Joseph Joachim: Violin Concerto No. 3 in G Major

Joseph Joachim (1831-1907) Violin Concerto No. 3 in G Major (1875) I. Allegro non troppo 0:00 II. Andante 16:36 III. Allegro giocoso ed energico, ma non troppo vivace 25:18 Takako Nishizaki, violin Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra Meir Minsky, conductor Joseph Joachim (28 June 1831 – 15 August 1907) was a Hungarian violinist, conductor, composer and violin teacher. Joachim was born in Kittsee, near Bratislava and Eisenstadt, in what is today's Burgenland area of Austria. In 1833 his family moved to Pest, where he studied violin with Stanisław Serwaczyński, the concertmaster of the opera in Pest. In 1839, Joachim continued his studies at the Vienna Conservatory. He was taken by his cousin, Fanny Wittgenstein to live and study in Leipzig, where he became a protégé of Felix Mendelssohn. On 27 May 1844 Joachim, at age not quite 13, in his London Philharmonic debut with Mendelssohn conducting, played the solo part in Beethoven's violin concerto. This was a triumph in several respects. Despite Beethoven's recognition as one of the greatest composers, and the ranking nowadays of his violin concerto as among the greatest few, it was far from being so ranked before Joachim's performance. But Joachim was very well prepared to play Beethoven's concerto, having written his own cadenzas for it and memorized the piece. Joachim's performance helped establish the Beethoven concerto as a pinnacle of the literature and made him popular in England for the rest of his long career. Following Mendelssohn's death in 1847, Joachim stayed briefly in Leipzig, teaching at the Conservatorium and playing on the first desk of the Gewandhaus Orchestra with Ferdinand David. In 1848, Franz Liszt took up residence in Weimar, determined to re-establish the town's reputation as the Athens of Germany. There, he gathered a circle of young avant-garde disciples, vocally opposed to the conservatism of the Leipzig circle. Joachim was amongst the first of these. He served Liszt as concertmaster, and for several years enthusiastically embraced the new "psychological music," as he called it. In 1852 he moved to Hanover, at the same time dissociating himself from the musical ideals of the 'New German School' (Liszt, Richard Wagner, Hector Berlioz, and their followers, as defined by journalist Franz Brendel). In 1853, Joachim met the then publicly unknown 20-year-old Brahms, was highly impressed by him, and gave him a letter of recommendation to Robert Schumann. Brahms was received by Schumann and his wife Clara with great enthusiasm. After Robert's mental breakdown in 1854 and death in 1856, Joachim, Clara, and Brahms remained lifelong friends and shared musical views. Joachim's time in Hanover was his most prolific period of composition. Then and during the rest of his career, he frequently performed with Clara Schumann. On 10 May 1863 Joachim married the contralto Amalie Schneeweiss (stage name: Amalie Weiss) (1839–99). In 1866, Joachim moved to Berlin, where he was invited to help found a new department of the Royal Academy of Music. There he became the director of the Hochschule für ausübende Tonkunst, or High School for Musical Performance. In 1884, Joachim and his wife separated after he became convinced that she was having an affair with the publisher Fritz Simrock. Brahms, certain that Joachim's suspicions were groundless, wrote a sympathetic letter to Amalie, which she later produced as evidence in Joachim's divorce proceeding against her. This led to a cooling of Brahms and Joachim's friendship, which was not restored until some years later, when Brahms composed the Double Concerto in A minor for violin and cello, Op. 102, as a peace offering to his old friend. It was co-dedicated to the first performers, Joachim and cellist Robert Hausmann. In late 1895 both Brahms and Joachim were present at the opening of the new Tonhalle at Zurich, Switzerland; Brahms conducted and Joachim was assistant conductor. But in April, two years later, Joachim was to lose forever this revered friend, as Johannes Brahms died at the age of 64 at Vienna. At Meiningen, in December 1899, it was Joachim who made the speech when a statue to Brahms was unveiled. Joachim remained in Berlin until his death in 1907.