Volume XXXV, Number 1 Spring 2017 Amalie Joachim’s 1892 American Tour By the 1890s, American audiences had grown accustomed to the tours of major European artists, and the successes of Jenny Lind and Anton Rubinstein created high expectations for the performers who came after them. Amalie Joachim toured from March to May of 1892, during the same months as Paderewski, Edward Lloyd, and George and Lillian Henschel.1 Although scholars have explored the tours of artists such as Hans von Bülow and Rubinstein, Joachim’s tour has gone largely unnoticed. Beatrix Borchard, Joachim’s biographer, has used privately held family letters to chronicle some of Joachim’s own responses to the tour, as well as a sampling of the reviews of the performer’s New York appearances. She does not provide complete details of Joachim’s itinerary, however, or performances outside of New York. Although Borchard notes that Villa Whitney White traveled with Joachim and that the two performed duets, she did not realize that White was an American student of Joachim who significantly influenced the tour.2 The women’s activities, however, can be traced through reviews and advertisements in newspapers and music journals, as well as brief descriptions in college yearbooks. These sources include the places Joachim performed, her repertoire, and descriptions of the condition of her voice and health. Most of Joachim’s performances were in and around Boston. During some of her time in this city, she stayed with her Amalie Joachim, portrait given to Clara Kathleen Rogers. friend, the former opera singer Clara Kathleen Rogers. Rogers Inscription on reverse: “Der lieben, guten ‘hochverehrten’ recalled that Joachim, “relying on her established fame in her Mrs Rogers, mit dankbarem Herzen von own country, had ignored the prevailing methods of advertising ihrer Amalie Joachim. Boston April 1892.” in America. So the ‘big drum’ was silent!”3 This comment could Harvard University, Houghton Library. refer to the marketing of Joachim’s tour; indeed in New York The Evening Post of March 2, quoting from the Boston Transcript, were advertised in multiple outlets, most were reviewed, and notes that there was a “remarkable absence of all preliminary there was potential for them to be a success. The U.S. lagged ‘writing up’ of this great artist.” But it might also hint at the just slightly behind Europe in establishing solo Lieder recitals, itinerary and performance opportunities, which, as I will show, and by 1892 they were quite common; in the month preceding were somewhat different from those of her colleagues. Joachim’s arrival in Boston, there were three such recitals in The March 5, 1892 Boston Evening Transcript, quoting from two days. Gumprecht and Hanslick, printed the type of brief laudatory Even before Joachim’s ship berthed in New York, biography that was frequently used to publicize performers. American newspapers and music journals had occasionally Although a similar notice appeared in the Lewiston Evening reported on her European concerts, with some of the earliest Journal (a publication from Maine, where Joachim does not reports appearing in the 1869 Der Deutsche Correspondent seem to have visited), other media outlets on Joachim’s tour did (Baltimore, Md.). The 1879 Monthly Musical Record noted not reprint this item; instead, they merely referenced Joachim’s Joachim’s recent performance of Schumann’s Frauenliebe stature as a performer of Lieder. Nevertheless, Joachim’s recitals und Leben, and in 1890 The Etude recorded her performance of the complete Winterreise. Also in 1890, the Boston Evening The press frequently described Joachim’s companion, Villa Transcript announced that Joachim would give singing lessons Whitney White, as her favorite student. Although reviews imply in Elberfeld during the winter and spring, as well as concerts in White was a young inexperienced vocalist, she was thirty-four, Berlin, Hamburg, and Bremen. A year later, in August 1891, the and had already established a teaching and performing career Boston Daily Advertiser briefly announced Joachim’s upcoming in New England: by 1889 she was on the faculty of the Boston American tour and her Boston concerts. Conservatory and singing in chamber concerts with the likes of That same month, the Musical Courier reported that Joachim Arthur Foote. White began studying with Joachim in Germany would present a series of recitals in Germany, illustrating in the fall of 1891. In October and January, she joined Joachim the history of German song. This notice also mentioned the for concerts in Münster and Hagen, where they sang six duets upcoming tour with White, and similar notices appeared just by Schumann and Brahms.5 During the Hagen concert, Joachim prior to Joachim’s arrival. Some of these announcements, also performed Die schöne Müllerin and the first four songs including one in the February 1892 The Sunday Herald– of Dichterliebe. The two women subsequently performed all Boston, indicated Joachim would be presenting her historical of these works during their American tour. In a previously programs in the U.S. And, more specifically, the New York uncited letter of September 12, 1891, Joachim wrote to Rogers Evening Post and the Milwaukee Sentinel announced that she expressing her gratitude for Rogers’ assistance in preparing would be giving a series of four historical concerts in New for the tour (see Figure 1). She implied that White (whom York. Borchard has argued for the significance of Joachim’s she described as a mutual friend) influenced her decision to historical programs, but American audiences were already undertake the tour, as did the fact that her brother Franz had somewhat familiar with the genre. In Boston, just prior to lived in the States.6 Joachim’s arrival, the tenor Wilhelm Heinrich (who like Joachim and White arrived in New York on February 23, 1892 Joachim had studied with Julius Stockhausen) had organized and headed directly to Boston. As Figure 2 indicates, Joachim a series of three recitals tracing the history of song, though, in appeared in solo recitals, orchestral and chamber concerts, and contrast to Joachim’s programs, other singers collaborated with in two performances of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. Excluding him, and the repertoire was not confined to German song. But the Passion and the concert with the Kneisel Quartet, White this series was hardly an innovation. As early as 1879 George sang duets with her in all of these events. Joachim’s repertoire Werrenrath (a Danish immigrant and Wagnerian tenor based in for the tour included Die schöne Müllerin and some forty other Brooklyn, N.Y.) presented a series of historical song recitals in songs, ranging from the sixteenth century to Brahms. Although Chicago, concentrating on the German Lied. Moreover, since she performed the Schubert cycle on at least five occasions, the early 1880s the Boston music critic Louis C. Elson, who and repeated some of the other songs and duets, Joachim did reviewed some of Joachim’s recitals, had been touring the not repeat her other programs in full. This stands in contrast to country presenting illustrated lectures on the history of song. the Henschels and other visiting artists who routinely repeated These lectures and his 1888 monograph covered the same types entire programs. Although Joachim appeared in Boston, New of repertoire as Joachim’s historical programs.4 York, and Chicago as did other international performers, some Figure 1: Letter from Amalie Joachim to Clara Rogers. Harvard University, Houghton Library. - 2 - Providence, RI March 4, 18, 19 Alumni Hall, Friends School (Lieder recitals) Boston, MA March 7 with the Kneisel Quartet, Union Hall March 8, 14, 21 Steinert Hall (Lieder recitals) March 26 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Music Hall South Hadley, MA March 15 and 16 Mount Holyoke College (Lieder recitals) Northampton, MA March 16 Smith College (Lieder recital) Gloucester, MA March ? Home of Misses Ida and Lucy Tappan New York, NY March 30 Damrosch’s Young People’s Concert, Music Hall Boston, MA April 15 Handel and Haydn Society, Music Hall. St. Matthew Passion April 21 New England Conservatory (Lieder recital for students) New York, NY April 18 and 23 Chickering Hall (Lieder recitals) May 2 and 3 Sherry’s, a local restaurant (Lieder recitals) Cleveland, OH May 5 with the Cleveland Philharmonic and Cleveland Gesangverein, Music Hall Oberlin, OH May 6 Oberlin College (Lieder recital) St. Paul, MN May 12 with the Beethoven String Quartet, Century Hall Chicago, IL May 19 Theodore Thomas conductor, the Chicago Orchestra and Apollo Club Chorus, The Auditorium. St. Matthew Passion New Brunswick, NJ May 25 Opera-house (Lieder recital) Figure 2: Joachim’s American itinerary aspects of the itinerary seem to have come about because of (Geistliches Lied) by Johann Georg Ahle; “Liebster Herr Jesu” White’s connections or relationships that Joachim herself had by Bach; “Träume” by Wagner; “Ruhe Süßliebchen” and previously established. “Minnelied” by Brahms; “Unbefangenheit” by Weber; and The first stop was Providence. White had begun her career “Frühlingsnacht” by Schumann. Although her performance there, singing in the choir of the Central Congregational of the solo songs proved disappointing, it was said that she Church, and the reviews noted that many of her friends were was heard “to much better advantage” in the four duets by in attendance. (Likewise, one or two of the Boston notices Schumann. Praise for the duets, which on occasion seem to have reminded readers of White’s earlier chamber concerts.) The been more heartily applauded than the solo numbers, recurred review in the Musical Courier is the only notice from the throughout the tour, though to be sure, some critics, most tour that refers to Joachim’s recitals as a series of historical notably Philip Hale in Boston, found this repertoire intrinsically programs.