Life
Joachim was born in Kittsee (Kopčany / Köpcsény), near Bratislava and Eisenstadt, today's Burgenland area. In 1833 his family moved to Budapest, where he had violin lessons from the age of five. He went on to study in Vienna and Leipzig, where he was mentored by Felix Mendelssohn. It was with Mendelssohn that Joachim made his first visit to London at the age of thirteen. He was a great success there, and went on to visit the city many more times.
Following Mendelssohn's death, Joachim moved to Weimar, where he became concertmaster and met Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner. However, when he moved to Hanover in 1852, he dissociated himself from their musical ideals, and instead became friends with Robert Schumann, Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms (who sometimes accompanied him at the piano in recitals). Brahms and Joachim jointly wrote a manifesto against the music of Liszt, Wagner, and their associates. Also in Hanover, Joachim married the singer Amalie Weiss.
In 1866, Joachim moved to Berlin, becoming founding director of the Royal Academy of Music there. He founded his own orchestra, and, in 1869, the Joachim String Quartet, which gained a repuatation as one of the finest quartets in the world.
In 1884, Joachim divorced his wife after he became convinced that she was having an affair with Brahms' publisher, Fritz Simrock. Brahms, certain that Joachim's suspicions were groundless, wrote a long letter in support of Amalie, later produced in court as evidence. This led to a break up of his and Joachim's friendship, not restored for some years. Brahms later composed the Double concerto in a minor for violin and cello, Op. 102, as a peace offering.
Joachim remained in Berlin until his death in 1907.
Legacy
The most notable of Joachim's achievements was the revival of the Sonate e Partite per violino solo, BWV 1001-1006, by Johann Sebastian Bach, and the Romanzen, Ops. 40 and 50, as well as the Violin concerto in D major, Op. 61, by Ludwig van Beethoven. Not only did he help their induction into standard violin repertoire, without his efforts (and his students'), some of these works would have been permanently lost. His musicianship also had a significant influence over the orchestral music of Franz Liszt and Ricard Wagner, exemplified by the proximity of the violin parts to Joachim's composition style. Wagner's Walkürenritt, from the opera Die Walküre was a perfect example of Joachim's influence.
A number of his composer colleagues, such as Johannes Brahms, Max Bruch, Antonín Dvořák, and Robert Schumann, also composed concerti with Joachim in mind, many of which also became standard numbers. His reactions to some of them, however, were less than luke warm. Despite his close friendship with Brahms, and his countless consultations with the violinist, Joachim only performed the Brahms Concerto (D major, Op. 77) six times in his career. In the mean time, he performed the concerti of Dvořák (a minor, Op. 53) and Schumann (a minor) not at all. The most interesting work written for Joachim was the FAE sonata a collaboration between Schumann, Brahms, and Albert Dietrich. The title was based on Joachim's motto, Frei aber Einsam (free but lonely). Although the sonata is rarely performed in its entirity, the third movement, the Scherzo in c minor, composed by Brahms, is still frequently played to-day. As a conductor, Joachim conducted the English premiere of Brahms' Symphony No. 1
Joachim's activities as a composer are less well known. He has a reputation as a competent though rather characterless composer, and none of his works are regularly performed today. Among his compositions are various works for the violin (including three concertos) and overtures to Shakespeare's Hamlet and Henry IV. He also wrote cadenzas for a number of other composers' concertos (including ones for the Beethoven and Brahms). The only remaining noteworthy composition was his Hungarian concerto No 2 in d minor, Op 11.
According to the Henley Atlas of Violin Makers, during time he spent in France Joachim performed on a violin made by French luthier Charles Jean Baptiste Collin-Mezin.
Students of Joachim
- Willy Hess (violinist)
- Leopold Auer (violinist) and teacher
- Andreas Moser violinist and assistant to Joachim. Helped recovered original scores of J.S. Bach's Sonate e Partite per violino solo, and other works.