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Author ORCID Identifier
Abstract
This bilingual edition presents Reminiscences of Childhood, the autobiographical narrative of the Austrian operatic singer Amalie Joachim (née Schneeweiss), in Nina Joachim’s English translation together with the original German text. Written for her daughters, the memoir recounts Joachim’s family background in Carinthia and Styria; her early musical training and exposure to domestic chamber music; the political and personal upheavals of the revolutions of 1848; the death of her father and the family’s subsequent poverty; and her first theatrical engagements in Troppau and Hermannstadt. The narrative offers a vivid first-person account of musical life, female artistic formation, family survival, provincial theatre, and the changing social world of the Habsburg lands during the mid-nineteenth century. Published with permission from the University of Edinburgh Library Heritage Collections, this edition makes available both the English translation and the German source text preserved in the Joachim materials. It provides an important primary document for research on Amalie Joachim, nineteenth-century German-speaking musical culture, opera and theatre, women musicians, and the broader Joachim family circle.
Department
Music
Publication Date
2026
Publication Title
JosephJoachim.com
Publisher
none
Link to Full Text URL
https://josephjoachim.com/2025/04/21/amalie-joachim-reminiscences-of-childhood/
Recommended Citation
Eshbach, Robert W., "Amalie Joachim: Reminiscences of Childhood" (2026). JosephJoachim.com. 2488.
https://scholars.unh.edu/faculty_pubs/2488
Rights
copyright 2026 Robert Whitehouse Eshbach Published by kind permission of University of Edinburgh Library Heritage Collections. Source manuscripts: Coll–1711/4/6 (English translation) and Coll–1711/4/8 (original German). English translation, orthography, and spelling by Nina Joachim.