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Max Bruch

Max Bruch was a German composer who is remembered today primarily for his concertante works, but he was well known in the 19th century for his choral works. Viewed as a promising talent in his youth with an impressive technical and artistic mastery, he was considered a leading composer working in the traditional Romantic idiom until Brahms wrote his First Symphony. Because of his steadfast opposition to the New German School of Wagner and Liszt, and later to the music of "modernists" Strauss, Wolf, and Reger, Bruch gained the reputation of a conservative, and this label still alienates many listeners who accept an evolutionary paradigm of music history. The three works by Bruch that remain in the repertoire are his popular Violin Concerto No. 1, the Scottish Fantasy for violin and orchestra, and the single movement for cello and orchestra Kol Nidrei, but most of his other compositions -- including piano pieces, operas, symphonies, and other orchestral works -- are rarely performed and recorded. He was respected in his maturity as an educator and also conducted in posts as widely separated as Liverpool and Breslau. Bruch was born in Cologne, on January 6, 1838. He took piano lessons from his mother, a voice teacher and former professional singer. Bruch started composing as a child, displaying an extraordinary musical talent that was recognized as such by Ignaz Moscheles. In 1852, he wrote a symphony and a string quartet, the latter work bringing him a scholarship from the Frankfurt-based Mozart foundation, which enabled him to study from 1853 to 1857: the piano with Ferdinand Breunung and Carl Reinecke, and composition with Ferdinand Hiller, who would become a lifelong friend and adviser. In 1858, having embarked on a teaching career in Cologne, he produced his first work bearing an opus number: the comic opera Scherz, List und Rache, Op. 1, after Goethe. In 1861, Bruch departed for Berlin, where he would spend time making valuable contacts with luminaries of the day like von Bülow and Taubert. From 1862 to 1864, he lived in Mannheim, where he wrote his cantata Frithjof and the opera Die Loreley, both of which audiences received with great enthusiasm. After leaving his Mannheim post, Bruch visited Paris and Brussels, eventually accepting the position of music director in Koblenz in 1865. Before leaving that post in 1867, he produced the Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Op. 26, and several choral works. He moved on to Sonderhausen and achieved more success with his Symphonies Nos. 1 and 2. In 1870, Bruch moved to Berlin, where his third opera, Hermione, was produced in 1872. It was a failure, but his choral work Odysseus (1872) triumphed. Between 1873 and 1878, enjoying his reputation as an eminent German composer, Bruch worked independently in Bonn. After the glorious 1878 premiere in England of his Violin Concerto No. 2, the same work was received coldly back in Bonn, where it shared the bill with the newly composed First Symphony by Brahms, upon which critics heaped lavish praise. Thereafter, Bruch lived in the shadow of Brahms. Nevertheless, he turned out two of his most popular works in the period of 1878 to 1880: the Scottish Fantasy for violin and orchestra, and Kol Nidrei for cello and orchestra. Bruch then accepted the position of conductor of the Liverpool Philharmonic in 1880, and married 17-year-old contralto Clara Tuczek, on January 3, 1881. In 1883 Bruch became director of the Breslau (now Wroclaw, Poland) Orchesterverein, where he stayed through the end of the season in 1890. During that period, he composed several significant choral works, including Achilleus (1885) and the cantata Das Feuerkreuz (1889). In 1891, he was appointed professor of composition at the Berlin Akademie, where he remained until his retirement in 1910; he retained his rank as a professor there until his death in 1920. Bruch declared his 1893 In Memoriam, for violin and orchestra (without strings), his best work. In his later years, the composer focused more on small-scale works, such as the 1910 Eight Pieces for clarinet, viola, and piano. Bruch died on October 20, 1920.
© TiVo Staff /TiVo
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