Month: September 2017

The Great Virtuoso Violinists/Composers of the 19th Century: Joachim

/ ginnyburges / 3 Comments
“How often did the master Joachim himself perform the work, how often did he teach it to countless pupils, and yet nowadays what is passed off as the Brahms Concerto no longer bears any relation to that [work].” ~ Heinrich Schenker

The name Joseph Joachim has been familiar to me for a very long time. I was aware that he was a celebrated and hugely virtuosic soloist, for I saw his name on many violin scores of other composers over the years as I progressed with my violin studies.

Joseph Joachim by John Singer Sargent c. 1904

He had either arranged the piece for the violin and piano part, or written a cadenza. His musical pedigree shone from the pages of multifarious scores, but other than that I didn’t know anything else about him.

So here endeth much of my ignorance, as I attempt to shine the light of appreciation on Joseph Joachim’s life and achievements.

Whilst Joachim was much more famous for his playing career than his composing (as many of my revered candidates in this violin/composer series have been), this Austro-Hungarian maestro was an early trailblazer of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in D Major, and in a large measure responsible for its current popularity.

I love him for that alone!

His name is firmly established in the pantheon of violin greats; an exceptional talent on his instrument, and like many gifted musicians before him, he branched out into composing, conducting and teaching, where possibly his greatest legacy and influence still thrives.

Joseph Joachim: (28 June 1831 – 15 August 1907)

Joseph Joachim was born the seventh of eight children to Julius (a wool merchant) and Fanny Joachim on 28th June 1831, in Köpcsény, Hungary (present-day Kittsee, Austria). As an infant he survived the European cholera pandemic, which claimed almost 400 lives in the Pressburg region.

When Joseph was two years old the Joachim family moved to Pest, then the capital of Hungary’s thriving wool industry.  His older sister had stimulated an early interest of music in him from her study of guitar and singing, and a toy violin given to Joseph by Julius seems to have been the beginning of a lifelong love affair with the violin.

Family of influence

Joachim’s cousin on his maternal side was Fanny (nee Figdor) Wittgenstein, who served as a surrogate mother to Joachim throughout much of his youth, mother of the industrialist Karl Wittgenstein, grandmother of the pianist Paul Wittgenstein and the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Joseph’s sister Johanna married Lajos György Arányi, a prominent physician and university professor in Pest who, in 1844, founded one of the world’s first institutes of pathology.  Their granddaughters (Jospeh’s grand neices) were  the distinguished violinists Adila (Arányi) Fachiri (1886-1962) and Jelly d’Arányi (1893-1966). Both had studied under Joachim’s protégé, the eminent Jenö Hubay.

Jelly d’Arányi is the protagonist of Jessica Duchen’s novel, Ghost Variations, a fictional tale around the true story of Robert Schumann’s long lost violin concerto, composed for her great uncle Joseph. This book is next on my reading list!

Joseph’s brother Henry followed in the same trade as their father, and settled in England, where he married Ellen Margaret Smart, from a prominent British musical family. Their son Harold Joachim (nephew of Joseph) was educated at Harrow College and Balliol College Oxford. A  respected philosopher and scholar of Aristotle and Spinoza, his most well-known book was The Nature of Truth, (1906).

As an Oxford University professor he taught the American poet T.S. Eliot, who wrote: ‘to his criticism of my papers I owe an appreciation of the fact that good writing is impossible without clear and distinct ideas’ (letter in The Times, August 4, 1938).

He was also said to be a talented amateur violinist and married to one of Joseph’s daughters.

Harold’s sister Gertrude, (Joseph’s niece) married Francis Albert Rollo Russell, the son of British Prime Minister John Russell, and uncle of the philosopher Bertrand Russell.

Early Career 

Joseph received his first violin lessons from Gustav Ellinger, a competent violinist but not the best teacher for the young prodigy, so Joachim’s parents’ placed young Joseph under the tutelage of Stanisław Serwaczyński, the concertmaster and conductor of the opera in Pest, who gave him a thorough grounding in the modern French School, by Viotti’s successors: Rode, Baillot and Kreutzer.

An early debut in Pest brought Joachim to the attention of an important benefactor: Count Franz von Brunsvik, a liberal aristocrat and a pillar of Pest’s musical community, and also the affection of his sister Therese.

Beethoven had dedicated his Appassionata Sonata, Op. 57 to von Brunsvik, who was among the earliest performers of Beethoven’s string quartets. Beethoven was also fond of Franz’s sister, Therese, to whom he dedicated his Op. 78 sonata, and their sister Josephine von Brunsvik, who I believe to have been Beethoven’s mysterious “Immortal Beloved.”

Vienna

The next stage of his musical development was to be in Vienna, where Joseph’s wealthy grandfather Isaac lived, as did his uncles, Nathan and Wilhelm Figdor.

Joachim had a shaky start with teacher George Hellmesberger senior, who doubted Joachim’s future as a virtuoso due to what he considered weak and stiff bowing. At this point Joachim’s parents (who had been in Vienna for his concert), decided that they would return with him to Pest and seek a new profession for their son.

Luckily for Joachim, the celebrated violinist Heinrich Wilhem Ernst was also in Vienna giving a series of highly publicised concerts, and when Joachim’s parents sought his advice he referred them to his own teacher: Joseph Böhm.

Portrait of Joseph Bohm

Böhm proved to be the best mentor to further develop Joseph’s talent. He was well respected as the father of the Viennese School of violin playing.

Robert W Eshbach writes:
Joseph Böhm played in many historically significant concerts, including a performance of Beethoven’s 9th symphony under the composer’s direction. He became an early advocate for Schubert’s chamber music, and, on 26 March 1828, he gave the premiere of Schubert’s opus 100 trio.  Together with Holz, Weiss and Linke of the original Schuppanzigh Quartet, he performed Beethoven’s string quartets under the composer’s supervision. For Joachim, this direct personal and musical connection to Beethoven held a great and abiding significance.
Joachim’s training under Böhm was a true apprenticeship. In accepting him as a student, Böhm and his wife agreed to take him into their home just outside of Vienna’s first district, two blocks from the Schwarzspanierhaus where Beethoven had lived and died. For the next three years, for all but the Summer months, they would raise him in loco parentis, and train him in the practical skills of a professional violinist. Though not a violinist, Frau Böhm played a critical role in the Joseph’s musical upbringing, attending his lessons, and taking personal charge of his practicing.

I find it fascinating how the connections emanating from Beethoven’s life through his compositions, fellow musicians, friends, acolytes and protégé’s seemed to go full-circle in the life of Joseph Joachim!

Shortly before his own recital on 30th April 1843, Joseph had the benefit of seeing the Belgian violinist Henri Vieuxtemps perform in Vienna’s Imperial and Royal Redoutensaal, no doubt an inspiring event.

At his own recital to a burgeoning audience in the same venue, of the Adagio religioso and Finale marziale movements of Vieuxtemps’s fourth concerto in D minor, he made his debut with the Vienna Philharmonic.

Joachim left Vienna in the summer of 1843 to further his studies in Leipzig, where he was to audition for the composer Felix Mendelssohn.

Böhm relented, as his preference had been for his protégé to go to Paris instead.

In August that year Joachim appeared in a Leipzig Gewandhaus concert, with Pauline Viardot-García and Clara Schumann, playing an Adagio and Rondo by Charles-Auguste de Bériot.

London debut and critical acclaim 

Under the guidance and mentorship of composer Felix Mendelssohn, the thirteen year old Joseph wowed an enthusiastic audience in the Hanover Square Rooms on 27th May 1844, with his performance of the hitherto rather unfairly maligned Beethoven Violin Concerto.

Hanover Square Rooms – A Concert in 1843

Vieuxtemps’s Beethoven performance had taken place in Vienna in 1834, but in London there had been no well received recitals of Beethoven’s only violin concerto.

After what must have been a poor performance in London in April 1832 by Edward Eliason, came this scathing review in Hamonicon:

“Beethoven has put forth no strength in his violin concerto. It is a fiddling affair, and might have been written by any third or fourth rate composer. We cannot say that the performance of this concealed any of its weakness, or rendered it at all more palatable.”

Many great violinists, including Ludwig Spohr, had rejected the work outright. “That was all very fine,” Spohr later said to Joachim by way of congratulations after a performance in Hanover, “but now I’d like to hear you play a real violin piece.”

Ouch! Perhaps it is poetic justice that Spohr’s own violin concertos, which only were popular during his lifetime, never reached the current pinnacle of Beethoven’s much loved and enduring work.

Joseph Joachim’s Cadenza for the Beethoven Violin Concerto

I wonder if Joachim realised all that was riding on his debut. Had he not played Beethoven’s ‘fiddling affair’ in such an outstanding manner, his career may have faltered and Beethoven’s only violin concerto may have forever remained in the shadows. That’s quite a lot of pressure to sit, even on the mature shoulders, of a young teenager.

Joseph Joachim in London in 1844

Mendelssohn had put his own reputation on the line, having been invited over as the guest conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra in 1843 and promptly suggesting the wunderkind Joseph Joachim to the society; who had a long-standing ban on child performers.

Eventually, after a few high level auditions, it was agreed that Joachim would play the Beethoven Violin Concerto.

A fabulous vintage recording of Beethoven’s VC played at a jaunty tempo, (Joachim Cadenzas) by fellow Hungarian, Joseph Szigeti, with the British Symphony Orchestra and Bruno Walter:

Joseph was paid the sum total of 5 guineas (with a guinea being equivalent to one pound, one shilling). Quite a disparity with today’s performers, (inflation not withstanding), but it was to be the opportunity of a lifetime.

Felix Mendelssohn in his elation wrote:
“… The cheers of the audience accompanied every single part of the concerto throughout. When it was over and I took him down the stairs, I had to remind him that he should once more acknowledge the audience, and even then the thundering noise continued until long after he had again descended the steps, and was out of the hall. A better success the most celebrated and famous artist could neither hope for nor achieve.”
The reviewer for the Morning Post enthused:
“Joachim, the boy violinist, astounded every amateur. The concerto in D, op. 61… has been generally regarded by violin-players as not a proper and effective development of the powers of their instrument… But there arrives a boy of fourteen [sic] from Vienna, who, after astonishing everybody by his quartett-playing, is invited to perform at the Philharmonic, the standard law against the exhibition of precocities at these concerts being suspended on his account. As for his execution of this concerto, it is beyond all praise, and defies all description. This highly-gifted lad stands for half-an-hour without any music, and plays from memory without missing a note or making a single mistake in taking up the subject after the Tutti. He now and then bestows a furtive glance at the conductor, but the boy is steady, firm, and wonderfully true throughout.
In the slow movement in C — that elegant expanse of melody which glides so charmingly into the sportive rondo — the intensity of his expression and the breadth of his tone proved that it was not merely mechanical display, but that it was an emanation from the heart — that the mind and soul of the poet and musician were there, and it is just in these attributes that Joachim is distinguished from all former youthful prodigies… Joachim’s performance was altogether unprecedented, and elicited from amateurs and professors equal admiration.
Mendelssohn’s unequivocal expression of delight and Loder’s look of amazement, combined with the hearty cheering of the band as well as auditory, all testified to the effect young Joachim had produced.”

On June 4th 1844, as news of his successful debut had spread, Joseph was asked to play for none other than Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort at a state concert in Windsor, attended by Emperor Nicholas of Russia, Frederick Augustus II, King of Saxony, the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel.

He performed Ernst’s Othello Fantasy, and de Bériot’s Andantino and Rondo Russe, (the second and third movements of his violin concerto No. 2 in B minor), accompanied by the Queen’s private band, and received a golden watch and chain from the Queen for his efforts.

 The Liszt years, Hanover and touring

Mendelssohn’s sudden death in 1847 deeply affected Joachim, who was teaching at the Conservatorium in Leipzig and playing on the first desk of the Gewandhaus Orchestra with Ferdinand David.

In 1848 the renowned pianist and composer Franz Liszt invited Joachim to Weimar (once home to Goethe and Schiller) to join his circle of avant-garde musicians, encouraging him to compose. Joachim served Liszt as his concertmaster and seemed to embrace the new “psychological music” as he put it.

It was during his time in Weimar that he wrote his Violin Concerto in G minor, Op. 3, dedicated to his new mentor.

By 1852 Joachim had a change of heart and eschewed the direction of Liszt’s and particularly Wagner’s music of the ‘New German School’ and moved to Hanover. In 1857 he wrote to Liszt: “I am completely out of sympathy with your music; it contradicts everything which from early youth I have taken as mental nourishment from the spirit of our great masters.”

Under the generous patronage of King George V of Hanover Joachim was well paid and given the freedom to compose and undertake concert tours of Europe.

Performance repertoire and dedications

Joachim not only revived Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, but also championed Bach’s sonatas and partitas for solo violin BWV 1001 – 1006 and the much loved ‘Chaconne’ from the Partita No. 2, BWV 1004. Bach is staple canon for any modern violinist both pro and amateur.

How marvellous that Joachim’s good taste still prevails upon modern repertoire…

“The Germans have four violin concertos. The greatest, most uncompromising is Beethoven’s. The one by Brahms vies with it in seriousness. The richest, the most seductive, was written by Max Bruch. But the most inward, the heart’s jewel, is Mendelssohn’s.” ~ Joseph Joachim

He studied the Mendelssohn violin concerto with the composer, and famously provided inspiration and composition feedback to Johannes Brahms, who wrote his Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 77 for Joachim.

A marvellous documentary with violinist Gil Shaham about Brahm’s violin concerto and Joachim’s role in its creation and performance:

Brahms’s Scherzo for Joachim, the third movement of the F-A-E Sonata, a passionate rendition from Vengerov and Papian:

He also performed his own version of Tartini’s Devil’s Trill and Robert Schumann’s dedication, Fantasy in C Major for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 131, previously unknown to me.

A wonderful 1953 recording of the piece arranged by Joachim for violin and piano, with a rhapsodic performance by Russian virtuoso Leonid Kogan and pianist Andrei Mytnik :

Joachim and Clara Schumann undertook a recital tour in late 1857, performing in Dresden, Leipzig and Munich.  They were also well received in London’s St. James’s Hall. Joachim performed yearly in London from 1867 to 1904.

Joseph Joachim and Clara Schumann in Concert by Adolph von Menzel c. 1854

“Then there was a violin solo by young Joachim, then as now the greatest violinist of his time; and a solo on the piano-forte by Madame Schumann, his only peeress! and these came as a wholesome check to the levity of those for whom all music is but an agreeable pastime, a mere emotional delight, in which the intellect has no part; and also as a well-deserved humiliation to all virtuosi who play so charmingly that they make their listeners forget the master who invented the music in the lesser master who interprets it! “~ Excerpt from Trilby, 1894, by George du Maurier

Friendship with Johannes Brahms and the Schumann’s

Through his friendship with Robert and Clara Schumann Joachim was able to introduce them to the twenty year old Johannes Brahms. They would all form a close and lifelong friendship, but not without their disagreements.

Johannes Brahms, German composer with Joseph Joachim.

After many years of friendship and close collaboration, Brahms sided with Joachim’s wife at the time of their divorce. Joseph had accused Amalie of having an affair, but Brahms apparently had thought more highly of her chastity!

Their rift lasted a year, and was mended, at least partially, when Brahms composed his Double Violin Concerto for Violin and Cello.

The King of Cadenzas

Joachim wrote the cadenza as the dedicatee for Brahms’s violin concerto. Joachim’s cadenzas:

  • Beethoven, Concerto in D major, Op. 61
  • Brahms, Concerto in D major, Op. 77
  • Kreutzer, Concerto No. 19 in D minor
  • Mozart, Aria from Il re pastore, K. 208, Concerto No. 3 in G major, K. 216, Concerto No. 4 in D major, K. 218, and Concerto No. 5 in A major, K. 219
  • Rode, Concerto No. 10 in B minor, and Concerto No. 11 in D major
  • Spohr, Concerto in A minor, Op. 47 (Gesangsszene)
  • Tartini, Sonata in G minor (Devil’s Trill)
  • Viotti, Concerto No. 22 in A minor

Recordings of his cadenzas of Brahms and Mozart:

Hilary Hahn playing Joachim’s cadenza for the Brahms VC:

Mozart Violin Concerto No. 4 in D Major K.218 – 1st Movement – Allegro with Henryk Szeryng, New Philharmonia Orchestra w/Sir Alexander Gibson (Joachim Cadenza at 7.05):

The Joachim String Quartet 

Aside from his illustrious career as one of the most influential solo violinists of his era, Joachim also performed chamber works with his eponymous string quartet.

They gave recitals of Beethoven’s late quartets – high in difficulty and low in popularity, at least until revival by Joachim and his quartet members: Robert Hausmann (cello), Joseph Joachim (1st violin), Emanuel Wirth (viola) and Karel Halíř (2nd violin).

The Joachim Quartet performing in the Sing Akademie zu Berlin in 1903 – engraving based on a painting by Felix Possart

The Joachim Quartet was formed in Berlin in 1869 and quickly garnered a reputation as the finest quartet in Europe at the time. Joachim played in the quartet until his death in 1907.

Joachim’s former teacher, Joseph Böhm had been part of the quartet that had given the world premiere performance of Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 12 in E-Flat Major, Op. 127, now in mainstream chamber repertoire:

The legendary music critic and theorist, Heinrich Schenker on his quartet in 1894:
“In the course of recent years, since Hellmesberger senior, the great quartet connoisseur and player, we found only one single quartet that could do complete justice to the demands of Beethoven, Mozart, and Schumann—that quartet was the Joachim Quartet from Berlin.”

Joseph Joachim’s vintage recordings

Please bear in mind that these recordings date back over a hundred and ten years and therefore sound scratchy and hissy by today’s standards, but they are just about clear enough to give you an idea of Joachim’s style.

It’s also worth noting that he was 72 years old at the time of these recordings, playing with swollen fingers and gout, so not in his prime!

Joachim’s Violin Concertos

Violin Concerto in One Movement in G minor, Op. 3 for Franz Liszt:

The so called ‘Hungarian’ violin concerto was composed in the summer of 1857, considered one of the great romantic violin concertos, written in the style of Hungarian folk music, which to Joachim, was inseparable to gypsy music.

Rarely performed, it has been described as “the Holy Grail of Romantic violin concertos” by music critic David Hurwitz.

The concerto premiered on 24th March 1860 in Hanover and was published in Leipzig by Breitkopf and Härtel in 1861.

“The critic Eduard Hanslick recorded Joachim as having been for some ten years the greatest living violinist. His review of the Concerto in the Hungarian Style was more guarded, describing it as too expansive, complicated and striking in its virtuosity to be evaluated at a first hearing.” ~ Keith Anderson

The performance I’m going to share is by Rachel Barton Pine, a musician I admire very much. She recorded the work on the Naxos label in 2003 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to high acclaim.

She was noted as saying that because the concerto is so challenging and lengthy (45 minutes+) practising and performing it was akin to “training to run a marathon”.

Excerpt from Grampohone Magazine:
In 1861, 17 years before Brahms produced his masterpiece in the genre, Joseph Joachim as a young virtuoso wrote his D minor Violin Concerto, In the Hungarian Style. He would later help to perfect the solo part of his friend’s work, but in his own concerto the solo part is if anything even more formidable, one reason – suggested in the New Grove Dictionary – that it has fallen out of the repertory.

Violin Concerto No. 3 in G Major, with Takako Nishizaki, Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Meir Minsky:

Other Compositions

Hamlet Overture, Op. 4 with Meir Minsky and the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra:

Overture in C major, performed by Maastricht Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Roland Bader:

The Overture in C major by Josef Joachim, was composed in 1896 for the imperial birthday of the Kaiser of Germany. It was first performed on 3 February 1896 in Berlin’s Royal Academy of Arts.

The delightful Hebrew Melodies, Op. 9 (after Impressions of Byron’s Songs) for viola and piano (1854–1855), with Hartmut Rohde and Masumi Arai:

Schubert’s Piano Sonata ‘Grand Duo in C Major, D 812’ arranged for orchestra by Joachim as Symphony in C:

Teaching Legacy

Probably Joachim’s most illustrious pupil was Leopold Auer, who himself went on teach some of the greatest violinists of the 20th century:  Mischa Elman, Konstanty Gorski, Jascha Heifetz, Nathan Milstein, Toscha Seidel, Efrem Zimbalist, Georges Boulanger, Benno Rabinof, Kathleen Parlow, Julia Klumpke, Thelma Given, and Oscar Shumsky.

“Joachim was an inspiration to me, and opened before my eyes horizons of that greater art of which until then I had lived in ignorance. With him I worked not only with my hands, but with my head as well, studying the scores of the masters, and endeavouring to penetrate the very heart of their works…. I [also] played a great deal of chamber music with my fellow students.” ~ Leopold Auer

Other prominent virtuoso violinists who were tutored by Joseph Joachim included Jenő Hubay, Bronislaw Huberman, Karl Klingler (violinist of the Klingler Quartet and Joachim’s successor at the Berlin Hochschule), Klingler was the teacher of Shinichi Suzuki.

Franz von Vecsey, who studied with Hubay, then Joachim, became the dedicatee of the Sibelius violin concerto.

Andreas Moser (another of Joachim’s pupils), went on to become his assistant, helping to recover the original scores of J.S. Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin, collaborating with Joachim on numerous editions. Moser wrote the first biography of Joachim in 1901.

Joachim’s Stradivarius Violins

From Wikipedia:
In March 1877, Joachim received an honorary Doctorate of Music from Cambridge University. For the occasion he presented his Overture in honor of Kleist, Op. 13. Near the 50th anniversary of Joachim’s debut recital, he was honored by “friends and admirers in England” on 16 April 1889 who presented him with “an exceptionally fine” violin made in 1715 by Antonio Stradivari, called “Il Cremonese”.

The provenance of the ‘Cremonese, Harold, Joachim’ is given in full detail on the intstrument’s listing in Tarisio. Currently housed at the museum in Cremona, here is a 2013 recital of Bach by Antonio de Lorenzi, and it sounds georgeous!

Joachim also played on the ‘Messiah’ 1716 Stradivarius which I have seen on display at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, on the list of the 12 most expensive violins in history.

He is no longer just a name on a score to me now – rather a fully fledged violin hero…

#TravelTuesday – The Road to Ronda: Reverie and Snapshots of Southern Spain

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“I have sought everywhere the city of my dreams, and I have finally found it in Ronda. Nothing is more startling in Spain than this wild and mountainous city.” ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

¡Hola! ¿Cómo estás?

My brain is still in Spain… Not literally of course, my body is firmly back in Buckinghamshire; but I find my thoughts often drift back to the vast and passionate land of sangria and siestas that was our base for two weeks this summer.

View towards Gibraltar at sunset.

It was a special time to soak up some much need rest and relaxation, not to mention sunshine, and spend some quality time with my children. Happy childhood memories are so precious, and I’m grateful we had such a fabulous holiday after what has been a pretty gruelling year to-date.

Travel opens you up to new sights, different cultures, history, peoples and foods, so that the places you visit somehow embed themselves into your psyche, either positively or negatively – depending on your experiences.

So it makes sense to write about the land that has a piece of my head and my heart while I’m still on the periphery of my holiday Zen twilight zone.

I feel a strong affinity with Andalusia: it rejuvenated my mind, body and spirit.

I miss the shrill strumming of the cicadas, the dry, sweet scent of pine infused mountain air, majestic mountain ranges stretching beyond the horizon inland, and the breezy Mediterranean Sea with its vivid palette of blues on the other side.

I long for the stout Spanish lemons that dwarf your hand (compared to the puny ones in the UK), and the blazing sunsets that illuminate the sky and warm your retina.

Sunset over Bolonia Beach and sand dune. We walked briskly in the fading light.

Sun-kissed beaches soak up innumerable sandy footprints and picturesque white villages nestle into steep clefts in the surrounding sierras, as the dramatic landscape bakes under a relentless oven-like heat in the summer months.

We saw a few water laden helicopters flying overhead on some days, as forest fires hit the area in soaring temperatures. We drove past this one in Euro Weekly News on the AP7 heading to Malaga Airport.

On the days we weren’t having fun in the pool we did get out from our base near Estepona and visited some amazing places; in particular I thought I would share Ronda with you.

Ronda

The first sightseeing trip we did was a 4-wheel drive adventure to the famed city of Ronda. Oh my, that day will stay with me forever…

We travelled in style: in an open top four-wheel drive, with our driver, Danny, a friendly, knowledgeable and enthusiastic tour guide who let us stand up in the jeep on the small roads and really made our day special.

We headed off down the A7 towards Marbella and then turned left into the Red mountain range (past a new Russian enclave of luxury homes and golf courses said to be the most expensive place to live in Europe), up into the Sierra Ronda, geologically formed from a mixture of marble, clay and limestone.

With the wind in our hair we drove round precipitous mountain bends as we climbed in altitude, stopping to buy melon and wave at a gathering of errant mountain goats running amok; bells tinkling as they made their bid for freedom.

Danny showed us some of the local flora and fauna enroute, as we stopped to pick fresh wild thyme, lavender and fennel flowers. We rubbed the yellow leaves between our hands and sniffed the pleasant, natural odour they left behind.

Bright flowers grew along the roadside, which I was informed was Oleander – a lovely plant to look at but poisonous to ingest.

We came to our first stop, a quaint mountain village with a natural pool of spring water formed after filtration through the mountains. It was a pure and peaceful spot, at least until we arrived!

Jumping for joy at the mountain spring.

Danny was chatting to an elderly local and he kept glancing up to the sky, where mist was forming into low cloud. It hadn’t rained there for three months and they were praying for a shower.

We continued on to Juzcar, famous for its blue buildings that were painted for its role in a Smurf movie. The town quite liked their new look and decided to keep it.

After a traditional lunch we set out on the road to Ronda…having fun and anticipating the views that would greet us in Ronda. They did not disappoint.

The wall of rock on the Southern approach to Ronda.

As you drive down into the valley with the old Moorish city walls and the Church of the Espiritu Santo on your right, the ochre rocky escarpment is what first grabs your attention.

Ronda is a breathtaking and unique city sitting high on a mountain shelf, crowning geological sediments and layers of civilisation and cultures: Celts, Visigoths, Romans, Arab and Christian, fused together by centuries of human habitation.

A virtually sheer face of rock, over 200 meters high towers above the surrounding agricultural fields, and then you see the tall, arched Puente Nuevo, joining both sides of a deep chasm that appears to have been wielded by none less than the mighty hand of God; cleaving the city in two.

From beneath the Puente Nuevo (New Bridge), at the end of the Tajo gorge, the new city (El Mercadillo) is on the left, the ancient Moorish (La Ciudad) on the right.

Danny regaled us with some local Spanish history: the Moors conquered the Iberian Peninsula in 711 AD, but the Catholic Spanish monarchs didn’t win back Ronda city from its Muslim inhabitants for another 700 years.

When you see the geography of the area around Ronda, the remote prized jewel of its eponymous Serrania, it’s easy to see how it would have been impregnable to sieges. The re-conquest was eventually achieved by cutting off the water supply to the Medina quarter. The city came back under Christian control on 24th May 1485.

My brood, posing with our guide, Danny from Monte Aventura.

Located in the province of Malaga, Ronda now has a population in the region of 40,000 people spread over the three districts: El Mercadillo, La Ciudad and San Francisco.

Writers such as George Eliot (Daniel Deronda), Rainer Maria Rilke, (who kept a permanent room at the Hotel Reina Victoria), Orson Welles and Ernest Hemingway were visitors, incorporating Ronda’s influence and inspiration in their writings.

Hemingway was said to have based a scene in For Whom the Bell Tolls where Nationalist sympathisers are thrown from a cliff during the Spanish Civil War, on real historical events that took place in Ronda from the cliffs of El Tajo.

Other famous inhabitants include Don Pedro Romero, one of Spain’s best loved bullfighters, born in Ronda in 1754. Romero was credited with elevating bullfighting from a sport to an art, and was immortalised in the paintings of Goya.

Portrait of bullfighter Pedro Romero by Francisco de Goya

It is a magical place – almost mythical…

Ronda’s Bridges

Ronda actually has three bridges: The Moorish Bridge, (built with a single arch on top of the Roman bridge at the low opening of the gorge, close to the Moorish Baths), then further along is the Puente Viejo, (old bridge), built in 1616 and the impressive new bridge, Puente Nuevo.

They call it new, but it has been successfully spanning the gorge for 224 years!

I have a fascination for bridges, so this was a real visual treat. You can only marvel at the feat of engineering they achieved in constructing the Puente Nuevo: built between 1751 and 1793 to link La Ciudad district with the expanding Mercadillo Barrio.

The bridge was designed by José Martín de Aldehuela who was supported in the project by Diaz Machuca of Ronda. Fifty workers were killed during its 42 year construction.

The Puente Nuevo is strong and solid in construction as well as graceful and classical in appearance. Its stone arches are reminiscent of an aqueduct.

The chamber above the central arch was used for a variety of purposes, including as a prison. What a canny place to keep criminals – escape must have been a very un-appealing option!

A long way down!

During the 1936-1939 civil war both sides allegedly used the prison as a torture chamber for captured opponents, killing some by throwing them from the windows to the rocks at the bottom of the El Tajo gorge.

The chamber is entered through a square building that was once the guard-house. It now contains an exhibition describing the bridge’s history and construction.

Looking into the gorge from the top of the bridge almost gave me vertigo, and I’m usually fine with heights. The floor of the canyon sits some 120 meters below, where the Guadalevin River still flows beneath the city.

My munchkins on the seat at the top of Puente Nuevo in Ronda

From the bridge there are stunning views of the hanging houses that overlook the gorge (El Tajo) and across the Guadalevin Valley.

Danny dropped us off at the bridge on the Mercadillo side, where we bought a few souvenirs.

We didn’t have time to see the famed bullring. The Plaza del Toros de la Real Maestranza is one of the oldest and probably the most famous bull ring in Spain and the world, with classical architectural features and the largest diameter.

We walked across the bridge into La Ciudad (the old Moorish city), and crossed the road of Puente Nuevo to see the other side of the gorge and the older, smaller bridges further down.

View towards the Old Bridge, Puente Viejo

We then took a stroll through the cobbled, labyrinth like streets of La Ciudad, past the façade of the beautiful Palacio Mondragon (now the municipal museum), and came out alongside the Collegiate Church of Santa Maria la Mayor at one end of the Plaza de la Duquesa de Parcent.

Collegiate Church of St. Mary Ronda

The church was built on the site of the city’s main mosque, constructed in the 13th and 14th centuries. After the Catholic monarchs took back control of Ronda it was consecrated as a Christian Church devoted to Saint Mary of the Incarnation.

The plaza’s garden like square has stunning views out over the valley, and a bust of its most revered historical denizen, Vicente Espinel; poet, novelist, soldier, priest and musician.

Plaza de la Duquesa de Parcent

Born in Ronda in 1550, he was an authority on the Spanish language and is considered a key figure of the Siglo de Oro (Spanish Golden Age). He was also credited with adding the 5th string to the classical guitar, boosting its popularity.

View towards El Mercadillo from La Alameda on the Plaza de la Duquesa de Parcent

Panning across the valley

La Ciudad contains many Moorish features, as well as monuments from later periods, such as Renaissance and Gothic.

The heat was immense, and the girls were running out of steam, so we passed under the arches of the Puerta de Almocábar, which separates San Francisco district from La Ciudad.

Originally built in the 13th century, it has now been restored and consists of two semi-circular turrets flanking three horseshoe arches. Its name is derived from the Arab al-magabir, meaning cemetery. Just outside the gate is another small square, built over an ancient cemetery.

I was told the larger outer arch was the original Moorish construction, the slightly smaller middle arch the Christian one, and the smallest inner arch was French built from Napoleon’s era.

One day I will return and spend the whole day in Ronda to thoroughly explore this amazing city, incorporating the Paleolithic and Neolithic remains of the Cueva de la Pileta, some 23 km from the city, discovered in 1905, and the ruins of the nearby Roman city of Acinipo.

Gibraltar

We were lucky to have an interesting tour of the Rock of Gibraltar, replete with man-made and natural history. On the steep drive up we saw the large, wrought iron chain links hammered into the rock every hundred yards. They were driven into the rock to give support to the long chains that the British Military used to haul up their canons so that they could be secured at any point on the arduous ascent.

Gibraltar – view towards North Africa across the Strait of Gibraltar

Ruby was particularly excited to see the wild monkeys, who have grown used to the tourists and have a reputation for making a nuisance of themselves.  But when we are on their turf we must respect their habitat. Our guide gave us strict instructions about not interacting with them.

A huge alpha male walked up behind Max, my eldest, and seeing some colourful paper poking out of his shorts pocket nimbly whipped the sweet packet out, opened it, and threw it to the ground, evidently disgusted to find that it was empty.

They seemed to make a beeline for my sons, with two leaping onto William’s back after he crouched to get a photo.

William proved popular with the locals!

Max admiring St. Michael’s Cave – Gibraltar. Discovered by the Romans with impressive stalactites, due to a million years of dripping water.

Another day we drove along the coast past Tarifa to Punta Paloma and Bolonia beach, famous for their unspoilt, white sand and abundant dunes. We spent a windswept day at Bolonia, which reminded me a little of Cornish beaches: long stretches of pristine sand, clear water and decent waves for body surfing, only 20 times hotter!

Sadly the site of the museum and Roman ruins (Baelo Claudia) adjacent to Bolonia beach was closed for the day, so I had to be content with this video:

The kids and I walked along the beach and up to the top of the sand dune at sunset. Now I know how Laurence of Arabia must have felt!

They were equally enthusiastic about a giant water park in Algeciras, with runs like Niagara and Kamikaze.

My sons left Spain a few days earlier as my youngest had an adventure trip in the Alps, climbing the second highest peak, Monterosa, over two days with a mountain guide.

We managed to explore beautiful Casares and also Castellar de la Frontera, home to a wonderful animal rescue zoo and the only inhabited medieval fortress in Andalusia.

The fortress at Casares in twilight.

With my daughters at Castellar Zoo

Beautiful Ocelot cub at Castellar Zoo

Ruby getting acquainted with one of the young lemurs

This photo doesn’t do justice to the huge wingspan of the adult fruit bat. When it stretched it wings out they were massive, and looked like they were made of thin, shiny, rubbery material.

Hotel Castellar, previously the castle of the medieval fortress at Castellar de la Frontera.

Ruby doing her best to out stare the resident hawk at Castellar de la Frontera.

Also on my Spanish bucket list for next time is the Alhambra Palace in Granada, which was fully booked so we couldn’t get in; as well as Cadiz, Seville and (not for the faint-hearted), Caminito del Rey.

This hair-raising video (with swearing) by Brave Dave, shows just how scary Caminito del Rey was for hikers before it was re-vamped for non-climbing tourists. It was dubbed as the most dangerous walk in the world:

Stunning drone footage:

There are plenty of reasons to return, and hopefully find myself back on the road to Ronda…

Since we got back I’ve tried (with limited success) to maintain a less frenetic pace of life, but had the rush of kitting out the kids for school and tackling the chaos that children (especially mine), invariably create when they have long periods at home.

I hope you’ve enjoyed your summer and are feeling ready to face the autumn with gusto!

Hasta luego amigos!