MAX BRUCH, the mid-nineteenth century German composer and pianist, completed the first draft of his Violin Concerto No. 1 in G Minor Op. 26 in 1866. The violinist Joseph Joachim made suggestions for revisions and premiered the piece in Bremen in 1868. It was an instant success, eventually eclipsing all of Bruch’s other compositions. Violins seemed to “play the piece by themselves,” said the somewhat irritated composer.

They still do. This is one of the most beautiful pieces ever written for the instrument. It will never die.

Sadly, Bruch took a one-time payment. If he had agreed to royalties, his estate would have received payments for the concerto until 1990, according to his biographer. Instead, his daughter Margarethe, who passionately promoted her father’s work after his death, died in poverty.

If you have never heard this sublime work for violin, I highy recommend the 1962 recording by Jascha Heifetz and the New Symphony Orchestra of London. The first movement, which my older son played to a standing ovation at his school three years ago and which I had the pleasure of hearing him practice for many hours, is breathtaking. You can hear the second movement here and the dramatic finale here.

                                                                                    — Comments —

Wes writes:

I heartily second your recommendation of Max Bruch’s G-Minor Concerto.  Decades ago this was one of the compositions that whetted my appetite for serious music.  Bruch was long-lived and prolific, composing in all genres except opera, but making up for his lack of operatic ambition in large-scale secular oratorios and cantatas.  (There is an oratorio, for example, on the homecoming of Odysseus.)  Like many prolific artists, Bruch wrote a great deal that falls below the level of his best work, but he also produced much that matches the G-Minor Concerto in inspiration.  I might particularly recommend his Scottish Fantasy (1880), also for violin and orchestra; and his Concerto in A-Flat Minor for Two Pianos and Orchestra (1912), which makes use of Sicilian tunes that the composer had written down during a visit to that island some years previously.  Finally, a product of his sojourn in Liverpool, there is the Kol Nidre, for cello and orchestra, on a tune from the Jewish holiday service. 

Bruch belongs to a generation of mostly German (or Germanic) composers who came after Mendelssohn and Schumann and had to compete with Brahms, on the one hand, and Wagner on the other; and then, given the snobbish anti-Romanticism that dominated music criticism for most of the Twentieth Century, their music largely disappeared.  In the last twenty-five years, however, partly as a development of the recorded repertory, much of this lost treasure has resurfaced, to the delight of the record-buying audience at any rate.  Listeners who find themselves moved by Bruch might want to explore the music of Joachim Raff (1822-1882), Carl Reinecke (1824-1910), Niels Gade (1817-1890), and Edouard Lalo (1822-1892).  Gade was a Dane and Lalo a Frenchman.  Lalo’s Symphonie espagnole for violin and orchestra (actually a concert, 1875) is as tuneful as Bruch’s G-Minor Concerto.  It is possible to sample all these composers through video clips on the Internet.  Better yet, the old Vox surveys, in four two-disc boxed sets, of “The Romantic Piano Concerto” are still to be had, often cheaply; they offer a hefty sampling of outgoing music from Bruch’s contemporaries. 

Richard Strauss famously or infamously, depending on one’s critical generosity, borrowed the adagio theme of the G-Minor Violin Concerto for his Alpine Symphony (1915), which the musically audacious would not regret tackling.

Laura writes:

Thank you for the fascinating background and suggestions.

Mr. Bertonneau adds:

Max Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy, Op. 46, with Jascha Heifetz on violin, Ossian Ellis on harp and Sir Malcolm Sargent conducting The New Symphony Orchestra of London, can be found on the Internet at the following links: I. Introduction (Grave); Adagio Cantabile; II. Allegro; III. Andante Sostenuto; IV. Allegro Guerriero.

Edouard Lalo’s Norwegian Fantasy for Violin and Orchestra (1881) (no performer details given, but nicely played) can be found on the Internet as well: Movements I & II (Allegretto; Andante) and Movement III (Allegro Presto).

Joachim Raff’s Piano Concerto in C-Minor, Op. 183 with Michael Ponti on piano and Richard Kapp conducting the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra can be found at these links: I. Allegro, II. Andante Quasi, Larghetto and III. Allegro. 

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