Otto Joachim passes away
There is nothing I hate most then coming back from vacation and learning bad news. For 10 days, I was quite content not to open the TV set, to ignore the daily newspapers and to forget to not miss a beat thanks to the Web. And then, bam, the first thing I read when I get back to “regular life” is the death of someone who, even though I didn’t know him that well, touched me through his music.
I was seven or eight at the most the first time I heard about Otto Joachim, better, when I got to play his music, thanks to a series of fun little pieces written in the serial manner. I remember the pleasure in deciphering the series but, mainly, just playing those precious little gems. Later, I would learn to appreciate his Contrasts or Metamorphosis for orchestra or his Interlude for saxophone quartet.
Born in Dusseldorf Otto Joachimsthal, the violist, violinist and composer would have turned 100 on October 13. With his brother Walter, a cellist, he fled Nazi Germany, and moved to Asia before settling down in Montreal in the 1950s. Both OSM musicians and respected teachers, together with violinists Hyman Bress and Mildred Goodman (composer Clermont Pépin’s widow), they were the founders of the Montreal Quartet. In 2008, Otto Joachim had received the Prix Hommage from the Conseil québécois de la musique at the Prix Opus Gala.
The funeral will take place on Friday at 1 p.m. at the Mount Royal Chapel, 1297, chemin de la Forêt. My sincerest condolences to the family, including his son, Davis Joachim, guitarist, well known in the Montreal music circles, who served as general manager of I Musici as well as of the Orford Arts Centre in the last few years.
Lucie