The first two pieces that Joseph Joachim (1831–1907) composed for solo violin and orchestra were his Fantasy on Hungarian Themes and Fantasy on Irish [Scottish] Themes, completed in 1850 and 1852, respectively. Conceived as vehicles for Joachim's own career as a violinist, the works were designed in particular to appeal to audiences in England, where Joachim spent several summers during this period. As Uhde notes in the introduction to the volume, the fantasies feature many technically challenging elements, including rapid passagework, multiple stops, complex textures and voicing and diverse bow strokes (x). Both pieces employ variation technique and feature distinct sections characterized by contrasting tempos, textures and moods (xi). In the late 1840s and early 1850s, the young Joachim was associated with the virtuosic school of Franz Liszt, under whom he served as Concertmaster in Weimar. By 1857, Joachim had moved to Hanover and distanced himself from this aesthetic; Liszt's style had grown distasteful to him, as he declared openly in a letter to Liszt that year.Footnote ¹ Although these works were well-received, Joachim performed them only a handful of times, between 1850 and 1853, apparently because of his turn away from the Lisztian aesthetic; these two works remained unpublished and widely unknown until now (xi).Footnote ²

The two fantasies survive in a single autograph source located in the library of the University of Lodz, bound together with Joachim's cadenza for the Beethoven Violin Concerto.Footnote ³ The history of the autograph prior to its arrival at the Hochschule, as well as the timing and circumstances of that arrival, are unclear. A book plate on the manuscript suggests that the source arrived at the Hochschule sometime between 1918 and 1933.Footnote ⁴ Other available evidence, including an account from Joachim biographer Andreas Moser, who claims to have seen these pieces in autograph, suggests that Joachim had given the scores to a family friend, a Dr Hunyady of Pest in the 1850s.Footnote ⁵ Upon Hunyady's death in 1865, the works appear to have been returned to Joachim, who then gave them to his student Henri Petri in Berlin in the 1870s; Petri returned them to Joachim's family following the composer's death in 1907; and they are likely to have been included in the collection of documents bestowed upon the Hochschule by Joachim's son, Johannes, in 1931; the collection was then combined with the larger Philipp Spitta Nachlass before its evacuation from Berlin.Footnote ⁶

The autograph was brought back to light in 1989 by Christoph Wolff as part of the Philipp Spitta Nachlass, which had been placed at the University at around the time of the institution's founding in 1945.Footnote ⁷ The materials had been spirited away to Poland in 1943 from war-torn Berlin; there, they had been housed at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik, formerly the Königlich Akademischen Hochschule für Musik, which was founded by Joachim in 1869 (xi).Footnote ⁸ In the 30 years since Wolff reported on the survival and location of the autograph, the pieces have drawn little notice until the recent work of Katharina Uhde, notably her book on the music of Joachim and a related article in The Musical Times, in addition to the present edition.Footnote ⁹ (The fantasies are not mentioned in Beatrix Borchard's 2001 Grove article on Joachim, nor included in the associated ‘works’ list.Footnote ¹⁰)

Joachim's Fantasy on Hungarian Themes, his first work for violin and orchestra, was premiered on 19 October 1850 in Weimar, under Liszt's baton; the piece was then performed on three additional occasions between 1852 and 1853, to generally positive reviews (xi).Footnote ¹¹ In this work, Joachim, who was of Hungarian Jewish heritage, plays to the public taste for the ‘style hongrois’.Footnote ¹² As we may expect from a showpiece in the Hungarian style, Joachim provides a demanding solo violin part filled with bravura display and ‘exotic’ elements, including syncopation and dotted rhythms, augmented seconds and diminished sevenths, parallel thirds, characteristic cadential and bowing patterns, stark contrasts of mood ranging from the fiery and passionate to the melancholy, as well as ricochet and other showy bowing techniques.Footnote ¹³ Other dramatic features include chromaticism, deceptive cadences, runs and rapid passagework, melodic ornamentation and cadenza-like passages ad libitum, large melodic leaps, and dramatic dynamic contrasts.

At its premiere on 31 May 1852 with the London Philharmonic Society, the Fantasy on Irish [Scottish] Themes appeared in the printed programme under the title ‘Fantasia on Scottish Airs’, but the autograph was subsequently, and erroneously, labelled in an unknown hand with the title ‘Fantasy on Irish Themes’ (xi).Footnote ¹⁴ The themes Joachim employs here, ‘John Anderson My Jo’, and ‘The Blue Bells of Scotland’, are in fact Scottish.Footnote ¹⁵ Although Joachim had not yet visited Scotland when he completed this Fantasy, he had spent a good deal of time in England, where tunes from Scotland were commonly found in opera and theatrical music.Footnote ¹⁶ The piece consists of eight main sections, each employing one or more of the Scottish melodies, either complete, varied, or fragmented.Footnote ¹⁷ Style features commonly associated with Scottish music include drones, the ‘Scotch snap’ (stressed semiquaver plus unstressed dotted quaver), modal scales, lyrical melodies, widely spaced chords and ‘blurred open-pedal effects’; several of these features may be found in Joachim's Fantasy.Footnote ¹⁸ (As Uhde notes, for example, ‘John Anderson, my Jo’ uses the ‘Scotch Snap’, is situated in G dorian and has a ‘wistful’ quality.Footnote ¹⁹) The opening of the piece is lyrical and melancholy, but like the Fantasy on Hungarian Themes, also displays a great deal of virtuosic writing. It shares with the previous fantasy such features as dramatic dynamic contrasts, parallel thirds, runs, wide-ranging arpeggios and sections in different tempos and characters, and it features double, triple and quadruple stops and complex voicing, particularly in a dramatic passage right before the close (see bars 370–380).

This Bärenreiter Urtext edition presents the fantasies in piano reductions by Martin Schelhaas. The full orchestral scores remain unpublished. Uhde does not indicate the reason for (or in fact mention) this choice. Unfortunately, there is no indication here of the original instrumentation of the orchestral part, nor of any intention to publish the works in their original form in the future (Uhde's remarks simply do not address this), although the pieces do work nicely for violin and piano. Neither fingerings nor pedal markings have been added.

Uhde's preface to the edition, appearing here both in German and in English translation, is clear and concise, but brief with respect to historical background. It concisely situates the fantasies within Joachim's career and aesthetic development and then focuses mainly on performance practice. Although Uhde's other writings on these fantasies provide more detailed historical information, it would have been ideal to have more of the historical background preserved here – including more information on the history of the autograph source and on early performances and reception of the fantasies – particularly as this is the only published edition of the scores and is marketed by Bärenreiter as a scholarly edition. Uhde does, helpfully, provide some basic bibliography related to the fantasies (including her own work on these pieces) in footnotes. The summative nature of the preface is also indicated by the fact that it does not address the fantasies individually at any length; for the most part, the two works are discussed together throughout. Uhde mentions in passing that the two fantasies were modelled closely on Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst's Fantasy brilliante sur la marche et la romance de l'opéra Otello de Rossini (1837–1838) – a work Joachim performed several times before composing his own Fantasy – but does not attempt to explain or substantiate this claim here (no specific passages or points of resemblance are indicated); she could well have directed the reader of the edition's preface to her other writings on the matter, however, as she does compare the works at greater length elsewhere (x).Footnote ²⁰ The discussion of performance practice addresses articulated bowings under slurs, firm staccato and flying staccato, sautillé or spiccato bowings, ricochet, double stops, portamento, vibrato, cadenza and ad libitum and rubato (xii–xv). Uhde's discussion here is well-informed by her background as an accomplished violinist and by her experience as a performer of these works, as well as by reviews and recordings of Joachim's playing (xiv–xv).

At the back of the volume is a brief critical commentary appearing in English only. The commentary addresses accidentals, dynamic marks and ‘notational customs’ (abbreviations) and provides textual notes on each fantasy individually, thoroughly cataloguing editorial changes or judgement calls. The notes mention a mark on the autograph made by Ernst Rudorff (41); this may be a bit confusing to readers, as Uhde has not previously mentioned Rudorff in the edition, nor explained his contact with the autograph, as she does elsewhere.Footnote ²¹ In general, however, the work is carefully done and, when a choice has had to be made in preparing the edition, Uhde has judiciously prioritized representing as accurately as possible the intent behind the composer's original text.

In sum, this valuable new publication helps to fill out our picture of Joachim's early compositional life and performance repertory, highlighting the importance of bravura style to his technique of the 1840s and early 1850s and providing further examples of the importance of nationalist and exoticist style elements in music of this period and genre. Uhde has done fine work, here and elsewhere, bringing these works to greater attention both in her scholarship and in the concert hall. We may be left wondering why scholars and performers have paid so little attention to these pieces in the three decades since Wolff rediscovered them. Uhde's experience as performer of this music enriches her perspective on the fantasies and how they are to be performed, and this comes through clearly in her editorial work on the scores. Schelhaas has provided excellent piano reductions that should facilitate more frequent performance of these works. Nevertheless, one hopes that full orchestral scores of the fantasies will follow.