Famous composers and their works, Vol. 3

by Unknown

In 1862, after the death of his father, Bruch began a two-years’ stay in Mannheim, and his friendship with Vincenz Lachner, which began at this time, undoubtedly had an influence on his compositions. In 1865, he went to Coblentz to assume the directorship of the musical institute there, and this was the beginning of the period of his greatest creative activity. In 1867, he became director of the court orchestra in Sondershausen, a position which had been held by such masters as Spohr and Weber, and for three years we find him diligently perfecting himself in the art of conducting, in which he has become very celebrated, being one of the few composers who are successful on the conductor’s stand. In 1870, Bruch went to Berlin, where he lived some years, not accepting any position, but busying himself entirely with composition. After this he settled in Bonn for a short time. In 1878 he was called to Berlin to succeed Julius Stockhausen as director of the famous Stern Gesangverein. His next engagement took him across the seas, and he went to Liverpool to succeed Sir Julius Benedict as director of the Philharmonic society in 1880. This engagement ended in the Spring of 1883 (some biographies commit an error here, in setting the date a year earlier), and he immediately came to America where he conducted a number of his compositions. In the summer of 1883 he returned to Germany, and from September of that year he was the director of the Breslau Orchestral Society.

MAX BRUCH
From a wood engraving at the British Museum.

This continued until the spring of 1890, when he closed his labors as conductor and settled in Friedenau, near Berlin, where he is at present; but he is so fond of travel, so full of energy and activity, that he is not likely to remain in retirement very long. In 1890 he received the honorary title of Royal Professor.

In personal appearance Bruch is by no means as majestic as one would suppose from his works. He is small of stature, and his dark eyes peer through his spectacles with the sharp glance of a teacher rather than of a creator of heroic cantatas. He is quick and nervous in motion and, when directing an orchestra or chorus, his gestures are spontaneous and expressive.

It is pleasant to notice that the juvenile compositions of Bruch had their origin in filial affection and that one of the earliest of his works is a prayer for his parents, which the nine-year-old boy arranged as a song. But the actual career of the composer commenced with the choruses, which he began to write in his twenty-first year.

The first of these choruses (Op. 8) bore the title of “Birken und Erlen” (“Birches and Alders”), and the second (Op. 3) “Jubilate, Amen.” In both of the works a soprano voice is used obligato against four-part chorus, and there are not only rich harmonies, but a wonderful blending of the solo with the chorus part. Just before these works, Bruch had written a little one-act opera, his Opus I, entitled “Scherz, List, und Rache,” on Goethe’s libretto, but it made no very marked impression; soon after, however, he turned his attention to larger opera, and the result was that Emanuel Geibel’s libretto, “Loreley,” which had been written years before, for Mendelssohn (that master was at work upon this subject when he met his early death), was now brought to the operatic stage by him. At first the poet opposed the thought of presenting the work save on the concert platform, but finally consented to allow it a trial at the theatre of Mannheim. The opera deals with one of the most poetical conceptions of the Rhine-witch, which makes her appear at first as a pure and beautiful maiden, named Leonore, but heartbroken and frenzied by betrayal and desertion, she seals a bond with the spirits of the stream, and with them wages war on mankind. Mendelssohn had already composed the scene of the invocation of the river-demons, and the festival of the vintagers, and Bruch’s music to these scenes bears the test of comparison, which is saying much when it is considered that the earlier setting was the last work of the more celebrated composer, and this was composed at the beginning of Bruch’s career. Bruch’s “Vintage Chorus” is frequently given by male choruses as a concert selection. The performance at Mannheim was successful and the opera was afterwards presented at many other theatres, and notably at Hamburg and Leipsic, in both of which cities it won great applause from public and press. Yet the work has now totally disappeared from the stage, since it is not really a dramatic subject, the change of the heroine from an innocent and confiding maiden to a fierce and revengeful spirit, a first cousin to the Greek Sirens, is rather a metaphysical than a theatrical one, and the plot occasioned some repetition of style which weakened the music. About ten years later Bruch once more essayed opera, and failed. This time Shakespeare was the librettist, and under the title of “Hermione” the new work, which was the “Winter’s Tale,” was performed in Berlin and Dresden, but in neither city did it win more than a succès d’estime. It has disappeared from the repertoire altogether, yet the second act is a gem that will bear rescuing from oblivion. It represents Hermione in prison, and at her trial, and so well is the pathos and intensity of the music fitted to the situation, that it is not exaggeration to speak of this portion of the opera as being among the finest things that Bruch has ever written, and it may be ranked with the very best of modern music.

Fac-simile manuscript of beginning of Adagio in Max Bruch’s first Violin Concerto.
Original in possession of Prof. Dr. Emil Naumann, in Dresden.

We now approach the epoch when Bruch produced a work which at once drew the attention, not of Germany alone, but of the entire musical world towards his labors; we have intimated that the composer’s fame rests chiefly on what he has done for chorus singing, and it is in the treatment of male chorus that Bruch is unsurpassed; it was with such a work,—“Frithjof” (Op. 23),—that he won his first great triumph. The text, by Esaias Tegner, taken from the grand old Sagas, afforded a sombre dignity that suited well to a massive use of maennerchor, and once more Bruch added a female voice, not in combination, but rather in contrast to the chorus work, to illustrate the character of the unhappy Ingeborg. The baritone solos, the utterances of the viking Frithjof, are full of expression, and the chorus of the returning heroes at the beginning of the cantata is melodious in the highest degree. Seldom, in a modern work, has so much of melody been employed, without weakening the dramatic treatment, but the final chorus of the departing warriors may be cited as a perfect example of this happy combination in Bruch’s choruses. “Frithjof” may also stand as a model of condensation in dramatic music; every note has its purport, and there is not a measure in the entire work that is supererogatory. The contrasts are also managed with a master-hand, so that the emotions of peace and war are given in kaleidoscopic, yet logical, succession.