Background
Joseph Joachim was born in Kitsee (now Kopcseny), and when he was two years old his family moved to Pest.
composer teacher violinist Conducter
Joseph Joachim was born in Kitsee (now Kopcseny), and when he was two years old his family moved to Pest.
Joseph Joachim studied under Serwac- zynski. Mendelssohn, after testing his musical powers, pronounced that the regular training of a music school was not needed, but recommended that he shouldreceive a thorough general education in music from Ferdinand David and Moritz Hauptmann.
At the age of eight Joachim gave his first public performance as a violinist. Two years later he was sent to study at the Vienna Conservatory. In 1843 Joachim performed in Leipzig, where the composer Felix Mendelssohn accompanied him on the piano. Mendelssohn declared that Joachim needed no more violin tuition, although he could benefit from advice and criticism. Playing duos with Mendelssohn provided the young violinist with many musical insights.
Joachim’s first major post was as concertmaster at Weimar, where Liszt was conducting (1850). Joachim became an integral part of the local musical scene, and in 1851 inaugurated a series of chamber music soirees. The following year Joachim was appointed violinist to King George V in Hanover, and took the opportunity to disassociate himself from Liszt, who had never really favored the young violinist.
Although Joachim could have become a virtuoso violinist, he opted to devote his career to the cause of what he considered to be the best music. It was Joachim who established the violin recital as known today, and he who made chamber music a popular art form throughout Europe and especially in England, where his annual concerts were eagerly awaited.
Among the most notable of Joachim's achievements were his revival of Beethoven's violin concerto, the revival of Bach's Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin, BWV 1001-1006, especially the Chaconne from the Partita No. 2, BWV 1004, and of Beethoven's late string quartets. Joachim was the second violinist, after Ferdinand David, to play Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor, which he studied with the composer.
In March 1877, Joachim received an honorary Doctorate of Music from Cambridge University.
Near the 50th anniversary of Joachim's debut recital, he was honored by "friends and admirers in England" on 16 April 1889 who presented him with "an exceptionally fine" violin made in 1715 by Antonio Stradivari, called "Il Cremonese".
About ten years later, for the sixtieth jubilee, a concert in honor of Joachim was given by his former students of violin and viola playing and cellists who had studied quartet playing with him, on 22 April 1899. The total of some 140 string players was impressive, as were their instruments (made by Stradivari, Guarneri, Bergonzi, Amati, etc. ). An honor such as that concert "had been accorded to no other musician during his lifetime".
Joachim, like many Jewish musicians at the time, was baptized in order to secure a post at court. But he never denied his ancestry, and when he encountered anti-Semitism in Hanover he felt compelled to resign. This happened when a Jewish member of the orchestra, a Mr. Grun, was denied promotion because he was a Jew. Joachim wrote the following letter on behalf of the musician:
“If Herr Grun, in spite of his excellent services and fidelity to duty, acknowledged by all his superiors, and after years of patient waiting, is not to be promoted after I have called attention to the matter, because he is a Jew, and if, for this reason, the promises made to me on behalf of a higher authority are not fulfilled, then according to my idea of honor and duty, I shall have no alternative but to justify myself by retiring from my appointment at the same time as Herr Grun. If I remained in my present position after the rejection of Herr Grun I should never be able to get over the purely personal feelings that because I had become a member of the Christian church I had gained worldly advantage and had obtained a privileged position in the Royal Hanoverian Orchestra, while others of my race were forced into humiliating situations.”
When Joachim heard Liszt conduct some of the violinist’s own compositions, he commented, “A more vulgar misuse of sacred forms, a more repulsive coquetting with the noblest of feelings for the sake of effect, has never been attempted. I shall never want to meet Liszt again, because I should want to tell him that instead of taking him for a mighty errant spirit striving to return to God, I have suddenly realized that he is a cunning contriver of effects, who has miscalculated.”
These are the words of a musician who firmly believed that music should be played for the sake of the music itself and those who composed it, and not as a vehicle to display virtuosity.
Joachim was married to the contralto Amalie Schneeweiss). Amalie gave up her own promising career as an opera singer and gave birth to six children. She continued to perform in oratorios and to give lieder recitals.
