Dr. Sanna Pederson, University of Oklahoma
There were few signs that the Berlin of the first half of the nineteenth century would become a world capital of music by century’s end. Musicians didn’t like the city, especially the ones who had lived and worked there, such as Meyerbeer and Mendelssohn. Common complaints centered around Berlin being conservative, unwilling to try anything … Read more
The further we go back in time, the more obvious how arbitrary our knowledge of the past is. Most information about concerts comes from the press: newspapers and music journals provide the names, dates, and programs. For the most part, the news about performers and performances centered around opera, but that started to change once … Read more
August Zimmermann’s Quartet “The great prophet of Beethoven’s last quartets is definitely Zimmermann, 40 years before Joachim!”–Ivan Mahaim As mentioned in the previous post, Ivan Mahaim’s 1964 study of Beethoven: Naissance et Renaissance de Derniers Quatuors argued that the obscure violinist August Zimmermann deserved as much recognition as Joachim for his Berlin ensemble’s performances of … Read more
This illustration is the first section of a giant handmade chart included in the back pocket of Ivan Mahaim’s treasure-trove of a book on Beethoven’s late quartets, Beethoven: Naissance et Renaissance de Derniers Quatuors. The rows are the places of performances and the columns are the dates, starting in 1825. The numbers making up the … Read more
My knowledge of the last years of the Joachim Quartet is much more extensive than of their first concerts. When I think of the year of their first season, 1869, images of Berlin in an impoverished state came to mind. For instance, when Amy Fay arrived that year from Boston to study piano, she pronounced … Read more
Joachim and the Gewandhaus: a sixty-year symbiosis Among the lore of this historic institution is Joachim’s debut as a twelve-year-old at the Gewandhaus in 1843. (Robert Eshbach has documented this event on his website). The Gewandhaus’s conductor Felix Mendelssohn and concertmaster Ferdinand David oversaw Joachim’s development as the child prodigy went through his teenage years. … Read more