© Robert W. Eshbach, 2013

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A Prodigious Fellow

             Joseph found himself in constant demand for the remainder of his stay in London. On Monday June 3, “the marvelous little Joachim” played at Mr. Hausmann’s soirée at 55 Wimpole Street, where Louise Dulcken was among the other performers. Adult appearances required an adult wardrobe. Ignaz Moscheles’ son Felix, [1] who was two years younger than Joseph, recalled: “after singing at our house, Mendelssohn wanted to take [Joachim] to a musical party; a pair of gloves were deemed necessary to make him presentable, and we two boys were sent out to get them; we had a walk, and a talk besides, and I remember thinking what a nice sort of sensible boy he was; no nonsense about him and no affectation; not like the other clever ones I knew. The gloves we bought in a little shop in Albany Street, Regent’s Park, and as these were the first pair of English gloves that Joseph wore, I duly record the historical fact for the benefit of all those who have at one time or the other been under the spell of the fingers we fitted that evening.” [i]

“Evening concerts of Classical Instrumental Music at Radley’s Hotel, Bridge Street, Blackfriars, this evening,” ran an advert in the Times on June 5^th. “Mr. Purdy has the pleasure to inform his friends and the public that Dr. Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy has kindly consented to play his Trio in D minor for pianoforte, violin, and violoncello; and that Master Joachim will lead two quartetts, and play a solo on the above named night, supported by Messrs. Case, Hill, and Hancock.” This was a formidable program. The “quartetts” were Mozart’s Quartet in d minor, K. 421, and a reprise of Beethoven’s treacherous “Rasumovsky” Quartet in C Major, op. 59, no. 3. The solo was again Ernst’s Othello Fantasy. That evening’s trio performance left a deep impression on Joseph, not only of Mendelssohn’s memory and sang-froid, but also of his character. “It so happened,” he later recalled, “that only the violin and violoncello parts had been brought to the concert-room, and Mendelssohn was rather displeased at this; but he said, ‘Never mind, put any book on the piano and someone can turn from time to time, so that I need not look as though I played by heart.’ Nowadays, when people put such importance on playing or conducting without a book, I think this might be considered a good moral lesson of a great musician’s modesty. He evidently did not like to be in too great a prominence before his partners in the Trio. He was always truly generous!” [ii]

Amidst this whirlwind of performance, Joseph somehow found time for study. Mendelssohn, who was directing his education, placed a great emphasis on his compositional work, and insisted as well that he not neglect his general studies and physical culture. “So thoroughly grounded seems to be this young professor in musical science, as well as in executive skill —,” wrote Henry Chorley, “so liberally gifted in the essentials of head, heart, and health — that we see no limit to his future career; and if the creative faculty develop itself, shall look for a great artist in him, in the most comprehensive acceptation of the term.” [iii]

No doubt on Mendelssohn’s recommendation, Joseph took lessons in composition and orchestration from the thirty-one-year-old George Macfarren, at Macfarren’s flat on the corner of Oxford and Berners Streets. Lady Macfarren later recalled their first meeting at Joseph’s uncle Bernhard Figdor’s home at Tulse Hill: “It was a grey, warm afternoon, and I saw a tall, [2] genial youth, who I was told was a great violin player. I had a long game of ball with him, several times resumed, on the lawn, whilst Professor Macfarren and his uncle walked up and down on the paths at the sides of the garden.” [iv]

Album leaf: “for Joseph Joachim in remembrance of his
friend G. A. Macfarren, London 20 May 1844” [v]

Though not an enthusiastic advocate of Macfarren’s theories, Mendelssohn was nevertheless generous in his support of Macfarren, whose overture Chevy Chase he had performed at the Leipzig Gewandhaus on October 26 of the previous year. [3] Macfarren was an engaging and original teacher, with a “quaint, chatty” tutorial style. While still in his mid-twenties, he had been appointed professor of harmony and composition at the Royal Academy of Music. He founded the Society of British Musicians in 1834 and the Handel Society in 1844. In 1845, he would assume conducting duties at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

A proponent of Alfred Day’s novel and controversial harmonic theory, Macfarren was discovered one day in 1847 by an official of the RAM teaching from an unauthorized text. “Holloa!” cried the visitor. “What is this book? We cannot have any new-fangled notions here.” [vi] A conference was called with Macfarren’s former teacher Cipriani Potter (then director of the school), William Sterndale-Bennett and three others. After a spirited discussion, Macfarren resigned his position, “rather than continue to teach contrary to his convictions.” Potter eventually recalled Macfarren to his old position, telling him: “come back and teach anything you please.” In the words of a friend, “better counsels prevailed; not the acceptance of Day’s theory, but the wise persuasion that it was better to have a musician of unquestioned competence and power to teach that which he believed from his own out-thinking, than that any old traditions should be so stereotyped in an educational system or curriculum as to bar all free thought, and to alienate from the Institution one whose worth was so fully recognised.” [vii]

Macfarren gave Joseph his first instruction in composing for orchestra. [viii] Whether he taught Joseph using Day’s theories is not known, but it seems likely that he did. Day’s Treatise on Harmony was begun at Macfarren’s instigation in 1840 — though it was not published until 1845.

On Friday, June 7^th, Joseph was among the performers at a concert in the Princess’ Concert Room, co-sponsored by Macfarren and the critic for the Musical World, James William “Jimmy” Davison. For Joseph, this program, too, amounted to a recital. As originally conceived, it was to have included a performance by W. H. Holmes of Macfarren’s Second Solo Sonata in A Major, Ma Cousine. When Holmes fell ill, Macfarren asked Mendelssohn to step in. Mendelssohn demurred:

The room was filled — “the presence of the most eminent musicians and dilettanti giving a character and importance to the audience not often observable apart from the Philharmonic.” The concert opened with a performance of Mendelssohn’s D minor Trio, [4] performed by Mendelssohn, Joachim and Hausmann “with a spirit, freshness, and brilliancy perfectly inapproachable by any other set of artists. The andante and the scherzo were encored.” [x]  Later, Joachim, substituting for the ailing Holmes, played J. S. Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in G minor for violin solo (BWV 1001), after which he led a performance of Mendelssohn’s quartet in D, op. 44.

“The adagio and fugue in G minor, which Joachim volunteered, were delivered to perfection, and met with a unanimous encore,” reported the Morning Herald. “The more frequently this gifted lad plays the more extraordinary does he appear. Boy as he is, it does not seem that he has more to learn. He has all the energy, feeling, and judgement of the matured musician, and certainly he does not lack those acquirements of hand, which have hitherto been supposed attainable only by years of persevering practice. The vigorous fugue of old Bach he gave with the most complete readiness and precision; never faltering for an instant, or clouding the development of the subject in its interlacements by confused or insufficient workmanship. As a mere manual performance it was remarkable; but there was a fine intelligence pervading every bar in the highest degree gratifying, the more so as it was quite unlooked for.” [xi] The reviewer for The Polytechnic Review and Magazine, who took a decidedly negative view of the entire concert, demonstrated the risk of programming Bach’s solo works in the age of opera fantasias: “Young Joachim, in obedience to the Genius of Dulness, who seemed to have made these concerts the objects of her most particular care, played a dull tiresome fugue from one of Bach’s Violin Studies. The playing was marvellously good, and the music miraculously flat.” [xii]

[xiii]

             Better than any review was a letter from a Miss Robinson, daughter of the Venerable Archdeacon Robinson, addressed to a Mr. Wood, and later forwarded to Macfarren:

                                                                                    14, Euston Square

Macfarren responded:

                                                                        73, Berners Street [xv]

Ernst, who had been in precarious health, was disinclined to play, and at first refused. At Mendelssohn’s request, he reconsidered, but only on the condition that he should play the first violin part. Sivori then objected, proposing that they draw lots to determine parts. Hearing this, Ernst again refused to participate. The French virtuoso Prosper Sainton was persuaded to fill in for Ernst, and it seemed as if the “show-lion quatour” was again en train. “At the rehearsal, however,” reported the Musical World, “when the four violinists were called upon, little Joseph Joachim, a good artist and true, seeing that Ernst was not present, was not to be persuaded by any argument to ascend the orchestra. He declared, and properly so, that he had only acceded to make one of the quartet on the understanding that Ernst was to lead it — and that though he would play any where, or any thing under the auspices of that great violinist, he would by no means place himself under the same control with any one else. Nothing could be more straight-forward than this, and the little violinist was as firm as a rock — not to be shaken. At last the directors were compelled to ask Mr. Willy to play; and Mr. Willy, with his usual good nature, consented. So that on Monday we had the advantage of hearing two first-rate English violinists (Blagrove and Willy), one first-rate Italian and one first-rate Frenchman (Sivori and Sainton), perform, before an English audience, one of the most supreme pieces of rubbish that ever was penned to flatter popular prejudice or tickle uncultivated ears.” [xvii]

On that Monday afternoon, Joseph played instead at Madame Dulcken’s soirée in the Great Concert Room of the Italian Opera House. According to the Musical World, “Mad. Dulcken’s soirée, in honor of Dr. Mendelssohn, was brilliantly attended, by amateurs and artists of the highest distinction. The Doctor delighted the company by several performances on the piano, and little Joachim, Goffrie, Hill, Hausman, Brizzi, Miss Rainforth, (who sang the Reislied, [sic] ‘Journey song,’ to the accompaniment of the great composer) and Madame Dulcken herself, helped to make up a musical treat of the most intellectual kind.” [xviii] That same week “the extraordinary little Joachim” also appeared in Mr. John Parry’s Concert and was present at the final dinner of the Melodists club, at which Ernst and Jacques Offenbach (on ‘cello) played solos.

London Standard, June 17, 1844, p. 3

On June 14, [5] “Master Joachim” made his final London appearance in a morning gala of gargantuan proportions, promoted by Julius Benedict, in the Great Concert Room of Her Majesty’s Theatre. Here again, the boy was in the most illustrious company. An advance notice boasted: “The giant concert of this most amiable man and distinguished musician takes place to-morrow morning… Not a name of any ability is absent from the programme — and we cannot doubt that the attendance will be as brilliant as the high merit of the beneficiaire and the unrivalled pretensions of his programme so richly deserve.” [xix] The distinguished roster of performers included, among others, Mendelssohn, Thalberg, Dulcken, Sivori, Lablache, [6] Staudigl, Costa, Parish-Alvars and Jacques Offenbach. Thirty-nine pieces were presented. Joseph played the Othello Fantasy “(by desire) […] (His last appearance in England.)” [xx]

That evening, two weeks prior to his 13th birthday, Joseph left for Leipzig with the English public at his feet. In his baggage was a gift from Thomas Alsager: a score of the Beethoven quartets. [xxi] The Musical World reported his departure:

Joseph Joachim acknowledges the audience, London, 1844

This album-leaf is the joint effort of Julius Benedict and Felix Mendelssohn.

The drawing is probably Mendelssohn’s, and shows the young violinist from the conductor’s perspective. Note the proper accentuation of Joachim’s name, which is pronounced in the Hungarian manner: JOachim. [xxiii]

Joachim’s English Repertoire March 28 — June 14, 1844 included at least the following works:

Bach Adagio and Fugue in G Minor, BWV 1001
Beethoven Violin Concerto, Op. 61
Beethoven Quartet Op. 59, No. 3
Beethoven Quartet in Bb Op. 130
Beethoven Quintet in C
de Bériot Andantino and Rondo Russe (from the Concerto No. 2 in B Minor, op. 32)
Ernst Othello Fantasy
Haydn Quartet Hob. III: 70
Maurer Sinfonia Concertante, Op. 55 for four violins (prepared but ultimately not performed)
Mendelssohn Quartet in D Major, Op. 44 No. 1
Mendelssohn Trio in D Minor
Mozart Quartet K 421
Mozart Quartet K. 516
Spohr Concerto No. 8 in A Minor, Op. 47, Gesangsscene

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© Robert W. Eshbach, 2013

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London Debut

[i]

Hanover Square Rooms in 1843

[ii]

Hanover Square Rooms in 1843

            Mendelssohn had been an occasional guest conductor with London’s Philharmonic Society Orchestra since his first appearance there in 1829. In 1843, the Society had come into financial difficulties, and, by engaging Mendelssohn to conduct the following season, they hoped to help rebuild their audiences and recoup their losses. It may not have pleased them, therefore, when Mendelssohn suggested an unknown 12-year-old as a soloist. The Philharmonic had a long-standing ban on appearances by children. In arranging Joachim’s debut, Mendelssohn, who himself had a well-known aversion to the exploitation of prodigies, was required to give personal assurances to the committee that his young protégé was no mere Wunderkind, but already “an eminent artist and a fine person.”

John Ella

Portrait by Charles Baugniet in 1851
Courtesy of Raymond E. O. Ella, author-historian

Impresario John Ella claimed some of the credit for easing the committee’s skepticism, by including Joseph in what amounted to a series of high-profile auditions:

By special invitation, I accompanied a literary friend, in April 1844, to the residence of the late Madame Dulcken, Pianist to the Queen, to hear a youth play the violin. M. Dulcken was in doubt whether a boy of the age of Master Joachim, then fourteen [sic], would be allowed to play at the Philharmonic Concerts, and both Sir Henry Bishop and Sir George Smart were sceptical on the matter. On the Tuesday following, the youthful violinist came to my second weekly quartet union, and led Beethoven’s Quintet in C. At two other of my private musical gatherings Master Joachim played solos, or led quartets, and ultimately I mustered a notable assembly of musical lions to hear him play Beethoven’s Posthumous Quartet in Bb. Royalty and nobility crowded my room, but the most illustrious of the company comprised Mendelssohn, Moscheles, Dragonetti, Ernst, Lablache, Döhler, Offenbach, Benedict, Thalberg, Sainton, Sivori, Sir George Smart, Sir Henry Bishop, and Costa.[iii]

The Morning Post, May 15, 1844, p. 3

It seems that the original plan had been for Joseph to play Spohr’s Concerto No. 8, the Gesangsscene, but here again Ernst played a pivotal role in Joachim’s career; since Ernst had only weeks earlier played the same work, the choice fell by default to the Beethoven Violin Concerto, for which Joseph had provided cadenzas his own devising.[1]

Joseph Joachim: Cadenza to the Rondo of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto
“London, 12 May 1844
To my dear friend Hill for remembrance”

“The MS. of the cadenza to the Rondo of the concerto is now in the possession of Messrs. W. E. Hill & Sons, the well-known violin makers of New Bond Street. The following ‘account’ is attached to it:— Joseph Joachim: born 1831. A cadenza written by the great violinist, in 1844, for the Beethoven Concerto, when he was but thirteen years of age, and presented by him to the late Henry Hill, who was present on the occasion of its being played for the first time at an evening musical party. Joachim played the cadenza from memory, and took the musicians by surprise when he told them that it was his own composition, and to convince them that this was so (some doubts being expressed) he wrote this and presented it to Henry Hill.'” [F. G. Edwards, Professor Joachim’s English Jubilee, The Musical Herald and Tonic Sol-fa Reporter 552 (1 March, 1894): 70.] Henry Hill was a prominent London violist, and a member of the famous English family of violin makers. This manuscript was passed to Hill’s son Arthur F. Hill, and eventually found its way into the collection of Serge Lifar. It was sold at Sotheby’s on December 6, 2002.

This, too, must have been a controversial decision. Beethoven’s concerto had had a checkered career since the evening, just before Christmas, 1806, when Franz Clement first conjured it to life in Vienna’s Theater and der Wien. Though it had been championed by such eminent violinists as Luigi Tomasini (Berlin, 1812), Pierre Baillot (Paris, 1828) and Henri Vieuxtemps (Vienna, 1834), [iv] it had never garnered more than a succès d’estime in public performance. Many great violinists, including Ludwig Spohr, had rejected the work outright (“…that was all very fine,” Spohr later said to Joachim by way of congratulations after a performance in Hanover, “but now I’d like to hear you play a real violin piece.”). [v] The concerto’s London premiere, given in April 1832 by a Frankfurt native named Edward Eliason, had not impressed the critics. “Beethoven has put forth no strength in his violin concerto,” wrote the reviewer for the Hamonicon. “It is a fiddling affair, and might have been written by any third or fourth rate composer. We cannot say that the performance of this concealed any of its weakness, or rendered it at all more palatable.” [vi]

This difficult, reputedly disagreeable work was a risky choice, then, as a debut vehicle for a boy one month shy of his 13th birthday. For Joseph, as for Mendelssohn, the stakes for this performance were unusually high. Joseph’s success in meeting this challenge would have historic consequences, both for the boy and for the concerto.

[vii]

A copy of the original program, signed in 1899 by Joseph Joachim, “the little fellow.”

            Joseph’s May 27 Philharmonic debut took place at the Hanover Square Rooms. [2] The long and diverse program began at eight. The highlight of the evening promised to be Mendelssohn’s incidental music to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, featuring the first English performance of the celebrated Wedding March. The concert opened with a performance of Beethoven’s fourth symphony, followed by a mawkish duet, excerpted from the young Liverpudlian John Liptrott Hatton’s opera Pascal Bruno:

Stung by horror, shame, and anguish,
Driven from her once loved home;
Mid yon mountains, wild, and lonely,
There she sought an early tomb.
Holy hand her grave ne’er hallowed;
Tears, none but his, her only child,
Who swore thereon an oath of vengeance —
Vengeance! as terrible as wild.

After that came Joseph and Beethoven’s “fiddling affair.” Mendelssohn’s account of the performance evokes the boisterous concert-going customs of the time, and vividly captures the atmosphere of exhilaration in the hall:

“I well remember Mendelssohn’s bright look of pleasure and appreciative interest in his little friend,” witness Elizabeth Mounsey [3] recalled later. “As conductor, he turned towards the very young soloist, attired in short jacket and turned-down collar, so as to follow him dutifully, Mendelssohn’s own subordinate position appearing to give him a degree of amusement. But it was very beautiful to see the pleasure it gave him to regard the boy at his side, not only with admiration, but with honour. [4] Joachim, whose playing was so masterly, and whose whole manner was so thoughtful, was still boy enough to indulge in an unbecomingly full pocket at his side; one wondered what its contents might be!” [ix]

The ‘cellist Alfredo Piatti, making a London debut of his own that season, was also in the audience. Fifty years later, at a joint jubilee celebration, Piatti recalled the “little fat boy in tight trousers” who had made such a sensation that night. “He had blooming cheeks and a short jacket, and he stepped up on the platform at the Philharmonic Concert and played Beethoven’s violin concerto in such style that everybody was astonished. It was my good fortune to be very much associated with the little boy in after years; and his name was that of my friend, the great artist, Joseph Joachim.” [x]

Joseph emerged the lion of the hour, and even the most feared of reviewers were effusive in their praise. In the Athenaeum, the occasionally cantankerous Henry Chorley wrote: “Then came Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, played by Herr Joachim and, what is more, played with… Very few performers have come before us so satisfactory, and for the future so brightly promising as this boy; who seems, too, to possess a strong frame and a disposition so modest, as well as cheerful, that the perils of praise are less formidable than usual.” [xi]

The reviewer for The Musical World, probably J. W. Davison, was equally impressed:

Joachim’s rendering of Beethoven’s concerto was astonishing. Not only was it astonishing as coming from a comparative child, but astonishing as a violin performance, no matter from whom proceeding. The greatest violinists hold this concerto in awe. It is, we must own, not adapted to display advantageously the powers of the instrument — though a composition of great distinction, the first movement being in Beethoven’s highest manner. Young Joachim, however, attacked it with the vigour and determination of the most accomplished artist, and made every point tell. So well did he play, that we forgot how entirely unadapted for display was the violin part. No master could have read it better, no finished artist could have better rendered it. Tone, execution, and reading, were alike admirable — and the two cadences introduced by the young player were not only tremendous executive feats, but ingeniously composed — consisting wholly of excellent and musician-like workings of phrases and passages from the concerto. The reception of Joachim was enthusiastic, and his success the most complete and triumphant that his warmest friends could have desired. What Charles Filtsch [5] is upon the piano, Joseph Joachim is upon the violin, and he is, in common with that prodigious little genius, remarkable for the most attractive manners, the most amiable disposition, and the most intelligent and charming modesty. We wonder not that he should be such a favourite with Mendelssohn, who is ever the first to acknowledge and to nurture rising genius. [xii]

The reviewer concluded: “We did not think so much of the [Wedding] March as the rest of the audience, but “trahit sua quemque voluptas.” [7] Altogether it was a delightful concert; but we should like to see the programme of the next a little more varied.” [!]

Finally, the reviewer for the Morning Post enthused:

Reports of Joseph’s success continued to appear. As late as August, Schumann’s Neue Zeitschrift für Musik reported: “The very youthful Jos. Joachim played in the 5^th Philharmonic Concert, and aroused the liveliest sensation, and not simply through his virtuosity, but more through the maturity and capacity of comprehension, and the taste with which he performed the Beethoven Violin Concerto. He also retained these virtues elsewhere, through his outstanding quartet playing, and the partiality that he seems to hold for Bach’s works. Though, indeed, still a boy, Joachim is not one of those pitiable hothouse plants that our era is so rich in, and the tact with which he deflected all speculation that would stamp him as a Wunderkind is commendable.” [xv]

On the day after the concert, the thrill of the event still vivid in his mind, Mendelssohn sat down and penned the glowing letter to the Wittgensteins in Leipzig (from which the foregoing description of the concert was drawn):

[xviii]

Joseph conquers the world, 1844.
Drawing attributed to John Callcott Horsley
Perhaps by Charles Edward Horsley
Private collection

The Musical Post, May 17, 1844, p. 1

            The “perfectly tranquil life” would have to wait until Joseph’s return to Leipzig. Following his brilliant debut, invitations to perform flooded in from all quarters. Joseph’s reputation reached as far as Windsor, where, on June 4^th, he was called to give a command performance at a state concert before Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort, together with their guests Emperor Nicholas of Russia, Frederick Augustus II, King of Saxony, the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel. [xix] He traveled to Windsor with his Uncle Bernhard, returning the next day. [xx] Joseph performed Ernst’s Othello Fantasy, and Bériot’s Andantino and Rondo Russe, [xxi] accompanied by the Queen’s private band, and received a golden watch and chain from the Queen for his efforts. [xxii] For the young “Hungarian Boy,” not yet thirteen years of age, the story of these days, which hovers so close to the world of myth, had already become the founding narrative of his incomparable English career.

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© Robert W. Eshbach, 2013

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Alsager

Thomas Massa Alsager. By and published by Richard Dighton, reissued by Thomas McLean, hand-coloured etching, published August 1823

Thomas Massa Alsager (‘The mirror of the Times’)Thomas Massa Alsager (‘The mirror of the Times’)

National Portrait Gallery, London

Music-making in early 19^th Century London owed much of its character to the enthusiasm and enterprise of musical amateurs. Among them, none had a greater influence, or left a greater legacy, than the co-owner, financial writer and sometime music critic of the Times, Thomas Massa Alsager. At a time when Beethoven’s works were still struggling for recognition, Alsager was a devoted advocate for the most difficult of them: the later string quartets and sonatas that even today elude many sophisticated audiences. Many of Beethoven’s works received their first English performances  — often by distinguished artists — at Alsager’s home at 26 Queen Square, Bloomsbury. Larger works were not excepted: the English premiere of Beethoven’s Missa solemnis took place there on December 24, 1832 conducted by Ignaz Moscheles. Alsager’s pioneering work on behalf of the Beethoven quartets culminated in a remarkable series of five concerts, held at two-week intervals between April 21^st and June 16^th 1845, in which the entire cycle of sixteen quartets (excluding the Grosse Fuge) was performed for the first time. Every concert featured at least one selection each from Beethoven’s early, middle and late quartets. Beautifully engraved programs and special pocket scores were printed for each occasion, to help the audience of 250 in their understanding of the works at hand. Listeners were requested to arrive at 8:00 o’clock for the 8:30 performances, to give them time to prepare their minds, and to assure that, once commenced, the music making would not be interrupted. [i]

“Honor to Beethoven”

Admission token for a concert of the Beethoven Quartett Society

            Alsager committed suicide in 1846, on the anniversary of his wife’s funeral. Nevertheless, with the exception of 1849, the performance of the complete Beethoven cycle by the “Beethoven Quartett Society” continued as an annual spring feature of the London season until 1851. It would be forty-three years before it would be performed again in its entirety. [1] A contemporary reviewer commented upon the significance that these concerts had for the reception of Beethoven’s late works in England and beyond:

The Society’s concerts put an end to the controversy about the merit of Beethoven’s last quartets. Everything that used to be called eccentric, confused, linked to the excesses of a disorderly, unbalanced imagination resulting from the composer’s deafness, was actually only the product of the works’ originality which remained inaccessible to the uninitiated listener. In these brilliant recitals, the late Beethoven quartets were played with such exactness, such finesse of expression and nuances, with so much fire and impetus that they finally emerged in the purity of their architecture. They are listened to with most profound rapture. Unanimous opinion places them at the summit of this genre of composition. [ii]

[iii]

One of the beautifully produced programs from the 1845 Beethoven Quartett Society Concerts. Poetry, musical incipits and program notes helped to do “Honor to Beethoven” and to spread the gospel of the Beethoven string quartets. The concerts were held at 76 Harley Street, the home of Louis Julienne (1812-1860), the colorful  director of the Drury Lane Theater. Hector Berlioz stayed there on his 1847 visit to London.

            Over the years, Mendelssohn had been a familiar participant at Alsager’s gatherings, performing both as a pianist and violist. On Thursday May 16^th, 1844, having recently arrived from Berlin, he responded to Alsager’s invitation for the following Sunday: “Of course I shall be most happy to be allowed to assist to your musical Séance. . . I need not assure you that I will be at your house as early as I can, & you know very well how happy I shall be to shake you again by the hand & to perform on the Tenor [viola] or if that cannot be on the Piano as much of Beethoven’s music, and as little of mine as you possibly can give me.” [iv] Joseph was also invited to participate in the event, at which he delighted Mendelssohn with his performance of one of his “musical father’s” piano quartets. In the course of his stay in London, Joseph was a frequent guest at Thomas Alsager’s home, and a frequent partaker in the music-making there. [v] As a parting gift, Alsager presented Joseph with the Beethoven quartets in score.

On his second visit to London, in 1847, Joseph took part in the Beethoven Quartett Society’s ground-breaking performances, together with veteran performers Sainton, Hill, Thomas and Rousselot. [2] During that same 1847 visit, Joachim and the great Italian ‘cellist Alfredo Piatti [3] began a legendary chamber music partnership that lasted until Piatti’s retirement in 1898.

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