Max Bruch (6 January 1838 – 2 October 1920) was a German Romantic composer, violinist, teacher, and conductor who wrote more than 200 works, including three violin concertos, the first of which has become a prominent staple of the standard violin repertoire.
Early life and education
Max Bruch was born in 1838 in Cologne to Wilhelmine (), a singer, and August Carl Friedrich Bruch, an attorney who became vice president of the Cologne police. Max had a sister, Mathilde ("Till"). He received his early musical training under the composer and pianist Ferdinand Hiller, to whom Robert Schumann dedicated his Piano Concerto in A minor. The Bohemian composer and piano virtuoso Ignaz Moscheles recognized the aptitude of Bruch.
At the age of nine, Bruch wrote his first composition, a song for his mother's birthday. From then on, music was his passion. His studies were enthusiastically supported by his parents. He wrote many minor early works including motets, psalm settings, piano pieces, violin sonatas, a string quartet, and even orchestral works such as the prelude to a planned opera, Joan of Arc. Few of these early works have survived, and the whereabouts of most of his surviving compositions are unknown.
The first music theory lesson he had was in 1849 in Bonn. It was given by Professor Heinrich Carl Breidenstein, a friend of his father's. At this time, Bruch was staying at an estate in Bergisch Gladbach, where he wrote much of his music. The farm belonged to an attorney and notary named Neissen, who lived there with his unmarried sister. Later, the estate was bought by the Zanders family, who owned a large paper mill. In later years, became a friend and patron to Bruch.
The young Bruch was taught French and English conversation by his father, who was very wealthy.
Career
After briefly studying philosophy and art in Bonn (1859), Bruch had a long career as a teacher, conductor, and composer, moving among musical posts in Germany: Mannheim (1862–1864), Koblenz (1865–1867), Sondershausen (1867–1870), Berlin (1870–1872), and Bonn, where he spent 1873–78 working privately. At the height of his career he spent three seasons as conductor of the Liverpool Philharmonic Society (1880–83).
He taught composition at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik from 1890 until his retirement in 1910. His notable students included the Italian composer Ottorino Respighi, American pianist Rudolph Reuter, and the German pianist, composer, and writer Clara Mathilda Faisst (1872–1948).
Personal life and final years
Bruch married Clara Tuczek, a singer whom he had met on tour in Berlin on 3 January 1881. She is believed to have been 26 at the time of the marriage. She belonged to a musical family; her sister was composer Felicia Tuczek. The couple returned to Liverpool and took lodgings in the Sefton Park area. Their daughter, Margaretha, was born in Liverpool in 1882. Their first son, Max Felix Bruch, was born on 31 May 1884 in Breslau and showed great aptitude for music at an early age. They had two further sons, Hans and Ewald.
Death
Bruch died in his home in Berlin-Friedenau in 1920. He was buried next to his wife Clara, who had died on 26 August 1919, at the Old St. Matthäus churchyard at Berlin-Schöneberg. Margaretha Bruch later had carved on the gravestone, "Music is the language of God."
Works
Bruch's complex and well-structured works in the German Romantic musical tradition placed him in the camp of Romantic classicism exemplified by Johannes Brahms, rather than the opposing "New Music" of Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner. In his time, he was known primarily as a choral composer and often, to his chagrin, was overshadowed by his friend Brahms, who was more popular and widely regarded.
Today, as it was during his life, Bruch's Violin Concerto No. 1, in G minor, Op. 26 (1866) is one of the most popular Romantic violin concertos. It uses several techniques from Felix Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor, including the linking of movements, as well as omitting the Classical opening orchestral exposition and other conservative formal structural devices of earlier concertos. Johann Joachim was the main person he referred to while composing and developing his concerto, and it was Joachim's revisions which made it to the final version of the piece that was published. Despite these modifications to the conventional Romantic style, Bruch often was considered a conservative composer.