Der Humorist, No. 137 (June 7, 1844), p. 548.

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Musikalisches.

(Joseph Joachim) ist noch immer der musikalische Löwe in London. Sein Spiel hat die frostige Seele John Bull’s aufgethaut, und die Bewunderung für ihn wird desto größer, je mehr er gehört wird. Unlängst spielte er in einem Philharmonic=Concert Beethoven’s herrliches Violin=Concert, zu welchem er sich selbst Kadenzen komponierte, in denen sich ein so feiner Geschmack und so viel frische Fantasie bekundete, daß Mendelssohn beim Anblicke der Komposition Freudentränen vergoß. Diese Kadenzen sind so im Geiste und des Charakters des Concertes selbst gehalten, daß man die für einen integrirenden Theil desselben hält. Die “Morning Post” bemerkt dabei, daß moderne Fantasien=Macher von Joachim lernen können, sich den Ideen der Meister anzuschmiegen. Der “Morning herald” sagt Folgendes über des jungen Joachim’s, welches Jedermann mit Bewunderung erfüllt, das Beethoven‘sche Concert, vor welchem selbst die hochgespieltesten Künstler zurückfahren, wurde, so viel wir wissen, hier bloß von Mori, Blagrove und Eliasson, und zwar nicht mit vollständigem Erfolge exekutirt. Wir thun nicht zuviel, wenn wir sagen, daß Joachim sie alle Drei hierin übertraf, ja, selbst den Erstgenannten von ihnen, so groß und bewundernswert dieser auch war. Daß ein Knabe von 13 oder 14 Jahren mit viel Fertigkeit spielt, ist gegenwärtig keine so besondere Merkwürdigkeit; daß sich aber in dieser Fertigkeit eine seltene Vollkommenheit sowohl des Vortrages, als auch der Intonation offenbart, daß der Ton sich ebenso durch Reinheit als durch Fülle und Schönheit, daß die ausgedehntesten Distanzen, selbst in den schwierigsten Gängen mit unfehlbarer Präcision ausgeführt werden, daß zu dem Allen sich ausgezeichnetes Gefühl und tiefes Verständniß der erhabensten und idealsten Musik gesellt, daß diese Vorzüge alle bei einem Kinde vereinigt sein sollen, das ist’s was Einen ganz aus der Fassung bringt. Die Erscheinung des Jungen im Orchester, mit seinem lächelnden und klugen Angesichts, mit auf die Schulter zurückgeschlagenen Kragen, die Taschen wahrscheinlich noch mit Spielkugeln und Peitschenschnüren voll gestopft, ist gewiss ein Anblick, welcher die Greifköpfe stutzen macht. Da steht er, seine Violine mit der Leichtigkeit und Zuversicht eines Paganini greifend, die Leitung der Philharmonic=Professoren übernehmend, und ihnen ihre Zeichen gebend, als wäre das Ganze bloß ein Spaß — bloß ein kindischer Zeitvertreib. An Joachim‘s Leistungen kann jeder Maßstab angelegt werden. Sein Styl ist rein und ungeziert, seine Ausführung vollendet, sein Geschmack künstlerisch und gediegen. Die Leistung wurde mit Entzücken aufgenommen, die sogar das Orchester theilte; es waren gewiß wenige anwesend, welche nicht bekennen mußten, daß dies die außerordentlichste Erscheinung frühgereiften Talentes sei, welche ihnen noch vorgekommen ist. Die Wirkung wurde durch die gediegensten Mittel hervorgebracht: es war ein schönes, gediegenes Spiel — die Ausführung eines Meisters, das Verständnis eines Musikers! Jäckchen und Höschen wurden ganz vergessen! —

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This story was most likely “planted” by Joachim’s family with clippings sent from London. 

The house in which Joachim died
Berlin, Kurfürstendamm 28

Image: The Sphere, London (24 August, 1907) p. 176

The house today

Johannes Otzen

Abschiedsworte des Präsidenten der Kgl. Akademie der Künste
Geh. Regierungsrat Prof. Dr. ing. Joh. Otzen

Hochgeehrte Trauerversammlung!

Wir stehen hier im Angesichte eines Ereignisses, das, so sehr es den Grenzen menschlichen Daseins entsprechen mag, uns dennoch aufs tiefste erschüttert — der grosse Meister Joseph Joachim ist tot.

Diese Kunde ist in den Trauertagen der letzten Woche durch die ganze Kulturwelt geflogen, und wohl an jeder Stelle, an der seine gottbegnadigte Geige geklungen, wird sie das Gefühl eines unersetzlichen Verlustes auslösen.

Es hat ja vor ihm und neben ihm grosse Geiger gegeben. Die meisten sind vergessen; und bei den nicht ganz Vergessenen ist es fast immer nur ein grosses Virtuosentum gewesen, das ihren Namen der Nachwelt erhalten hat.

Wie anders hier.

Hochverehrte Trauer-Versammlung! Sie werden es mir nachfühlen, dass ich in diesm Augenblicke wünschen muss, ich wäre ein Musiker — oder aber ein solcher, der zu des Meisters Füssen gesessen und seines Geistes voll ist, stände an meiner Stelle.

Ich kann und ich darf nicht wagen, die unsterblichen künstlerischen verdienste des grossen Meisters auch nur zu berühren, die ich kaum zu ahnen, nicht zu verstehen, und noch weniger zu schildern vermag

Diese Tat, die volle Würdigung des künstlerischen Wesens und Wirkens von Joseph Joachim, muss zunächst einer Trauerfeier der Musik vorbehalten bleiben und wird in ihrer vollen Lösung wohl erst späteren Geschlechtern zufallen.

Was ich aber darf und was ich kann, das ist, in dieser feierlichen Abschiedsstunde des schönen Menschentums unsers Verblichenen zu gedenken und insbesondere sein Verhältnis zu uns, den Mitgliedern der Akademie, in Liebe und Wehmut zu zeigen.

Ihnen Allen, hochverehrte Mitglieder dieser Versammlung, die voll Ehrfurcht vor der Majestät solches Toten hier erschienen sind, wird es, auch wenn Sie den Musiker Joachim in erster Reihe verehren, doch schwer werden, diesen von dem Menschen Joachim zu trennen.

Wie oft und wie schmerzlich vermissen wir bei hoher Künstlerschaft dasjenige, was erst wahre Grösse verleiht: die harmonische Durchdringung des Künstlers mit dem Menschen.

Aber, daher auch das Sieghafte solcher Erscheinung. Es ist, als wenn die Menschheit aus dieser erst ihr wahres Ziel und ihren wahren Wert erkennt — aber auch die bedrückende Gewissheit, dass eine solche Harmonie nur von den ganz Auserwählten und Lieblingen der Götter zu erreichen ist.

Ein solcher Liebling war unser Joseph Joachim und dabei von einer Bescheidenheit, Güte und wahrer Menschenliebe erfüllt, die ihn Jedem unversgesslich machte, der auch nur vorübergehend je das Glück seiner Bekanntschaft genossen hat.

Gewohnt, auf den Höhen des Lebens zu wandeln mit den Grössten unserer Erde und ihren erlauchtesten Geistern zu verkehren, — selbst ein Fürst unter Fürsten, war er dennoch gegen Alle, die ihm nahe traten, und mochten sie noch so arm, so einfach und bescheiden in ihrer Lebensstellung sein, von unerschöplichem Wohlwollen.

Gegen die Genossen seiner Kunst und seiner Arbeit, gegen die trauernden Reste des weltberühmten Joachim’schen Quartetts; die betäubt von dem sie betroffenen Schlage an dieser Bahre stehen — von gleichbleibender Liebenswürdigkeit und voll Hingabe an die gemeinsame künstlerische Aufgabe.

Gegen die Akademie, deren Mitglied er seit 1874 und deren Vize-Präsident er seit 7 Jahren gewesen ist —, von treuer Pflichterfüllung und herzlicher Kollegialität erfüllt.

So wird er denn auch nicht am wenigsten von uns — so lange ein Zeuge seines Wesens unter uns lebt, mehr wie schmerzlich vermisst werden.

Sein edles Aeussere, das wunderbare Organ seiner wie Musik klingenden lieben Stimme, wird uns fehlen und niemals ersetzt werden.

Aber sind wir bildenden Künstler auch diesen ästhetischen Eindrücken mehr preisgeben, wie andere Menschen, — wir werden darüber nie vergessen, dass die Schönheit und edle Würde des Aeusseren im lieben Meister Joachim nur das Spiegelbild seiner edlen Seele waren.

Alles zusammen ein Gemälde von ergreifender Einfachheit, Schönheit und Kraft.

Auch wir legen unsern heissen Dank zu den Füssen dieses Sarges nieder und rufen dem teuren Entschlafenen in Wehmut, Ehrfurcht und Liebe zu:

Lebe wohl! grosser Meister und lieber Freund, lebe wohl! Möge dein Beispiel und dein Wesen, zu dem wir verehrend aufschauen, befruchtend und veredlend wirken auf alle kommenden Geschlechter, dass sie in Kunst und Leben dir nachstrebend das grosse Ziel des harmonischen Menschentums erkennen und erreichen.

Das walte Gott!

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Hans von Bülow, 1855 [i]

            In early June, 1851, Hans von Bülow arrived in Weimar to begin his studies with Liszt. [ii] At twenty, Baron Hans Guido von Bülow (1830-1894) was already a brilliant and accomplished musician and person of deep culture. Neither his precocious talent for music, nor his taste for the musical avant-garde were fully understood or appreciated by his family, however, and it would take all of Liszt’s tactful personal involvement and moral support, as well as his musical and professional mentorship, to pave the way for Bülow to become one of the 19^th century’s greatest pianists and conductors. The von Bülows were a noble family that traced their heritage to the 12^th century. Hans’s grandfather, Ernst Heinrich Adolf von Bülow, was a major in Napoleon’s army (Saxony fought on the side of the French). His father, (Carl) Eduard von Bülow, was a writer. Beginning in 1828, Eduard had published numerous works, including stories and novellas, and an abundant array of translations and editions of standard authors. His knowledge of French, English and Italian literature was immense. Eduard von Bülow was a friend and colleague of the canonic Romantic writer Ludwig Tieck, with whom he edited Novalis’s works. In 1851, at the time that Hans made his way to Weimar, he published Tieck’s Die Sommernacht. Ein dramatisches Fragment.

Hans’s mother, Franziska Elisabeth Stoll von Bülow, also came from old nobility. She grew up in the house of her sister Henriette, who was twelve years older, and married to Leipzig Geheimkammerrat, Stadthauptmann Christian Gottlob Frege, one of the patricians of Leipzig society. [1] Franziska was musically gifted, and thoroughly au fait with the excellences of gesellige Bildung. The Frege houshold was a center of Leipzig geselligkeit, and through their acquaintances Franziska and Henriette learned to converse, not only in French and Italian, but in Russian and Polish as well. Goethe and Herder were among the Frege’s guests; the Mendelssohns, Schumanns and Niels Gade were close family friends.

The Frege house
Katharinenstraße 11, Leipzig
[iii]

            Von Bülow’s parents did not have a happy marriage. Eduard lacked a steady job, and his income was sporadic and insufficient for family needs. His liberal romantic views and irregular habits did not sit well with his conservative wife. The couple divorced in 1849, when Hans was nineteen. Shortly thereafter, Eduard married Countess Louise Bülow von Dennewitz, a woman of means, and he started a second family with her in Switzerland.

Hans grew up in Dresden, a sickly, nervous child, who suffered from numerous life-threatening brain inflammations. It was after his recovery from the fifth such inflammation that his musical talent first began to show itself. His mother took him to a local ‘cellist named Hänsel, from whom he received his first instruction in music. He began piano lessons shortly thereafter. The precocious child entertained himself during his illnesses by deciphering scores in bed. From his second decade, he often heard such luminaries as Felix Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann. Clara would occasionally accompany his cousin’s wife, Livia Frege, a well-known singer and an intimate friend of the Mendelssohns and Schumanns. The family’s relations with Tieck, with Dresden’s Theaterintendant von Lüttichau, and with Dresden Concertmaster Karl Lipinski (who lived in the same building as the Bülows) helped to make Hans an avid theatergoer and opera lover. At the age of 12, already a knowledgeable and perceptive critic, he witnessed the premiere of Wagner’s Rienzi, performed by Joseph Tichatschek and Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient. By his own account, that triumphant performance made him a “Wagnerianer.” For the rest of his life, Wagner would remain his musical idol, despite the appalling treatment he would eventually receive at Wagner’s hands.

It was about this time that the Bülows became acquainted with Liszt, though the story that the young boy was roused from his sleep, at Liszt’s insistence, to hear the master play is doubtless apocryphal. Hans’s musical interests quickly became consuming. At age fourteen, he went to live in Leipzig, where he was able to study music theory with Hauptmann and piano with Louis Plaidy, both of the Leipzig Conservatory. In 1845-1846, he studied piano with Friedrich Wieck, the father and teacher of Clara Schumann. Wieck was a strict and pedantic teacher, toward whom Bülow remained cool, despite the oft-cited flattering letter he wrote to his former teacher some years later: “I have never forgotten. . . what I owe you, most honored master. You were the one who first taught my ear to hear, who impressed upon my hand rules and regulations, logical order; led my talent upward out of the twilight of the unconscious to the bright light of consciousness…”[iv] He was later to be embarrassed by this letter, which had been written in response to a note that Wieck had scribbled after a concert: “Highly honored master, My esteem for you, Master of Masters, for the present in writing — in person later this month in Berlin…” By the time this exchange occurred in 1863, Bülow’s relations with Clara, Joachim and Brahms had become strained, and, taking Wieck’s note for irony, he responded with wary and unwarranted politeness. A more reserved and honest comment is contained in Bülow’s letter to Wieck from 1846: “I have more and more insight into the excellence of your teaching, and try to follow your instructions.”

In 1846, Bülow heard Wagner conduct an unforgettable performance of Beethoven’s ninth symphony, and made up his mind to meet his idol. Their first meeting occurred on July 29, while Wagner was vacationing. Wagner wrote in Hans’s Stammbuch:

If within you there smolders a genuine, pure warmth for art,
then surely the beautiful flame will be kindled for you;
but it is knowledge that nurtures and purifies
this warmth into a powerful blaze. [v]

            Later that year, Bülow and his mother moved to Stuttgart, where Hans began a friendship with the young composer Joseph Joachim Raff, who was at that time working on his opera Alfred, and supporting himself by writing music criticism. On January 1, 1848, Bülow gave his first public concert, performing Raff’s fantasy on themes from Friedrich Wilhelm Kücken’s (1810-1882) opera Der Prätendent. Violinist and composer Bernhard Molique (1802-1869), another of Bülow’s acquaintances, observed: “Even then, as a grammar-school boy, Hans von Bülow had an extremely intelligent appearance and lively features: a dark-complexioned face, fine, impeccable manners, chivalrous and noble in the fullest sense of the word. He often made music with my older sister Karoline; when he spoke with my father and explained to him this or that about music, one could read in his face his rapid comprehension, lightning-quick understanding and varying feelings. . . . When Bülow sat at the piano, one observed that a young master commanded the instrument. His fiery, noble delivery, his powerful and yet so wonderfully delicate and finely nuanced piano playing was, for my sister especially, a joy. He, for whom his mother planned a diplomatic career, was actually already a musician with his entire soul.” [vi]

Bülow spent the turbulent years of 1848-1849 as a university student in Leipzig, living with his Aunt and Uncle Frege. There, the eighteen-year-old was forced to endure his family’s pronounced disdain for both the music and the politics of his hero, Wagner. In the conservative atmosphere of Leipzig patrician society he developed a disgust for “the stubbornness and laziness toward the new, which people do not immediately understand and therefore despise.” [vii] When Tannhäuser was given in Dresden, he wrote to his mother: “I was seized by a strong feeling of bliss and pain. What would I have given to have been there! I would have walked there. . . I thank you, God, that I am not like. . . the Pharisees; that I am capable of grasping the full sacredness and holiness of the music that brings this work before the inner eye, and to understand the mission of the apostle Wagner. Therefore, I do not despise Wagner’s enemies when I am seized by a personal prejudice against them, but I pity them, that they are incapable of raising themselves out of the dust!” [viii] Despise or pity, he chafed against the restrictions of his home environment, and longed for the much-vaunted freedom of a proper university student.

Bülow would eventually become one of Liszt’s most beloved students. He married Liszt’s daughter, Cosima. Alexander Siloti would later write:

The name of Bülow is irresistibly linked with that of Tausig in my memory. These two were Liszt’s most beloved pupils. When he spoke of them his face became so radiant, and his voice so charged with emotion, that one felt at once the depth and power of his love for them. There were only two portraits standing on Liszt’s writing-table, one of the Gräfin Wittgenstein and one of Bülow; from these two he has never parted, even when travelling. He invariably spoke of Bülow as ‘dear Hans.’ Once while I was there Bülow came to Weimar. . . and Liszt was all excitement and happiness at the thought of seeing his ‘dear Hans’ fully three days before he arrived. He used to say that Bülow’s noble, chivalrous character should be a model for all artists. Liszt’s Danse Macabre was dedicated to Bülow with these words: ‘To the high-souled herald of our Art.’ (dem hochherzigen Progonen unserer Kunst). I cannot read the title ‘high-souled’ without emotion. In these two words there lies such boundless esteem for the artist and the man, and in uttering them Liszt raised Bülow nearer to his own inaccessible height. [ix]

Hans von Bülow
[x]

Upon his arrival in Weimar, Bülow stayed at a Gasthof in town, until, encouraged by his friend Raff (by then working as Liszt’s assistant), he took up lodgings in the Altenburg. “There, on the third floor of the adjoining building, I have four beautiful rooms at my disposal,” he wrote to his father, “I make do, however, with two — actually only with one — in which a grand piano that is adequate for practicing stands next to my bed.”[xi] There he practiced eight to ten hours a day, with a break at mid-day for a walk and lunch at the Hotel Erbprinz (“one must do that, for in Weimar one must be seen in respectable society, and meet with musicians, singers, etc.”), and another walk into town for dinner at 9. “At 10:30 I am mostly back home,” he wrote, “and I improvise on the piano in the moonlight or cloudy sky — it makes no difference. Since there is only one copy of the house key, it is necessary for me to climb over a broken-down wall to get into the courtyard, and then to scramble through a sash window that can be opened from the outside in order to get into the house.” [xii] It was Liszt’s intention to groom him for a virtuoso career, and he did his best to seek acceptance into “the school of the école de Weimar” as Liszt had expressed it in both German and French. “I have for now relinquished my autonomy, and allow myself to be ‘Weimarized;’ of course I still retain enough of my ‘ego’ to be able to judge the results of the experiments that I allow to be conducted on my person.” [xiii]

Princess Caroline’s illness had kept Liszt was away from Weimar for most of the year, and by the end of summer his return was eagerly awaited. Bülow occupied himself at the piano, and, guided by Raff, made his first attempts at “that which until today had seemed almost to be a thing of complete impossibility, namely to write a proper piece for piano.” No one could help him better than Raff, he wrote, “who in his piano compositions has heard and grasped all the characteristic effects and tricks that Liszt has invented, and made very practical use of them. . . ” [xiv]

Bülow had first met Joachim at the Frege house in Leipzig in June of 1845. [xv] Now, little more than a week after his arrival, he joined Joachim and Bernhard Cossmann [2] for a private performance, on Liszt’s good piano, of an “intractably difficult” trio by Raff (“that even Liszt had had to take exceptional pains over”). [3] “I have never had two such exceptional partners in my life,” Bülow wrote. [xvi] “Joachim, who earlier in Leipzig had always behaved somewhat distantly toward me, here treats me quite pleasantly— in short, it does me a lot of good, finally to be among my peers, who, insofar as I deserve it, also value me. I can’t tell you how this eternal realization that I am undervalued has embittered and ultimately enervated me.” [xvii] Four days later, Bülow wrote to his mother: “I have found a congenial friend in Concertmaster Joachim.” [xviii]

In August, when heat made the noon walk oppressive, Joachim and Bülow studied Spanish. “The country and nation interest me,” Bülow wrote, “and I shall probably soon also have an opportunity to go there; furthermore, the language seems easy to me, and I want to continue to cultivate my facility in languages. After Spanish we want to learn Italian; we give ourselves at most a quarter-year for each.” [xix] Bülow, Raff and Joachim became constant companions. In the evening, the three friends would go for a walk to work up an appetite for dinner. For Bülow, language study, meals and walks provided the only diversion from his composing and practicing. “Other than Raff and Joachim, with whom I often make music, I have no companionship at all.” [xx]

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[1] Frege was the godfather of Otto von Bismarck.

[2] Bernhard Cossmann (1822-1910) was a great German-Jewish violoncellist. Mendelssohn brought Cossmann to the Leipzig Gewandhaus in the year of his death (1847). Beginning in August 1850, Cossmann was principal in the Weimar orchestra under Liszt, and Joachim’s frequent chamber music partner.

[3] Among the auditors were writer and women’s rights activist Fanny Lewald (1811-1889) and her future husband, writer and critic Adolf Stahr (1805-1876).

[i] In vol. II of Briefe.

[ii] Bülow/BRIEFE I, p. 329.

[iii] Reimann/BÜLOW, p. 44.

[iv] Bülow/BRIEFE I, p. 554.

[v] Reimann/BÜLOW, p. 127.

[vi] Reimann/BÜLOW, pp. 139-140.

[vii] Reimann/BÜLOW, p. 172.

[viii] Bülow/BRIEFE I, p. 123.

[ix] Siloti/LISZT, pp. 67-68.

[x] From Reimann/BÜLOW

[xi] Bülow/BRIEFE I, p. 329.

[xii] Bülow/BRIEFE I, p. 332.

[xiii] Bülow/BRIEFE I, p. 331.

[xiv] Bülow/BRIEFE I, p. 350.

[xv] Reimann/BÜLOW, p. 120.

[xvi] Bülow/BRIEFE I, p. 330.

[xvii] Bülow/BRIEFE I, p. 333.

[xviii] Bülow/BRIEFE I, p. 338.

[xix] Bülow/BRIEFE I, p. 351.

[xx] Bülow/BRIEFE I, p. 351-352.

From: Esther Bright, The Ancient One: To the Young Folks at Home, London: The Theosophical Publishing House, 1927, pp. 46-59.

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© Robert W. Eshbach 2017

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Joseph Joachim to his Uncles (Wilhelm and Nathan Figdor), July 17, 1850
Facsimile of letter in the Brahmshaus, Baden-Baden.

In the Summer of 1850, Joachim acquired a fine Stradivarius violin with the help of his mother’s brothers Wilhelm and Nathan Figdor. In this letter, he thanks them for their assistance. On August 4th, Joachim wrote to his brother Heinrich: “The matter at hand is the, for me, supremely momentous acquisition of a violin of the first rank […] The violin that I have chosen for myself (perhaps the best Stradivari that I know in Germany) belongs to a wealthy private individual who has actually, although he prizes it above everything, decided to part with it as a favor to me, and to let me have it at the price that he paid for it (300 Louis d’or). 

“Die Sache von der es sich handelt, ist die für mich höchst folgenreiche Anschaffung einer Violine ersten Ranges. […] Die Violine, die ich mir aber erkoren habe (vielleicht die beste Stradivari die ich in Deutschland kenne) gehört einem reichen Privatmann, der sich auch wirklich, obwohl die Geige ihm über alles gieng mir zu Liebe entschlossen hat, sich dann zu trennen, und zu dem Preise, den er dafür gegeben hatte (300 Louis d’or) sie mir zu lassen.”

[Unpublished letter in the collection of the Brahms Institut an der Musikhochschule Lübeck Signatur.: Joa : B1 : 20 / Inv-Nr.: 1991.2.50.3 / Kasten I]

The Joachim-Ma Stradivari, acquired by Joseph Joachim around the time of his 19th birthday, in the summer of 1850.

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Joseph Joachim to his Uncles (Wilhelm and Nathan Figdor)
[English translation below (c) Robert Whitehouse Eshbach]

Leipzig am 17ten Juli 1850

Theure Oncles!

Als die liebe Fanny mir die schöne Botschaft
hinterbrachte, daß Sie mir zu einer Violine ersten
Ranges verhelfen wollten, war meine freudige Aufre-
gung und die Ungeduld meinen Lieblingswunsch bald
erfüllt zu sehen so groß, daß ich sofort nach Bremen
reiste, wo ich eine herrliche Stradivari wußte, und diesem
Umstand bitte ich es zuzuschreiben, wenn ich nicht gleich
wie ich wohl gesollt hätte, Ihnen ausdrückte, wie hoch ich
Euer  so großmütiges Opfer dankbar zu schätzen weiß.
Ich bin nun wirklich so glücklich ein Instrument mein zu
nennen, welches zu den vorzüglichsten in Europa gehört,
und das mir stets als Ideal eines schönen tones vor-
geschwebt hat. Meine Freude darüber ist unbe-

2

schreiblich; vor allen dingen ist es mir aber wahres
und inniges Herzensbedürfniß, Ihnen, meine theueren
Oncles, von denen ich schon so vieles Liebe und Gute erfah-
ren habe, auch für diese Bereitwilligkeit, mir
die Künstlerbahn zu verschönern und erleichtern, meinen
tiefgefühlten Dank zu sagen. Die herrlichen Klänge
meiner Violine werden mir täglich von Ihrer Her-
zensgüte singen, und so lange meine Ohren hören
und mein Herz empfinden kann werde ich nicht auf-
hören mit Verehrung und Liebe zu sein

Ihr dankbarer

Joseph Joachim

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Joseph Joachim to his Uncles (Wilhelm and Nathan Figdor)

Leipzig, July 17, 1850

Dear Uncles!

When dear Fanny (1) brought me the wonderful news that you wished to help me acquire a first-class violin, my joyful excitement and my impatience to see my dearest wish quickly fulfilled was so great that I went immediately to Bremen, where I knew there was a magnificent Stradivari, and I hope you will attribute to this the fact that I did not immediately express to you, as I should have, how gratefully and highly I know how to prize your magnanimous offer. I am now so truly lucky to call an instrument mine that is one of the most exquisite in Europe, and that has always represented for me the ideal of a beautiful tone. My joy over it is indescribable; it is above all my true and heartfelt desire to express my deeply-felt thanks to you, my dear Uncles, from whom I have already received so much that is dear and good, for your willingness once again to make my artistic career easier and more beautiful. The magnificent sounds of my violin will sing to me daily of the goodness of your hearts, and, as long as my ears hear and my heart can feel, I shall not cease from being, with respect and love

your thankful

Joseph Joachim

(1) Joachim’s cousin and guardian, Fanny Wittgenstein.