Max Bruch (1838-1920)
Scottish Fantasy, Op. 46 • Serenade, Op. 75
Today Max Bruch is generally known only as the
composer of works for the violin. In addition to the
Violin Concerto in G minor, the popularity of which
continues, and, to the annoyance of the composer,
eventually overshadowed much of his other work, we
hear from time to time the Scottish Fantasy and the
Second Violin Concerto. The fact that Bruch, in his day,
was famous for his large-scale choral works is
forgotten. Between 1870 and 1900 there were numerous
performances of works such as Odysseus, Frithjof or
Das Lied von der Glocke, earning for the composer a
reputation that momentarily outshone that of Brahms.
Max Bruch was born in Cologne on 6th January,
1838, in the same year as Bizet. He studied there with
Ferdinand Hiller and Carl Reinecke. Extended journeys
at home and abroad as a student were followed by a
longer stay in Mannheim, where his opera Loreley was
performed in 1863, a work based on a libretto by Geibel
and originally dedicated to Mendelssohn, which
brought him to the attention of a wider public. Bruch’s
first official appointments were as Kapellmeister, first
in Koblenz from 1865 to 67, and then in Sondershausen
until 1870, followed by a longer stay in Berlin and a
period from 1873 to 1878 in Bonn, when he dedicated
himself to composition. After a short time as director of
the Sternscher Sangverein in Berlin, in 1880 he was
appointed conductor of the Liverpool Philharmonic
Orchestra, where he succeeded Julius Benedict, leaving
England in 1883 to become director of the
Orchesterverein in Breslau. In 1891 he moved finally to
Berlin and took over master-classes in composition,
Respighi being one of his pupils. He retired in 1911 to
devote himself to composition, although now
essentially writing in a traditional style that seemed to
have passed. He died in Berlin on 2nd October, 1920.
Bruch wrote his Scottish Fantasy in 1880 for the
violinist Pablo Sarasate, who gave the first performance
in September of the same year. For his thematic
material he drew on an anthology of six hundred
Scottish folk-songs, The Scots Musical Museum,
published by the Edinburgh music engraver James
Johnson in six volumes between 1787 and 1803, the
later volumes with the collaboration of Robert Burns.
The collection was influential, although the rival
collector George Thomson had little good to say of it,
describing it as ‘an omnium gatherum in six volumes,
containing a number of tawdry songs which I should be
ashamed to publish . . . as much a book for topers as for
piano players’. Thomson, who also had the benefit of
collaboration with Burns, had dealings with Haydn,
Beethoven and others, in the commissioning of
arrangements of the tunes collected.
The Fantasy starts with a solemn Introduction in E
flat minor, to which the soloist adds rhapsodic
comment. The first movement, marked Adagio
cantabile, follows without a break, making use of the
song Old Robin Morris, the harp, a necessary bardic
concomitant, making its extensive appearance. The
soloist states the melody with double-stopping, forming
the substance of the movement. The second movement,
an Allegro, is a dance, using the melody The Dusty
Miller, heard, after the orchestral introduction, from the
soloist, again in double-stopping, over a characteristic
drone. The solo violin enjoys opportunities for virtuoso
display in the treatment of the material, and there is a
brief reminiscence of the first movement, before the
soloist leads the way into the third movement, based on
I’m a-doun for lack of Johnnie, material later developed
as the violin adds a varied treatment over the theme
heard first from the French horn. The Fantasy ends with
a movement marked Allegro guerriero, an appropriate
direction for a commemoration of Bannockburn with
the tune Scots wha hae. Earlier tunes are recalled,
framed by the principal melody.
Bruch’s Serenade in A minor, Op.75, for violin and
orchestra was written in 1900, and demonstrates the
composer’s command of writing for the solo violin, in
which he had once had the help of his friend and
colleague Joseph Joachim. It is introduced by muted
first violins, and answered by clarinets and bassoon
before the entry of the soloist, with a fuller form of the
melody suggested by the opening motif. Livelier new
material is introduced by the orchestra, as the music
unfolds, leading to a central section, included in the
recapitulation with which the movement ends. The C
major second movement opens with the bassoons
setting the jaunty march rhythm in which the
woodwind, the brass and then the whole orchestra join.
This is interrupted by a gentler element, in a section
marked un poco meno vivo, followed by the brief return
of the opening theme. A G major Animato section
allows a display of double stopping from the triplet
figuration of the soloist, after which the main theme is
heard again, leading to a reminiscence of the earlier un
poco meno vivo. A further episode intervenes before the
emphatic return of the opening theme, a reminiscence of
the secondary theme, and a cadenza-like passage. There
is a short introduction to the third movement Notturno,
an evening hymn, with its tranquil E major violin
melody. Other thematic elements are introduced before
the return of the principal theme, accompanied by the
embellishments of the soloist. The vigorous final
movement is dominated by the energetic principal
theme in which the soloist soon joins, but the whole
work ends with a nostalgic return to the serene mood of
the opening of the Serenade, a work over which the
spirits of Schumann and Mendelssohn often seem to
preside, with the return of the principal theme of the
first movement.
Keith Anderson