Bruch, Max

Max Christian Friedrich Bruch

Canzone in B-Flat Major for cello and orchestra op. 55

Date of composition: July 1890, Bergisch Gladbach, Germany
First publication: Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1891

Requested by and dedicated to the cellist Robert Hausmann Hausmann,
who was also the dedicatee of Bruch’s Kol Nidrei.

January 6, 1838 (Cologne (Köln), Rheinprovinz, Königreich Preußen) – October 20, 1920 (Friedenau)

Max Bruch was a German composer who wrote over 200 works, notably his moving Kol nidrei for cello and orchestra, op. 47, and the first of his three violin concertos (Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, op. 26 1866), which has become a staple of the violin repertory. Although he was raised Rhenish-Catholic, the National Socialist party banned his music from 1933-1945 due to his name, his well-known setting of a melody from the Jewish Yom Kippur service, and his unpublished Drei Hebräische Gesange for mixed chorus and orchestra (1888).

Bruch was also an accomplished teacher of music composition from 1892-1911, conducting seminars and ensembles at the Royal Academy of Arts at Berlin (Königliche Akademie der Künste zu Berlin). British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams studied with Bruch, describing him as a proud and sensitive man. Bruch actively resisted the Lisztian/Wagnerian musical trends of time, and modeled his works on those of Mendelssohn and Schumann. His concerti share structural characteristics with Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor, omitting the first movement exposition and linking multiple movements. His most lasting contributions to chamber music include works written for his son Max, who was a clarinetist.

Child of his Time
Bruch was born in the same decade as Johannes Brahms, Georges Bizet, and four of the Russian Five or “Mighty Handful” (Могучая кучка). At the age of fourteen (1852), he was awarded the Mozart Prize of the Frankfurt-based Mozart Stiftung, which enabled him to study with virtuoso Ferdinand Hiller. In 1858, he moved on to Leipzig and then held posts in Mannheim (1862-1864), Koblenz (1865-1867), and Sondershausen (1867-1870)…

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