Joachim , Joseph , 1831-1907 , violinist

Joseph Joachim (1831-1907) was an Austro-Hungarian violinist, composer, conductor and teacher. After education in Pest and Vienna, he studied under Mendelssohn in Leipzig and was an ardent advocate of Mendelssohn's works throughout his life. He later studied under Liszt in Weimar, but came to reject composition in the 1860s and concentrate on performance and instruction. He established a school of instrumental music in the Konigliche Hochschule fur Musik in Berlin, as well as giving concerts internationally over the next forty years. He was particularly renowned for his individual performances of the violin works of J S Bach and Beethoven, as well as the regular concerts given with colleagues from the Hochschule, who formed the Joachim Quartet which Joachim had established in 1869. For further details on Joachim and the Joachim Quartet see Grove Dictionary of Music. Anne Isabella Ritchie was born in 1837, and was the eldest daughter of the author William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863). She was married in 1877 to the civil servant Sir Richmond Thackeray Willoughby Ritchie (1854-1912), and was a novelist, biographer and renowned society hostess. She died in 1919. For further details on the Ritchies see the Dictionary of National Biography.