no little consternation when he expressed his wish to hear some of Schumann’s chamber music later that evening. While Robert took Liszt to visit Wagner, Clara had but a few hours to gather the musicians and guests for the evening’s festivities. Liszt, for his part, made other plans for the early part of the evening.

The party started badly, with Liszt nowhere to be seen. After more than an hour of waiting, the disappointed guests began to make music without him. As they reached the last page of Beethoven’s “Ghost” trio, Liszt “stormed in the door,” two hours late. He seemed to enjoy the ensuing performance of Schumann’s trio, but his host’s quintet he belittled as too “Leipzigerisch.” “No, no, my dear Schumann, this is not the real thing,” he is reported to have said. “It is only Kapellmeister music.” After dinner, Liszt sat down to play Carnaval, in Clara’s words, “so disgracefully badly […] that I was really ashamed to have to stand there and listen, and not to be able to leave the room immediately, as Bendemann did.” When he finished playing, Liszt gave an after-dinner speech, declaring that new trails were being blazed for music everywhere, and even that which a few years before had evoked the admiration of the world was already Rococo. He tactlessly praised the music of Meyerbeer at the expense of the recently-deceased Mendelssohn, heedless of Schumann’s well-known aversion to Meyerbeer’s music and his esteem for his departed friend. Schumann flew into a rage, seizing Liszt by the shoulder and shouting: “And Mendelssohn? Is he also Rococo? Meyerbeer is a runt compared to Mendelssohn, who was an artist who made an effect, not only in Leipzig, but throughout the entire world, and Liszt should shut up.” After more similar abuse, Schumann retreated to his bedroom. Liszt made an attempt to downplay the event, but eventually gave up and left the party, saying to Clara as he departed “Tell your husband that there is only one man from whom I would so calmly accept words such has he has just said to me.” Liszt drove home with Wagner in a state of “amused embarrassment.” Wagner wrote: “I have seldom seen Liszt so boisterously cheerful as on this night, in which, clothed only in a thin tailcoat against the severe cold, he alternately accompanied me and concertmaster Schubert home.” Later, Liszt admitted to Lina Ramann that they had “suffered through a very agitated evening together — which was my fault.” “It wounded Robert too deeply for him ever to be able to forget it,” Clara wrote afterward, saying of Liszt: “I have broken with him for all eternity.”

Schumann and Liszt eventually re-established personal relations, though the former cordiality never returned. A year later, in May of 1849, Schumann was still smarting from Liszt’s assessment of his music when Liszt inquired through Carl Reineke whether he might perform Schumann’s Faust at Weimar’s upcoming Goethe celebration. Schumann replied, alluding to Faust: “But, dear friend, wouldn’t the composition perhaps be too Leipzigerisch for you? Or do you indeed hold Leipzig to be a miniature Paris, in which one can also accomplish something?” He then went on to defend himself and Leipzig against Liszt’s criticisms that Leipzigers were concerned only with perpetuating dead forms, and that their music consequently sounded too much alike. “Seriously — I might have expected something different from you, who knows so many of my compositions, than to lump them all together, expressing such a judgment of a whole life in art. […] And, truly, those who were together in Leipzig weren’t so bad after all, — Mendelssohn, Hiller, Bennet, et al. — we could hold our own with the Parisians, Viennese, and Berliners. […] So much for your comment, which was unjust and insulting. For the rest, let us forget the evening — a word is not an arrow — and the main thing is to strive forward.” Liszt replied: “Highly honored friend, above all, allow me to repeat to you what, after a long time, you should actually know best beside me: that no one admires and respects you more sincerely than my humble self. Certainly, we can find a time to have a friendly discussion about the meaning of a work, a man, or indeed a city […]”

Murls

Liszt once told August Göllerich: “Marschner, who was very undiplomatic, once said to me: ‘So, you are now in Weimar! I suppose there is not much there to do?’ ‘Oh,’ I replied, ‘I’ll make something for myself to do.’” Among the first things that he made for himself to do was to stage the premiere of Wagner’s Lohengrin, an event that drew the young assistant concertmaster from Leipzig — Mendelssohn’s former protégé and virtual stepchild — Joseph Joachim. Joachim was overwhelmed with Lohengrin, and delighted with Liszt. After a few days of making music together, he accepted Liszt’s proffer of the position of Konzertmeister of the Weimar Hofkapelle, making him the first person to hold that title since Johann Sebastian Bach.

Joachim would also become the first, and one of the most prominent, of Liszt’s avant-garde circle of young Turks, who, in the clubby anti-philistine youth culture of the day, came to call themselves the “Murls” — assuming aliases such as “Murl Ali Pascha” — Joachim’s nom de guerre. We read in Bülow’s letters of great festive dinners, lasting until well after midnight. There were endless speeches and toasts, many in verse — and because they were Germans, they kept all their receipts, which can be viewed in the Weimar Goethe-Schiller Archive. They would have a bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape with dinner, and finish with a bottle of Veuve Cliquot — each. Fanny Lewald painted an unforgettable picture of Liszt’s musical mentorship and of the ambiance at the Altenburg, Liszt’s Weimar home:

At that time, he was surrounded by students and young musicians who have all become masters: the very youthful concertmaster Joseph Joachim, Hans von Bülow, Cossmann, Singer, Winterberger, Voss and a few others; and, quite aside from the great musical enjoyment provided by the collaboration of these young men, enthusiastically attached to Liszt, it was a joy to see with what love and devotion he observed and led them, how he took pleasure in their ability, how warmheartedly he praised them when they pleased him—I think I can still hear the tone of his voice, with which he called out to them: ‘Bravo, Joachim! Bravo, Hans! Je ne pourrais pas faire mieux!’—and how he then, turning to the listeners, asked: ‘Isn’t that so? You don’t find that everywhere.”

Indeed not — though such occasions did not occur regularly. For a host of reasons including the Princess’s ill health, Liszt was not often present in Weimar. He was often gone for months at a time, and a disappointed Joachim wrote to Hiller that it was only the intermittent association with Liszt that held him in the sleepy village. Joachim and Bülow filled their time with practicing, playing Beethoven sonatas, taking long walks in the Ilm park, and teaching each other Spanish. Together with Bernhard Cossmann, Peter Cornelius, and the other Joseph Joachim — Joseph Joachim Raff — among others, they formed a tight-knit group of Lisztian disciples — a brotherhood that would eventually step before the public as the “Musicians of the Future” and later, in journalist Franz Brendel’s fraught term the “New German School,” waging, in Bülow’s phrase “a war of extirpation against Mendelssohnism,” against “Mendelssohn preservation institutions,” and against what he called the “bastards of mercantilism and of musical Judaism.” We know that this was hurtful to Joachim, a Jew who had spent important formative years in Leipzig as a virtual member of Mendelssohn’s household, and who idolized Mendelssohn as a second father and mentor. The anti-Mendelssohnian and frequently anti-Semitic attitudes of the Murls and their associates would play a large part in Joachim’s eventual break from the group.

Because of their later inimical relationship, the details of Joachim’s time with Liszt in Weimar remain somewhat obscure. We know that, for Liszt, Joachim was both a pupil and a colleague. They often played together, and shared thoughts and criticisms on music. When, with Liszt’s help and blessing, Joachim left Weimar in January, 1853, and entered into a new position as Konzertmeister to the King of Hanover, Joseph was still a devoted Murl. His position in Hanover was subsidiary to Kapellmeister Heinrich Marschner, who, compared with Liszt, was a stodgy conservative in matters musical. In his early Hanover days, living apart and lonely, Joachim completed one of his most significant works: the Hamlet Overture, which Liszt admired, and which predates Liszt’s own Hamlet by five years. In sending the manuscript to Liszt, Joachim wrote:

I hope that the work will tell you […] that you, my Master, have been constantly present in my mind. […] I was very much alone. The contrast between the atmosphere that, through your activity, is ceaselessly filled with new sounds, and an air that has been made utterly tone-rigid by the rule of a phlegmatic northerner from the time of the Restoration [Marschner] is too barbaric! Wherever I looked, no one who shared my aspirations; no one except the Phalanx of like-minded friends in Weimar. The yawning gulf between the most intense desire and the impossibility of its fulfilment filled me with despair. I turned to Hamlet.

Ironically, it was this very work with which Joachim would introduce himself to Schumann as a composer, leading to his eventual split with Liszt. Liszt continued to encourage and advocate for Joachim, and when the Murls assembled for the famous music festival in Karlsruhe in October, 1853, Joachim, Murl Ali Pascha, was both a featured soloist and Liszt’s trusted assistant. In the lead-up to the festival, Joachim wrote to Liszt:

They will be, I think, beautiful days in Karlsruhe; to see the “Weimar School” assembled in full and joyful activity will be for me more than a merely musical festival, and I hope that we young comrades will take away with us a marvelous stimulus to new activity, as we certainly bring with us the warmest joy!

The Karlsruhe Musikfest was the second joint outing of the Lisztian school outside of the then relatively sympathetic environment of Weimar itself (the first occurred the previous year in Ballenstedt), and an early demonstration of Liszt’s conducting, and as such was seen as a pivotal event. Joachim played his own first violin concerto (not the second — “Hungarian” — as Alan Walker reports) — a rather Lisztian one-movement work — with the Bach Chaconne on the second festival day, lacking, as Richard Pohl noted in his review, the then-customary Mendelssohn accompaniment. He also functioned, without particular distinction, as Liszt’s assistant conductor. Liszt’s conducting was roundly castigated, and the festival itself received largely poor reviews.

From Karlsruhe, a company of Murls including Liszt, Joachim, Bülow, Peter Cornelius, Richard Pohl and Dionys Pruckner embarked on a pilgrimage to Basel to visit Wagner, whom they greeted in the restaurant of the Three Kings Hotel with a choral rendition of the King’s summons trumpet fanfare from Lohengrin. During their visit, Wagner read to them an early version of the Ring of the Nibelung poem, and Liszt performed the Hammerklavier Sonata. Before leaving Basel, the Murls and “Richard the Lion Heart” drank a toast and agreed to address one another with the familiar “Du.”

Afterward, Liszt wrote to Joachim: “Wagner said to me ‘I thank you most especially, that you brought Joachim to me in Basel’ — You can be assured that Wagner is very cordially disposed toward you.” “Wagner took a great fancy to me,” Joachim recalled later, “and I said to him, ‘whenever [the Ring] comes out, I must play in the orchestra.”

Though Joachim was then, by all evidence, a happy Murl, a letter from Schumann hints at the beginning of what Wagner later called Joachim’s “inimical attitude” with regard to himself and Liszt: In one of the most famous incidents in music history, Joachim had recently introduced Schumann to the young Brahms, and Schumann, like Joachim, was promptly smitten. Schumann wrote to Joachim: “Now, I believe that Johannes is the true Apostle, who shall write revelations, which the many Pharisees, like those of old, shall not decipher, even in centuries to come; only the other Apostles understand him, and perhaps Judas Iscariot, who may confidently lecture on the Ilm. All this is only for the Apostle Joseph.” “Judas,” of course, refers here to Liszt. The betrayed one was most likely not Schumann, however, but Schumann’s friend of hallowed memory, and Joachim’s beloved surrogate father, Felix Mendelssohn. These were the conditions under which Schumann came out of retirement as a critic to pen his incendiary “New Paths” article, introducing the previously unknown Brahms to the musical public.

“Dear Comrade-in-Arms,” Schumann wrote to Joachim shortly thereafter — “Since I sent a few 20-pound shells into the enemy’s camp a few days ago, peace has been more or less preserved. I heard only yesterday that another comrade-in-arms had been secretly approached by the enemy, who wished to blow me up by means of an underground mine…” Though outwardly relishing the fight, Schumann nevertheless seemed mostly glad to have found in this temporary peace the artistic stimulation and companionship that his young friends willingly provided.

In his last lucid months, Schumann was gathering a circle of his own — an actual Davidsbund, the members of which he named along with Brahms in his famous “New Paths” article — and girding for a righteous struggle against the Phalanx of the Musicians of the Future. The Apostle Joseph, hitherto the Murl Ali Pascha, was clearly an important ally in his defensive struggle. Given Schumann’s messianic attitude, it was inevitable that Joseph would soon find himself having to choose between two conflicting schools — and two powerful, conflicting mentors. Which was it to be?

Joachim was gradually seduced away from the Weimar circle by Schumann; Clara Schumann, Brahms, Bettina von Arnim and Bettina’s daughter Gisela, with whom Joseph was obsessively in love, unquestionably exercised an equally strong sway. Liszt was well aware of their collective influence, and wrote a rather pathetic letter to Joachim in July, 1856, even as Schumann lay dying:

Franz Liszt to Joseph Joachim

Weimar, July 10, 1856

“These few words should recall to you my true, heartfelt, and deeply respectful friendship, dearest Joachim. If others of your close friends should seek to call this friendship into question, then let their efforts be in vain — let us remain faithful and true, as befits a pair of fellows like us. Härtel has probably sent my things, or “unthings” to you in Hannover. If they do not appeal to you, this should not be an apple of discord in our friendship. Goethe says it is a great mistake when one thinks more of oneself than one is, or values oneself less than one is worth. I want to avoid this mistake; therefore I view my achievements, and those things that I might still achieve very objectively. […] Now, Sapperment, if you do not still know that you are dear to me, then the Devil take your fiddle!”

“Joachim found it difficult to believe that Schumann should have any enemies,” wrote Frederick Niecks, “and perhaps he had as few as any man can expect to have; but his ways were at times liable to give offence, and his friendships were not all free from friction.” Personal frictions aside, however, and even allowing for mental illness, Schumann clearly had legitimate artistic differences with Liszt. The dispute between Schumann and Liszt was much more than a personal flare-up. In the Hegelian philosophy of “progress” that characterized mid-nineteenth century attitudes and that played such a central role in Liszt’s Weimar project, the old — the historic — was not a repertoire to be kept alive and perpetuated — but something to be superceded — at best, a tradition to be built upon. This thinking ran directly counter to the attitude of the Leipzigers and the Leipzig Conservatory, where the masterworks of the past were regarded, in Spinoza’s term, sub specie aeternitatis — from the aspect of eternity, which is to say as timeless, immutable, distillations of musical truth. Shortly before his suicide attempt, Schumann wrote this apologia to Richard Pohl who, writing under the pseudonym ‘Hoplit’, was one of the principal advocates for the ‘progressive’ cause:

I had no idea that you were ‘Hoplit’. For I do not particularly harmonize with his and his party’s Liszt-Wagnerian enthusiasm. Those whom they take to be musicians of the future I consider musicians of the present, and those whom they take as musicians of the past (Bach, Handel, Beethoven) seem to me the best musicians of the future. I can never regard spiritual beauty in its most beautiful form as ‘a superseded standpoint’ [‘einen überwundenen Standpunkt’]. Does R. Wagner possess this [beauty]? And what of Liszt’s genial achievements—where are they hiding? In his desk, perhaps? Does he perhaps wish to wait for the future because he fears he is not understood now? I cannot harmonize with this Lisztian enthusiasm.

What Schumann was objecting to here (his use of the term ‘superseded standpoint’ is telling) was specifically the Hegelian notion of teleological progress as applied to the art of music. Schumann was not a well man, and his unstated fear, at this time of great personal and psychic distress, was surely that his own legacy—his music and his writings—would soon also be dismissed as expresssions of a ‘superseded standpoint’. In his defense, he wrote to Pohl: “My dear Mr. Hoplit! Humor is the main thing, and then, what you fail to see in my compositions… is love. I will use these two essentials in order to shrug off what you have done to me. … Do not seek answers in philosophical expressions or in subtle distinctions. The fellow with a free, sincere soul has understood more of music than did the shrewdly thoughtful Kant.”

In the end, the influence of Joachim’s new friends proved irresistible. Joachim’s famous 1857 letter to Liszt in which he permanently divorced himself from the Weimar circle, is a scathing expression of his distaste for Liszt’s music. “I am completely unresponsive [unzugänglich] to your music; it contradicts everything which from my early youth I have taken as mental nourishment from the spirit of our great masters. Were it possible to imagine that I could ever be robbed of, that I should ever have to relinquish, that which I have learned to love and honor in their creations, that which I feel to be music, your sounds would not fill for me any of the vast and annihilating desolation.”

Joachim’s harsh letter is hard to defend. Understandably, people commonly focus on his judgment of Liszt’s compositions. But what is overlooked by most readers is the actual basis of his argument, the reason he gives for wishing to separate himself from Liszt and his followers. This argument is the same as Schumann’s. It was not simply that he disliked the music; it was that the Music of the Future was being held up as a replacement for the masterworks of the past, which he regarded as expressions of timeless truth that could not be superceded — a kind of Torah and Talmud, if you will, to be cherished, contemplated and endlessly re-interpreted.

Read in its entirety, Joachim’s letter is not only brutally frank, but also upright and respectful; one hopes, for Liszt’s sake, that Joachim was sincere, and that Liszt believed him when he concluded: “whatever you think of these lines, believe one thing of me: that for everything that you were for me, for all the often undeserved warmth that you had for me in Weimar, for everything that I often sought to absorb and learn from your divine gifts, I shall never cease to carry deep in my heart the full, faithful memory of a grateful student.”

Still, it must have come to Liszt as a great defeat. It ended their friendship. Not long after Joachim’s letter, Clara Schumann wrote to her brother Woldemar Bargiel:

Clara Schumann to Woldemar Bargiel

Munich, 15 November 1857

            …I had beautiful days in Dresden with Joachim, who played more beautifully, more wonderfully than ever. His tones often sounded celestial! Indeed, I never hear the man without feeling uplifted…

            Liszt’s meeting with him shows clearly that the two of them cannot get along for one more minute, (artistically, that goes without saying) I mean personally…

            Once, when Schneider played glorious things on the organ, the most beautiful pieces of Bach, and Joachim exclaimed “what heavenly music,” Liszt replied: “Hm, bones!” Joachim to that: “Listen here, I prefer that to gelatin.” Liszt disappeared quickly thereafter.

In his maturity, Joachim became a powerful arbiter of 19^th-century musical tastes, and he became famous for his hostile attitude toward the Weimar circle, which eventualy became known as the “New German School.” Nevertheless, even late in his life, Joachim found much to admire in the music of Wagner, whom he was said to despise, and he very much loved Berlioz — the music and the man. But the break with Liszt would take a long time to heal.

Liszt’s pupil Alexander Siloti writes, without giving a date, of a private meeting between the two at which he was present:

“It was a day on which there were no lessons, and I was standing with Liszt by the piano, talking, when a lacquey interrupted us to announce Joseph Joachim. I made a move to go away, but Liszt stopped me, saying: “Stay here. This will interest you because it is in a sense a historic meeting between us.” Liszt then explained to me in a few words that he had done a great deal for Joachim… and that Joachim had not behaved very well to him. A minute later the door opened and Joachim came in. He threw himself into Liszt’s arms saying: “How glad I am to see you!” Liszt, with the manner of one who is anxious to ward off apologies or explanations, said: “All right, all right! Never mind about all that. Tell me how you are getting on yourself, and what great things you have been doing.” Then began a conversation in which Joachim had only to reply while Liszt interrogated. It was so evident from Liszt’s manner what he meant that I as an onlooker almost pitied Joachim. The conversation lasted about fifteen minutes, and in this quarter-of-an-hour it became evident to Joachim — and to me — that Liszt was not offended, that he had forgiven everything, and only regarded Joachim with the esteem due to a great artist. Just as he was leaving Liszt said: “Now you are here, why not stop and see what our playing is like?” He then made me play. I realized in a half-conscious way that at that moment I stood to represent a school which Joachim would hardly recognise, and I played with special pleasure and Stimmung. It seemed to me that Joachim was glad of the music, if only that it enabled him to sit in silence beside the man to whom he owed so much.”

A handclasp

A public reconciliation between the two masters occurred very late — at a reception for Liszt at the Grosvenor Gallery in London in April, 1886 — captured in an illustration for The Graphic. It is an iconic tableau. The two great rivals — the aged Liszt and his virile, middle-aged former protégé, clasping hands before an assembly of luminary onlookers, in reality, some 400 in number. Liszt died three months later, after a long and historic life in music.

Joachim once wrote: “Only the meaningless passes away. That which is and was once deeply alive has the power to be for eternity.” In contrast, Liszt wrote: “The waves of the spirit are not like those of the sea, and it is not said to them: ‘thus far and no farther!’ — on the contrary: ‘the spirit bloweth where it listeth,’ and the art of this century has as much right to speak its piece as that of previous times.”

We, living in the 21^st century, need no longer see a contradiction in these two assertions, and, happily, we can revel in this great festival of masterworks by Liszt, Schumann, and others, preserving, studying, and performing their inspirations, as we carry the art of music — our great art — into the future.

Full text here of:

Storck, Karl. Joseph Joachim: Eine Studie. Hermann Seemann Nachfolger, 1902

Jakab Marastoni (Jacopo Antonio Marastoni)
The Young Joseph Joachim
[Lost]

Marastoni’s portrait as it appears in Andreas Moser’s 
Joseph Joachim. Ein Lebensbild.

This portrait of the 7-year-old Joseph Joachim was made at the time of his début in Pesth on March 17, 1839. Later in life, Joachim recalled how immensely proud he had been of his blue suit with the mother-of-pearl buttons. The artist was the Venetian-born painter and lithographer Jacopo Antonio Marastoni (*24 March 1804 — †11 July 1860), who, in Hungary, was known as Jakab Marastoni. It appears as an illustration (above) in the numerous editions of Andreas Moser’s Joseph Joachim. Ein Lebensbild.

The painting was sold at auction by Stair Galleries on September 13, 2008 in Hudson, NY — erroneously identified 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. Stair Gallery has not answered my repeated requests for more information about the sale.

The confusion in naming (and, perhaps, in sale) may have come from the fact that Joseph was holding his Guarneri violin, and that there is, indeed, an artist named Joseph Joachim Guernier. My fear is that the current owner may not appreciate the painting’s true identity or historical significance.

I do not, as yet, know how or when the painting came into the possession of the New York Public Library, or the conditions under which it was sold. The NYPL documents it being in storage as early as January, 1949, and there is a conservation report from 1965 quoting a price to conserve it. The last mention of the painting in the NYPL records occurs in an internal letter dated September 27, 1988.

The NYPL files document it as:

“Portrait of Joseph Joachim ,” or as “Joseph Joachim, the violinist as a boy”
Artist: Marastoni
Oil on canvas
8 5/8 x 6 3/4

The existence of this portrait reinforces the notion that Joachim’s family was not, as has sometimes been maintained, of “modest means,” but, even the year after the devastating Budapest flood of 1838 could afford to hire Pest’s leading portrait painter to memorialize their son’s début recital. It also gives some indication of the seriousness with which this recital was treated. Marastoni created paintings and lithograph portraits of many of Hungary’s leading aristocrats.

Jacopo Antonio Marastoni (*1804 — †1860)
Note the same drape behind Marastoni as behind young Joachim

According to Wikipedia, Marastoni began his studies in Rome. “He settled in Pest in 1836, having come by way of Vienna and Pressburg. He soon became a much sought-after portrait painter. In 1846, he created the Első Magyar Festészeti Akadémiát (First Hungarian Academy of Painting) which, as the name suggests, was the first school in Hungary devoted exclusively to painting. It was a private school, but numbered András Fáy, Gábor Döbrentei and Archduke Stephen, Palatine of Hungary among its patrons and supporters. The school also sold shares to the general public. Károly Lotz, Mihály Zichy, Soma Orlai Petrich and Mihály Kovács were some of the school’s best-known students. Shortly after the founding of the school, Marastoni was named an honorary citizen of Pest. In later years, he became Hungary’s first professional Daguerrotypist. In 1859, his health began to deteriorate rapidly and he had to give up teaching. He soon went blind, and died in a mental institution. The school was closed shortly thereafter.” [See also this article in Hungarian]

Jakab Marastoni: Portrait of Ignáz Mayer

Jakab Marastoni: Portrait of Ferencz Szaniszló

Jakab Marastoni: Portrait of Karl Ludwig Leopold

Jakab Marastoni: Portrait of Baron Simon Révay

Österreichisches Biographisches Lexikon:

Marastoni Jakab (Jacopo), Maler. * Venedig, 24. 3. 1804; † Pest, 2. 7. 1860. Vater des Folgenden; nach Kunststud. in Venedig arbeitete er in Görz, Triest, Klagenfurt und Wien. Ab 1834 lebte er in Preßburg, dann in Pest, wo er eine private Malschule gründete. Neben Barabás (s. d.) war er der produktivste Porträtmaler seiner Zeit in Ungarn. M. beschäftigte sich auch mit der Herstellung von Porträts mittels der Daguerreotypie. 1846 gründete er die Erste Ungarische Malerakademie. Im selben Jahr wurde er Ehrenbürger der Stadt Pest. 1859 erblindet, starb er im Irrenhaus.

Robert Imandt
Photo: University of South Florida
Charles Ringling Family Collection

I’ve been thinking about this beautiful, artistic, photograph, so reminiscent of Julia Margaret Cameron, and thinking I had seen it before — which, of course, I have — in a celebrated painting of Joseph Joachim by Cameron’s friend George Frederic Watts. The photo is of Robert Imandt (1894-1969), a French-born American violinist and photographer who, in his youth, not only studied with Joachim, but lived with him in his Berlin home. It is clearly an hommage.

Imandt had a burgeoning career that was interrupted by WWI: he served for a number of years in the French military, and was wounded twice — once receiving a shrapnel wound in the first two fingers of his left hand. He never fully recovered his ability to play, though he tried for some years. Eventually, he became a known photographer, and his photographs still sell on the market…

In any case, as I say, I find this photo to be extraordinarily beautiful and artistic — even far surpassing Watts’s painting, which I have never particularly liked. It captures the same gaze — the same “inwardness”  — which has always been mentioned as characteristic of Joachim’s playing, and of Watts’s painting of him, but also gives a wonderful impression of virtuosity (which the Watts painting does not, intentionally so) — the pronated bow hand, blurred in motion, the head thrown back instead of forward — the complete package of an artist. I would like to have heard Imandt in his prime. He was said to possess a perfect technique, including a sensational bow arm. Having been brought up by Joachim, I imagine he was also a superlative musician. He died in 1969 — late enough that I might have known him and been able to learn from him, had I been involved with Joachim at that time, and able to travel to speak with him. Alas, his son died in Springfield MA just a few years ago…

There is a very fine article on the Watts painting and the whole issue of ‘sentimentalism’ by Stephen Downes in a recent issue of 19th Century Music — much to be recommended: Stephen Downes, “Sentimentalism, Joseph Joachim, and the English,” 19th Century Music, XLII/2 (Fall, 2018): 123-154.

RWE 3.10.2019

The Owosso Times, Owosso, Michigan, 24 March, 1922, p. 5:

Robert Imandt, one of our most noted French artists. Imandt’s musical career began with Louis Beittinhofer, a disciple of the great Jules Garcin. Later he journeyed to Berlin and played before the great Hungarian Master, Joseph Joachim. He not only was taken in by Joachim as a pupil, but as one of the family. At the age of thirteen Robert made his formal Berlin debut and filled numerous engagements in Paris and Provinces of France as well.

At the age of fourteen he was received at the Paris conservatory carrying off the first prize of violin with more than one hundred competitors. Later after spending considerable time in Berlin and Poland, Robert was called into service, sacrificing six years of his artistic career for the need of his country. He enrolled as a simple private, was wounded twice and won croix de guerre with citations. He later took up radio work and was commissioned. His first two fingers being injured with sharpnel [sic], was [sic] restored to usefulness in a few weeks at Fort Sheridan, N. S.

Imandt also possesses a voice which is incomparable, it has been trained from infancy by his master Joachim to faithfully interpret the works he plays. Imandt has rare tone quality, absolute accuracy, marvelous technic and perfect control of the bow.