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The Story of Max Bruch
The Story of Max Bruch
The Story of Max Bruch
Concerto
You would think, listening to the world’s most popular violin concerto,
that it had been written in a white-hot spurt of inspiration. Well, think
again! Max Bruch’s beloved First Violin Concerto had a prolonged
gestation and a difficult birth.
The composer’s opera Die Loreley had already been produced, as had his first
significant choral works, by the time the 26-year-old composer began work on
the concerto in the summer of 1864.
Nearly 18 months later he wrote to his former teacher Ferdinand Hiller: “My
violin concerto is progressing slowly – I do not feel sure of my feet on this
terrain. Do you think that it is very audacious to write a violin concerto?” A
first version, completed by the beginning of 1866, was withdrawn by the
composer after a single performance on 24 April.
Dissatisfied, Bruch sent the manuscript to the great virtuoso Joseph Joachim
for his comments. Joachim replied with a detailed list of proposals for the
work’s improvement (some of which were taken up) to which Bruch
responded with a list of diffident queries and suggestions.
He later forbade the publication of this last letter fearing that it would make
him seem too dependent on Joachim for the composition. Still insecure about
his work, Bruch then sent the score to his conductor friend Hermann Levi and
the composer and violinist Ferdinand David for their comments (David had
advised Mendelssohn on his Violin Concerto in E minor two decades earlier
and had given its first performance).
At last, having been rewritten, in Bruch’s words, “at least half a dozen times”,
the concerto was completed to his satisfaction and given its first performance
in its final and definitive version on January 7, 1868 in Bremen with Karl
Reinthaler as conductor and Joachim as soloist.
La ópera del compositor Die Loreley ya se había producido, al igual que sus
primeras obras corales significativas, cuando el compositor de 26 años
comenzó a trabajar en el concierto en el verano de 1864.
Más tarde prohibió la publicación de esta última carta por temor a que
pareciera demasiado dependiente de Joachim para la composición. Todavía
inseguro sobre su trabajo, Bruch luego envió la partitura a su amigo director
Hermann Levi y al compositor y violinista Ferdinand David por sus
comentarios (David había aconsejado a Mendelssohn sobre su Concierto para
violín en mi menor dos décadas antes y había dado su primera actuación).