Dr. Sanna Pederson, University of Oklahoma
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
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
March 23rd is not only the birthday of Johann Kruse, but also of Ernst Schiever and Hugo Olk. March has seemed to me to be a popular month for this cohort, and a quick analysis of the birth dates I have indicates that, indeed, more of these students were born in March than in any … Read more
Did Johann Kruse really stand out that much among the other violinists Joachim taught, making him the obvious choice for preferential treatment?While he was giving in concerts in London, a number of other Joachim students were also making a living in the biggest city in the world. Several were exactly his age and had been … 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
“Do you hear anything of Kruse? He never writes, and I long to know something about him.”–11 June 1900 In Joachim’s letters to his London brother Henry and his wife Ellen, Johann Kruse comes up over twenty times, far more than any other former student. (These letters are transcribed and available online on the Brahms … 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