Max Bruch (1838-1920); DEU

Max Bruch (1838–1920) was a German composer, conductor, and teacher whose lyrical, conservative musical language remained rooted in the Romantic tradition throughout a period of rapid stylistic change. Born in Cologne, he showed precocious musical ability and received early encouragement from Ferdinand Hiller and other prominent musicians. Bruch held conducting and musical-director positions in several German cities and spent three years as conductor of the Liverpool Philharmonic Society. From 1891 to 1910 he taught composition at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik, where his pupils included Ottorino Respighi and Ralph Vaughan Williams. Bruch was widely respected during his lifetime for his choral and orchestral music, although changing musical fashions increasingly placed his traditional aesthetic at odds with the modernism emerging around the turn of the century.

Bruch possessed a remarkable gift for broad, singing melody, and his most enduring compositions are works that treat solo string instruments with vocal expressiveness. The Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor became one of the most beloved violin concertos in the repertory, to Bruch’s eventual frustration because its popularity overshadowed much of his other music. His Scottish Fantasy for violin and orchestra draws on Scottish folk melodies, while Kol Nidrei for cello and orchestra uses traditional Jewish melodies with grave lyricism. Bruch composed two further violin concertos, three symphonies, chamber works, songs, and numerous large-scale choral compositions. Although he rejected the more radical harmonic developments of his later contemporaries, his mastery of orchestration, formal balance, and long melodic line gave his finest works lasting appeal and secured his place among the characteristic voices of German Romanticism.

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Bruch, Max (b Cologne, 1838; d Friedenau, 1920). Ger. composer and conductor. Studied in Cologne with F. Hiller and Reinecke, returning as teacher 1858-61. Cond. of various concert organizations in Berlin and Bonn and of Liverpool Phil. Soc. 1880-3 (an unhappy period). Dir. Orchesterverein, Breslau, 1883-90, prof. of comp. Berlin Hochschule 1892-1910, among his pupils for a brief period being Vaughan Williams. Cond. Scottish Orch. 1898-1900. His comps. incl. 3 operas: Scherz, List ind Rache (Cologne 1858), Die Loreley (1862, rev. 1887, f.p. Mannheim 1863), and Hermione (Berlin 1872), based on Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale; 3 syms. (1870, 1870, 1887); many choral works (by which he was best known in Ger.), incl. Odysseus (1872), Das Lied von der Glocke (1879), Achilleus (1885), and Das Feuerkreuz (after Scott's The Lady of the Lake) (1889); 3 vn. concs. (No.1 in G minor, 1868, No.2 in D minor, 1878, No.3 in D minor, 1891); Scottish Fantasy, vn., orch. (1880); Kol Nidrei, vc., orch. (1881); Adagio appassionato, vn., orch. (1891); conc., cl., vn. (1911); Fantasy, 2 pf., orch. (1860); conc., 2 pf. (1912); Septet (1849-50); 2 str. qts. (1859, 1860); str. quintet in A minor (1919); Klavierstücke (1860-1).

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