Dr. Sanna Pederson, University of Oklahoma
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
Johann Kruse and the London Popular Concerts It is a challenge to define the parameters of this venerable and beloved fixture of nineteenth-century London concert life. Its name alone seems designed to create maximum confusion. First, “popular” is hard to define. One explanation is when they began, they were meant to be popular in content, … Read more
Johann Kruse (1859-1927) was one of Joachim’s more important students: he taught at the Hochschule and was a member of the Joachim Quartet for five years. My preparation for writing up a short profile has stretched out into months, and this post has grown tentacles that need to be hacked off. These are the role … Read more
Bonn, Beethovenhalle, Kammermusikfest 1907 The concert season of 1907 is over, but summer festivals are beginning. The chamber music festival at the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn took place every other year in May. The 1907 festival ran from 5-9 May. Joachim was the lifetime honorary President of the Beethoven-Haus Verein, and his Quartet had been at … Read more
The last Joachim Quartet concert in Berlin Postponed in March due to Joachim’s illness, the last Joachim Quartet concert of the season will take place tonight in the Singakademie. Emanuel Wirth will be rejoining the group on viola for the first time this season after multiple eye operations. I wonder how many realize it is … Read more
When the Joachim Quartet came to Vienna for the last time in March 1907, giving the complete Beethoven Quartets in five concerts, the event was appreciated all the more in the wake of three recent concerts of Schoenberg’s works, including the premiere of the String Quartet in D minor, op. 7. The conservative critic writing … Read more
In her book Muss es sein?: Leben im Quartett, Sonia Simmenauer, a concert agent who managed many famous quartet ensembles, described the second violinist as the most problematic of the four players: three–a triangle–is more stable. With two violinists, the relationship between the two is always in question. Karl Halir (1859-1909) was fated to have … Read more