Joseph Joachim plays Bach Sonata #1

[musicaenlaniebla]

aimson Many greetings and thanks from Lima, Perú, for this direct window to the past. Indeed, in the very last fraction of second it seems tome to hear the voice of Joachim or someone else. It seems, also, that, by the restrictions caused by the time limits of the phonograph, Joachim is obliged to abridge the crotchets (the long notes). I have read about the rivalry between Joachim & Wieniawski. W criticized J of lack of technique. J criticized W of excess of it. Thanks again!

[mhaley101]

Dude this is amazing! You wouldn't happen to have any recordings of Paganini playing his del Gesu would you???

[GuidedFireWind]

@mhaley101

paganini was born and died, sadly, before the light bulb was invented...let alone recording...

[fryfry377]

jesus christ... thank you so much... I had no idea recordings of Joachim even existed.

[Fantasiaispam]

He actually uses inegale and the odd over-dotting! Much more "baroque" than I expected, along with less vibrato and a really nice fluid sense of improvistion. The portamento is usually considered more 19th cent. but it would be interesting to know how far back this technique goes.

[aggelosf1]

It's absolute beauty. All the meaning in the history of music. And the recording from vinyl makes it even more perfect. Thank you aimson.

[HeifetzRanew]

Love this rendition.What I find very admirable in the old masters is that they did not fear their intonation losing its fire and emotion at quick tempos.Today's violinsts think "slow tempos evoke emotion,fast ones don't".This is prime evidence for the contrary!

[outoftunefiddler]

Thanks for taking care of business, aimson!!!

[NiallMS]

Many thanks aimson for uploading these tracks of Joachim. Great stuff!!

[Ascendyourthinking]

My living breathing Heavens! Such honesty, such meek honesty! Every phrase was voiced only for the idea. A man employing his instrument in servitude of something beyond himself. We never needed romanticism. Here's one demonstration of that!

[BrainyOlbap]

Yuval Yaron, Heifetz, Grumiaux

[crazy77town]

I am sorry to say such a thing, but anyone playing Bach compared to Szeryng seems just like an amateur

sad but true

[shiveringflower]

Talking of fingers of the left hand,by the time Joachim made this(unsurpassed)recording,he was suffering severe arthritis of the hands-with one of the fingers of his left hand being permanently mis-shapen. One can only daydream about how magnificent his chaconne must have been.

[hipser]

i would give a finger to have heard this in person. not on my left hand though.

[appletreemusic1]

certainly not on the left hand! and most definitely not my finger! in all seriousness, i would kill to go back in time, in order to have had the opportunity to study with this great teacher... well maybe not kill, but somebody may have to lose a finger, from what i hear.

[Dagrehn]

@hipser LOL "not on my left hand." :P

[ChocolaMeiure]

Thanks for Recording this great music!

it sounds really amazing and not bad. i love this feel.

[nirna1986]

This is history written in the form of sound. Magnifico!

[michaelmartind]

Joachim's style in certain respects reminds me of present-day "historically informed" violinists - pure tone, minimal vibrato, an excellent sense of beat and note hierarchy. What an amazing portal into performance practice of a hundred years ago.

[felixmendelssohn]

Thanks for posting! Man, what a trip.

[emarkov]

lisen to the puarity of the tone..can it get more beautiful than that..no vibrato at all..absoliutly great..no one can tuch him exept one Violinist (Paul de Keyser) not fameus but The Greatest. :) I am crying my eyes out of this performance so great..

[violaafan]

do you speak in serious? How is it possible, that the people stop listening when it comes to listen to the most famous one? The truth is, that nowadays there are so many (completely unknown) violinists that are much better then Joachim in his best time. But the record surely does not reflect his best time. By the way- I like this recording very much.

[opus4]

Truly an historic recording. Thank you!

Interesting characteristics: rounded, organ-like full chords; noble, reverential playing; very sustained line; little vibrato; a few notes diverge from current Bach performance.

[albachteng]

i do believe this recording will haunt me for the rest of my life. absolutely beautiful.

[seahyimin]

lol this is the Joachim who was a friend of brahms. ancient recording

[kcak123]

This is a wonderful performance, even by todays incredibly high standards.

Joseph Joachim did much to keep the Solo Bach Violin Sonatas alive in his day. He performed them often and published his own edition of the works, which is widely used today,

[FAHayek89]

Thanks for posting this. Truly a piece of history.

[alou64]

This is excellent!

[maurice0773]

Pultroppo questo è Joachim alla fine della vita, quindi l'esecuzione è davvero scarsa.Comunque la grandezza di Joachim si capisce di più nell' esecuzione della romanza in Do.Documento importante che ci fa capire come si suonasse nell'800. Poco vibrato e non grande suono, ma fraseggio bellissimo e dolcissimo, con bei portamenti. Grazie per queste registrazioni.

[ottokees]

So amazing !!!!. thank you very much for sharing this so unique video !!!!. Cheers!!!, ~Sergio.

[atombomb67]

Thanks so much for posting this.

[pannonia20]

Gyönyörű!

He is a hungarian violinist!

[likemyviolin]

Egészen pontosan magyar zsidó, ugyebár. :)

[holyknight234]

he makes such unpredictable breaks

in between chords.

its so different from what i hear nowadays.

[EBENISIKIMAMCIK]

siktir lan

[Jextxadore]

Sometimes I hear the notes of a Viola (eg C below middle)?

He's one of the best I've ever heard. Anyone got recordings of Paganini?

[violaplayer1995]

no unfortunatly they don't haev recordings of paganini

[violaplayer1995]

whose he?

[ravelmeister]

i like hearing players who are legends now its good stuff...you should post the sarasate and ysaye recordings they are intresting too. listening to them makes me want to go practice

[Jextxadore]

I posted the filtered versions of Sarasate's recordings.

[happpiday]

If only Joachim lived in the Youtube generation....

[cirtan]

Nice Work putting This on WEB! Thank you. it is a chance i wouldn't get esle! Thank you!

[bernardocox2]

5 estrelas!

[govibe]

so fucking horrible!

[aimson]

Ehehe... go back to watching American Idol rejects, that's all you are probably able to "appreciate."

[firebreathone]

It is horrible. Not because the way he plays )probably) but because of the recording quality.

[AbsoluteZ3R0]

Probably? If you can't tell that Joachim was an amazing violinist despite this terrible sound quality then you might as well just quit

[bernardocox2]

hahahhahhahah!

[robinscott33]

that is ridiculous. this is a rare chance to actually hear the man Brahms  and others wrote his concerto for. i might mention in passing that Joachim was old and very arthritic at this point in his life, so his playing was not what it once was...

[ocramizz]

Yes, I agree with all you say! And we can listen how he intended the phrasing of this piece!

[GreatPianists]

Funnily enough, the violinists of before the age of recordings were inferior technically to those of after the advent of recording, as they were unable to listen to their own playing from the "audience" point-of-view.

Joachim in his later years was able to witness the birth of recording and recorded some music for us to hear. It's obvious that he was a great violinist, but Joachim did burst into tears upon first hearing himself on record...

[AbsoluteZ3R0]

Did he really burst into tears upon first hearing himself? Where did you learn that? That's interesting, I think he sounds amazing, particularly in the hungarian dance, i mean, I'm sure he didn't actually sound like THIS, the terrible technology probably only picked up like 1/10 of his tone. But in terms of phrasing and musicality I think he was incredible.

[GreatPianists]

A friend of mine owns a collection of books on the subject of the older violinists, and he read it in one of them. An odd collection to have for a boy, but whatever.

Joachim was obviously a great violinist, but I think it's understandable that he cried. I often find that a recording of me playing is marred by problems that I didn't realize I had when I was performing. It almost always was worse than I thought it would be. This would've been compounded in Joachim's case dut to very bad quality.

[sonata1992]

I only listen to recordings of myself if I'm feeling masochistic :)

[Hopfensperger]

The man was 70 years old! Give him a break.

[GreatPianists]

I didn't mean to be derogatory at all to Mr. Joachim, as it's clear through the precious recordings he left us that he was a great violinist in an age in which style, interpretation, and individuality was placed on the same level of importance as technique. I just wanted to say that technique in general was inferior then compared to now. However, I do think the fiddlers today leave something to be desired in other aspects of violin, and personally would rather stick with the greats of the past.

[shiveringflower]

@GreatPianists The downside of this, is that some violinists became so obsessed with making "perfect" recordings, that they would record many takes and then patch them together in the mastering process.This often leads to very flat recordings. David Oistrach was one such violinist,sometimes releasing recordings that were selected from (sometimes) hundreds of takes.Oistrach's live recordings are superlative,if containing errors; his studio ones are "perfect" but often dull.