JOACHIM, JOSEPH (1831-1907), Hungarian violinist and composer, was born at Kittsee, near Pressburg, on June 28, 1831, the son of Jewish parents. His family moved to Budapest when he was two years old, and he studied there under Serwaczynski, who brought him out at a concert when he was only eight years old, and then under the elder Hellmesberger and Joseph Bohm in Vienna. In 1843 he went to Leipzig to enter the newly founded conservatorium. Mendelssohn, after testing his musical powers, pronounced that the regular training of a music school was not needed, but recommended that he should receive a thorough gen eral education in music from Ferdinand David and Moritz Haupt mann.
In 1844 he visited England, and made his first appearance at Drury Lane theatre, where his playing of Ernst's fantasia on Otello made a great sensation; he also played Beethoven's con certo at a Philharmonic concert conducted by Mendelssohn. In 1847-49 and 1852 he revisited London, and he appeared regularly at the famous Monday and Saturday popular concerts from 1859 onwards. On Liszt's invitation he accepted (185o) the post of Konzertmeister at Weimar, but his sympathies were with the older school of Schumann, and he was probably glad to leave Weimar for Hanover, where, in 1853, he became Konzertmeister to the king. In 1869 Joachim was appointed head of the newly founded konigliche Hochschule fiir Musik in Berlin. The famous Joachim Quartet was started in the Sing-Akadamie in the follow ing year. The original members of the quartet were Joachim, Ernst Schiever, Heinrich de Ahna and Wilhelm Muller. Of Joachim's later life, continually occupied with public perform ances, there is little to say except that he remained, even in a period which saw the rise of numerous violinists of the finest technique, the acknowledged master of all. He died on Aug. 15,
1907.
Joachim interpreted Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms with a degree of insight that has never been surpassed, and thereby established a standard of performance by which all subsequent players have been judged. His absolute freedom from tricks or mannerisms, his dignified bearing and his unselfish character won the respect of all, though his devotion to the highest ideals, com bined with a certain austerity and massivity of style, brought against him an accusation of coldness from admirers of a more effusive temperament. His biographer (1898), Andreas Moser, expressed his essential characteristic in the words : "He plays the violin, not for its own sake, but in the service of an ideal." Joachim's compositions are distinguished also by a certain austerity of character; but they are full of beauty of a grave and dignified kind. His "Hungarian" concerto for the violin, the Romance in B flat for violin and the variations for violin and orchestra are among his finest things. But he is remembered, not as a composer, but as a great musician and a great interpreter.
See A. Moser, Joseph Joachim, ein Lebensbild (1898 ; enl. ed., 2 vols., 1907-1o; Eng. trans., 1901). Moser also published (1908) Joachim's correspondence with Brahms, and with himself (3 vols., 1911-13; Eng. trans. by N. Bickley, 1914).