Dr. Sanna Pederson, University of Oklahoma
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
Performing all the Beethoven Quartets <p style=”text-align: left;”>One of the Joachim Quartet’s most significant achievements was their performances of the complete Beethoven quartets as a five-day cycle. The first time was in May of 1903 at the Bonn Beethoven Haus Festival, and it took place despite strong objections by the organizers. The quartet performed the … Read more
On the 25th Anniversary concert of the Berlin Philharmonic this evening, Jeanette Grumbacher-de Jong and Anton Sistermans are the soloists for the Brahms Requiem. The second concert tomorrow will have all the pomp and circumstance of a “Festgedicht” by Carl Wittkowsky, declaimed by the actress Rosa Poppe. Arthur Nikisch conducts the Brahms Symphony no. 1 … Read more
The 25th anniversary of the Loewe-Verein is being observed with a concert put on by bass-baritone Hermann Gura (1870-1944), the son of the Wagnerian singer Eugen Gura, who was part of the original 1876 Bayreuth festival and became a legendary Hans Sachs. Hermann Gura is a known “Loewe apostle.” (Die Musik noted approvingly that he … Read more
The impressive website Schenker documents online includes hundreds of transcriptions and translations of letters to and from the music theorist Heinrich Schenker (1868-1935) and his diary entries over a period of more than thirty years. It is very user friendly, and thus easy to find out what Schenker had to say about musicians who performed … Read more
Beethoven For most musicians, December means Christmas concerts, but for Berlin it also meant plenty of Beethoven, since his birthday on the 16th was always observed. <br />Two all-Beethoven birthday concerts were given by the two main orchestras, with very similar programs, probably due to coincidence:</p><p style=”text-align: center;”>16 December: Philharmonic, Arthur Nikisch. <br />Overture to <em>Coriolan</em> <br … Read more