44 Facts About Joseph Joachim

Joseph Joachim was a Hungarian violinist, conductor, composer and teacher who made an international career, based in Hanover and Berlin.

Joseph Joachim made his debut in London in 1844, playing Ludwig van Beethoven's Violin Concerto, with Felix Mendelssohn conducting.

From 1852, Joseph Joachim served at the court of Hanover, playing principal violin in the opera and conducting concerts, with months of free time in summer for concert tours.

Joseph Joachim married Amalie, an opera singer, in 1863, who gave up her career; the couple had six children.

Joseph Joachim quit service in Hanover in 1865, and the family moved to Berlin, where he was entrusted with founding and directing a new department at the Royal Conservatory, for performing music.

Joseph Joachim formed a string quartet, and kept performing chamber music on tours.

Joseph Joachim was born in Kopcseny, Moson County, Kingdom of Hungary.

Joseph Joachim was the seventh of eight children born to Julius, a wool merchant, and Fanny Joachim, who were of Hungarian-Jewish origin.

Joseph Joachim spent his childhood as a member of the Kopcseny Kehilla, one of Hungary's prominent Siebengemeinden under the protectorate of the Esterhazy family.

Joseph Joachim was a first cousin of Fanny Wittgenstein, nee Figdor, the mother of Karl Wittgenstein and the grandmother of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein and the pianist Paul Wittgenstein.

In 1843 Joseph Joachim became a protege of Mendelssohn, who arranged for him to study theory and composition with Moritz Hauptmann and violin with Ferdinand David.

The Philharmonic had a policy against performers so young, but an exception was made after auditions persuaded gatherings of distinguished musicians and music lovers that Joseph Joachim had mature capabilities.

The audience anticipated great things, having got word from the rehearsal, and so, Mendelssohn wrote, "frenetic applause began" as soon as Joseph Joachim stepped in front of the orchestra.

Joseph Joachim visited England in each year 1858,1859,1862 largely at the behest of his friend William Sterndale Bennett, and for several decades thereafter.

Joseph Joachim served Liszt as concertmaster, and for several years enthusiastically embraced the new "psychological music," as he called it.

Joseph Joachim had five summer months off, in which he made concert tours around Europe.

At the Festival, Joseph Joachim again soloed in the Beethoven violin concerto.

Joseph Joachim's success made him, it is said, "the most renowned artist of Germany".

In December 1854, Joseph Joachim visited Robert at the Endenich asylum where he had been since February, Joseph Joachim being his first visitor.

Joseph Joachim sent a score of the first movement to Joachim, requesting his advice.

Joseph Joachim had been a mainstay of the chamber music Popular Concerts.

Joseph Joachim wrote to Brahms 27 February 1882 from London that the piece had received "much applause".

Joseph Joachim had extensive correspondence with both Clara and Brahms, as Brahms greatly valued Joseph Joachim's opinion of his new compositions.

In 1860 Brahms and Joseph Joachim jointly wrote a manifesto against the "progressive" music of the 'New German' School, in reaction to the polemics of Brendel's Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik.

On 10 May 1863 Joseph Joachim married the contralto Amalie Schneeweiss.

Joseph Joachim continued to perform in oratorios and to give lieder recitals.

In 1865 Joseph Joachim quit the service of the King of Hanover in protest, when the Intendant of the Opera refused to advance one of the orchestral players because of the latter's Jewish birth.

In 1866, as a result of the Austro-Prussian war, in which Prussia and its capital Berlin became the dominant German state and city, Joseph Joachim moved to Berlin, where he was invited to help found, and to become the first director of, a new department of the Royal Academy of Music, concerned with musical performance and called the Hochschule fur ausubende Tonkunst.

Amalie Joachim sang "I Know that My Redeemer Liveth" and Joseph Joachim played Robert Schumann's Abendlied.

Brahms asked Joseph Joachim to write the cadenza for the concerto, as he did.

Brahms, certain that Joseph Joachim's suspicions were groundless, wrote a sympathetic letter to Amalie, which she later produced as evidence in Joseph Joachim's divorce proceeding against her.

In late 1895 both Brahms and Joseph Joachim were present at the opening of the new Tonhalle at Zurich, Switzerland; Brahms conducted and Joseph Joachim was assistant conductor.

At Meiningen, in December 1899, it was Joseph Joachim who made the speech when a statue to Brahms was unveiled.

In March 1877, Joseph Joachim received an honorary Doctorate of Music from Cambridge University.

About ten years later, for the sixtieth jubilee, a concert in honor of Joseph 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.

Joseph Joachim is the earliest violinist of distinction known to have recorded, only to be followed soon thereafter when Sarasate made some recordings the following year.

Joseph Joachim was presumably referring to his Concerto No 1, which is the most well-known and frequently performed.

Joseph Joachim played a pivotal role in the career of Brahms, and remained a tireless advocate of Brahms's compositions through all the vicissitudes of their friendship.

Joseph Joachim never performed Schumann's Violin Concerto in D minor, which Schumann wrote especially for him, or Dvorak's Violin Concerto in A minor, although Dvorak had earnestly solicited his advice about the piece, dedicated it to him, and would have liked him to premiere it.

The most unusual work written for Joseph Joachim was the F-A-E Sonata, a collaboration between Schumann, Brahms, and Albert Dietrich, based upon the initials of Joseph Joachim's motto, Frei aber Einsam.

Joseph Joachim gave opus numbers to 14 compositions and composed about an equal number of pieces without opus numbers.

Joseph Joachim wrote cadenzas for a number of other composers' concerti.

The letter stated that "it was only with the greatest difficulty that Professor Joseph Joachim was induced to play".

Most, but not all, of the many violins Joseph Joachim is said to have had during his career are shown on the website of Tarisio Auctions, cozio.