MAX BRUCH

[Fleuron]MAX BRUCH

[Fleuron]

MAX BRUCH

In the latter part of the nineteenth century probably no composer has done more for the development of the chorus, and especially of theMaennerchor, than Max Bruch, and although he has achieved much in orchestral scoring, and has written fine concertos, symphonies, and even large operas, it is upon his great choruses that his fame as a composer, and his right to admission to the ranks of the masters, chiefly rests. He was born in Cologne, Jan. 6, 1838, and his musical powers developed very early, for by the time that he had reached his fourteenth year, he had already written upwards of seventy compositions, although wisely forbearing to print them and thereby take rank as a “musical prodigy.” One of these juvenile works was a symphony, and received a public performance in Cologne in 1852. As with the first compositions of Mendelssohn, however, these early works are to be regarded merely as records of juvenile possibilities and are not reckoned with the great and serious contributions to music which Bruch was able to make in riper years.

His parents gladly aided his efforts to develop his musical abilities by thorough training, and to his mother he owes much of the success of his juvenile studies. This lady, once famous as Fräulein Almenräder, was herself a distinguished singer, and came of a well-known musical family of the lower Rhine country. She personally attended to the elementary steps of Bruch’s musical curriculum, but he was early sent to Professor Heinrich Karl Breidenstein of Bonn, who took charge of his theoretical studies. These succeeded so well that the compositions of the nine-year-old boy attracted the notice of Ferdinand Hiller, who soon after took him in charge and developed his abilities so rapidly and thoroughly that at fourteen years the boy was able to enter for the Mozart scholarship awarded in Frankfort. The string quartette which he wrote for this occasion won the prize. This obtained for him a yearlystipendiumof four hundred gulden, which he enjoyed for four years, and which enabled him to continue his studies with Hiller, and also to obtain instruction from Professors Carl Reinecke and Ferdinand Breuning, studying piano under the latter with especial zeal and success. Long visits to Munich, Leipsic and other musical centers followed, and continued to broaden the musical horizon of the young genius. At Munich he made the personal acquaintance of the poet Emanuel Geibel, who had much influence upon his later work in the large musical forms. The winter of 1857–8, passed in Leipsic, seems to have also wielded a great influence in awakening Bruch’s enthusiasm for the higher walks of music. After this year, we find him once more in his native city of Cologne, enjoying a reputation which even at that time was much more than local. He had, until this time, published only compositions in the small forms, piano pieces, songs, and duets, but with his first two choruses we find the first ocular evidences of talent, and from the very beginning the massing of voices seems to have possessed a peculiar charm for, and to have been well understood by him.

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 BRUCHFrom 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 usedobligatoagainst 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 asuccès 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 ofmaennerchor, 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.

Immediately following this there came an almost equally important contribution to the repertoire of mixed chorus; this was “Schön Ellen,” a cantata for chorus combined with soprano and baritone solos. The subject taken was again a warlike one, being founded on the fabulous tale invented by a newspaper correspondent, that during the siege of Lucknow, a Scotch girl named Jessie Brown heard the bagpipes of the regiments sent to the relief of the place, long before they were audible to the rest of the garrison, and was able thereby to prevent a surrender to the merciless Sepoys surrounding it. Emanuel Geibel, the poet, turned the mythical Jessie Brown into an equally mythical “Fair Ellen,” and gave the libretto to the composer, who began its composition within sound of the cannon at the battle of Sadowa the culmination of the Austro-Prussian war. The subject was full of dramatic possibilities, and Bruch used these in the condensed manner characteristic of the preceding work. Naturally he was impelled towards Scotch music by the color of the poem, and the entire cantata is founded on “The Campbells are comin’,” which is omnipresent in it, and forms a grand climax to the whole as a hymn of thanksgiving. Yet many may have blamed Bruch for departing from the Scotch character of the theme in this lofty finale; few musicians will join in this censure, for the composer has but allowed himself the freedom of the Fantasie in this development of a folk-theme. It is not the only time that a German composer has used this melody in a developed musical work, for Robert Volkmann employed it in his overture “Richard III.”; a Scotch theme written in 1568, in an English battle fought in 1485!

It may be fitting in this place to speak of the influence which the Scotch folk-music exerted upon Bruch. He once assured the writer of this article that he was familiar with over four hundred of the Scotch folk-songs. After the completion of “Fair Ellen” his taste in this direction was again shown in the “Scotch Fantasie” (Op. 46) for violin and orchestra, which is one of Sarasate’s favorite solos, and he also arranged twelve Scotch folk-songs with considerable success. Yet it may fairly be doubted whether Bruch has ever been able to reproduce the lilt so characteristic of Gaelic music; in this failure, however, he is not alone, for Beethoven, Schumann, and others among the German masters have attempted this vein fruitlessly; Mendelssohn alone, among the ranks of these, accomplished the transplanting of the delicate flower of Scotch folk-music into German classical works.

The immense success that followed the production of “Frithjof,” and the almost equal favor extended to “Fair Ellen,” was reflected on Bruch’s earlier works, and the “Roman Song of Triumph” (Op. 19, No. 1) was brought into popularity in its wake, and once more we hear the stern notes of war and victory sounding in the massive chords of the male chorus. Soon after the triumph of “Frithjof” we find the composer returning to the subject, and Op. 27 deals with “Frithjof at the grave of his father,” but it was like Milton’s “Paradise Regained” after “Paradise Lost,” a weak work after a masterpiece, and this concert-scene for baritone solo, female chorus, and orchestra, fell rather flat.

The true successor of “Frithjof” was to come later in the shape of another warrior, this time a Grecian; in the “Odysseus,” Op. 41, with Ulysses as his hero, we find the composer rising to the height of the preceding subject, but in another and less stern manner. This had been preceded by yet another tone-picture of warriors, in the “Normannen-zug,” a stately union of baritone solo, with unison male chorus and orchestra (all the above-mentioned cantatas have orchestral accompaniment) but in “Odysseus” all the resources of modern scoring are employed and both mixed and male choruses are present in most effective numbers. “Odysseus” exhibits Bruch’s instrumentation in the best light, and proves him a master of the modern orchestral resources. These instrumental forces are always employed with the most perfect taste, and the accompaniment of the great unison male chorus of the Rhapsodes by tremendous pizzicato chords, as of a giant harp, is a touch of indescribable dignity; some of the finest mixed choruses which the composer has written are to be found in this work.

Other large compositions for solo voices, chorus, and orchestra, followed. “Arminius” (this time a German warrior was the hero) may not be ranked with the inspired works mentioned above, but is nevertheless a favorite with the composer, and all creators in art have the privilege of loving their weakest children best; “The Song of the Bell,” on Schiller’s great poem, although a fine work, full of power and majesty, does not bring out all the dramatic possibilities of the subject, but is never-less far more effective than the Romberg setting; “Achilleus” (again a martial theme) is one of the most recent works of the master, and in his Op. 52 he turns again to Scotia and in the “Fiery Cross” we find Sir Walter Scott’s “Lady of the Lake” appearing in some of its warlike phases.

So much for the chief vocal works of this master; it will be seen that he loves historic pictures, and the poets Geibel, Lingg, and Scheffel have helped him by libretto and advice in this direction; and he sings so constantly of war and warriors, that he may be called the Tyrtæus of modern music. But it must not be supposed that his entire work has been in this field only; he has won much success in some of the large instrumental forms as well. His three symphonies in E flat, F minor, and E major, are but seldom performed, but it is difficult to discover the cause of this neglect; possibly the earnest, sombre, even gloomy tints of the second are not to the taste of those who seek only pleasure in music. But the third symphony in E is genial and attractive and would please almost any cultured audience although it is not in the strictest form. The first two symphonies are built in classical style, and Bruch seems to have taken Beethoven for his model in this field. It must be confessed, however, that none of the three works has yet received due appreciation. Vastly different is it with the two violin concertos, the first of which is dedicated to Joachim, the second to Sarasate; these are very frequently heard in our concert rooms and the first, (in G minor, Op. 26) may be mentioned as one of the chief works in this form, and equal, and by some held superior, to Mendelssohn’s well-known violin concerto.

The third violin concerto is scarcely known yet in America. It was played at the music festival of Düsseldorf, by Joseph Joachim, with great success. It has a dreamy, prayerful, second movement, and a most martial and brilliant finale, but its first movement is prolix when compared with the power of the themes of the G minor concerto.

It may be of interest to append a list of the most important of Bruch’s published compositions; they are as follows:—

Op. 1. “Scherz, List und Rache.” (Goethe.) A comic opera in one act.

Op. 3. “Jubilate, Amen.” For Soprano, Chorus and Orchestra.

Op. 8. “The Birches and the Alders.” Soprano solo, Chorus and Orchestra.

Op. 9. String Quartette. C minor.

Op. 10. Quartette in E major. (Both rather too broad in their ideas for the vehicle of expression.)

Op. 12. Six pieces for Piano. (Simple, yet beautiful in expression, and showing the composer in a very different field from that of his majestic cantatas.)

Op. 16. “Loreley.” Grand romantic opera.

Op. 19. “Römischer Triumphgesang”; “Wessobrunner Gebet.” Male choruses with orchestra; the first has become celebrated.

Op. 20. “The Flight of the Holy Family.” (Libretto by Eichendorff.) A great work for Chorus and Orchestra.

Op. 22. Does not exist! By a clerical error the Frithjof music was numbered Opus 23 instead of 22.

Op. 23. “Frithjof.” (See above.)

Op. 24. “Schön Ellen”: “Fair Ellen.” (See above.)

Op. 25. “Salamis.” Words by Lingg. Male Chorus and Orchestra. One of the large choral works; a grand historical tone-poem.

Op. 26. Violin Concerto. No. 1. G minor. (See above.)

Op. 27. “Frithjof at his Father’s Grave.” Baritone. Female Chorus and Orchestra.

Op. 28. Symphony in E flat.

Op. 29. “Rorate Coeli.” Chorus, Orchestra, and Organ. Probably this is the loftiest of Bruch’s sacred works.

Op. 31. “The Flight into Egypt,” and “Morning Hours.” (By Lingg.) Soprano, Female Chorus and Orchestra.

Op. 32. “Normannen-zug.” Baritone, Chorus in unison and Orchestra.

Op. 34. “Römische Leichenfeier”: “Roman Funeral Sacrifice.” Mixed Chorus and Orchestra. (Has been erroneously classified as a male chorus.)

Op. 35. “Kyrie, Sanctus and Agnus Dei.” Choral work.

Op. 36. Symphony in F minor.

Op. 37. “Song of the German Emperor.” Chorus and Orchestra.

Op. 39. “Dithyrambe.” (Schiller.) Tenor voice, Chorus and Orchestra.

Op. 40. “Hermione.” (“Winter’s Tale.”) Grand Opera.

Op. 41. “Odysseus.” (See above.)

Op. 43. “Arminius.” A large work for Chorus and Orchestra. Sometimes classified as an oratorio.

Op. 44. Violin Concerto. No. 2. D minor.

Op. 45. “The Song of the Bell.” (Schiller.) Chorus, four solo voices, Orchestra and Organ. This is the most ambitious work of the composer; by some it is accounted his greatest, but whoever undertakes the setting of this masterpiece of a great poet, will find his music overshadowed by the grandeur of the poetry.

Op. 46. Scotch Fantasie. Violin and Orchestra.

Op. 47. “Kol Nidrei.” A wonderfully effective setting of the ancient Hebrew hymn (many believe this to be the oldest piece of Hebrew music in existence) for Violoncello and Orchestra.

Op. 50. “Achilleus.” Solo voice, Chorus and Orchestra.

Op. 51. Third Symphony. E major. The most free in form, and the brightest in character, of all of Bruch’s symphonies.

Op. 52. “The Fiery Cross.” Dramatic Cantata upon portions of Scott’s “Lady of the Lake” (arranged by H. Bulthaupt). Solo, Chorus and Orchestra.

Op. 53. “Thermopylae”; “War Song of Tyrtaeus.” Two Male Choruses, with Orchestra.

Op. 54. Songs. (Text by Heyse.) Piano and Violin accompaniment.

Op. 55. Canzone. ’Cello and Orchestra.

Op. 56. Adagio on Celtic Melodies. ’Cello and Orchestra.

Op. 57. Adagio Appassionato. Violin and Orchestra.

Op. 58. Third Violin Concerto. (D minor.) Dedicated to Joachim.

Without Opus number. One Male Chorus, and a set of Hebrew Melodies for Chorus, Orchestra and Organ.

Louis C. Elson

JOSEPH RHEINBERGERReproduction of a photograph from life, made by Fr. Muller, in Munich.

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