Tonight's classical music Thursday will cover the First Violin Concerto, Opus 26, in G minor, completed in final form in early 1868 by Max Bruch (1838-1920). (I am standing in at the request of Dkos user and regular TCM author Dumbo, who encountered a technical problem of some sort dealing with BIOS).
Bruch it was said wrote this piece with the idea of writing a concerto which would stand on an equal footing with the exquisitely beautiful Beethoven Violin Concerto in D major, a piece which had been performed only once during Beethoven's life, in 1806, and had only begun to be played again in the 1840s, when Bruch was a young boy.
Bruch however deviated in many ways from the form of Beethoven's concerto, which fundamentally was a classical piece. Bruch's G-minor concerto is more often compared to Mendelsohn's Violin Concerto in E minor (1845). Like the Mendelsohn work, Bruch's first violin concerto was composed in the classic form of three movements, but they are played seemlessly, without pause in between, so that a listener won't quite know for sure when one movement has concluded and another begun.
In an interesting overlap, the Beethoven concerto was played at its revival in 1844 by Joseph Joachim (1831-1907), one of the great violin masters, when he was only 12 years old. Joachim would go on to collaborate with Bruch on the First Violin concerto, and it was said that Bruch intended specifically to be performed by Joachim.
First movement.
The first movement, called a "prelude" is notable for the high level of mastery necessary for the soloist. In particular there are a number points in the work where the soloist must play on as many as four strings at once. When I first heard this work (on the radio) I thought it might be two violins that were playing. Here is Bloomington native Joshua Bell playing the first movement of the concerto:
The classical concerto form included an element called the cadenza, which was a point in the work, usually in the first movement, where the soloist played without accompanyment, and was expected to showcase his talent by improvising on the concerto's theme. (I say "his" because women in general did not perform in public at this time.) The composer of the concerto did not write the cadenza, and indeed there are often many cadenzas associated with a particular work. Bruch dispensed with the cadenza in the G-minor concerto, this may well be because Joachim did not consider it necessary to showcase his talent given the difficulty of the entire work.
More below the Squiggle of Doom. BTW, you can download (free) the score here in .PDF format, if you are interested in seeing how a work like this is written out.
The second movement -- Adagio.
The language of classical music has traditionally been Italian, of course this is continued in the score for the G minor concerto. Hence the second movement, which is played in moderately slow speed, has become known as the Adagio, for the Italian tempo description selected by Bruch for this part of the work.
It is the Adagio which is the heart of the G minor concerto. This was perceived at the time of its composition and has remained the impression of audiences ever since. Bruch, with the assistance of Joachim, took a number of performances to work out the final form of the piece. The concerto eventually was played in its final form in the city of Bremen, with Joachim as the soloist, on January 7, 1868, and was very well received, including in particular the Adagio and the Finale.
Here is Silvia Marcovici playing the second movement. Note the splendid crescendo at about 5:30, a wonderful opportunity for air conducting!
The Finale
The third movement, which Bruch called the Finale, has very different mood from the Adagio. I can't really describe music with words, you just have to listen to it, it's simply glorious. Here is the brilliant young Sarah Chang playing the Finale (I think the conductor is Larry Fine):
Bruch's later misgivings
Bruch made something of a mistake in composing the concerto at such a young age. Later in life he wrote:
Nothing compares to the laziness, stupidity and dullness of many German violinists. Every fortnight another one comes to me wanting to play the first Concerto; I have now become rude, and have told them: "I cannot listen to this Concerto any more -- did I perhaps write just this one? Go away and once and for all play the other Concertos, which are just as good, if not better.
What happened to the other concertos?
The legend of course of Bruch is that he was somehow a musical genius whose greatest work, the D minor concerto, overshadowed all of his later equally magnificent work, which the gin-soaked rabble have ignored to their great loss.
But is this really true?
The other two violin concertos (Opus 44 in D minor and Opus 58, also in D minor) written by Bruch are rarely performed, but I was able to find some Youtube videos. Here is the Adagio from the Third Concerto Adagio of the Third Concerto played by the Philarmonic Orchestra of Craiova, Romania, with soloist Liviu Prunaru. While I think the orchestra is to be praised for performing a largely ignored work, I am afraid that old man Bruch was wrong when he said the othe other concertos were just as good as the D minor. Sadly the work, or at least this part of it, is competently composed, but lacks the fire of the first concerto, at least in this performance. (But listen here to first movement of the third concerto, soloist Salvatore Accardo -- quite good.)
I have to say that I have I wondered if the collaboration of Joachim was not largely responsible for the brilliance of the G minor and the lack of success of the later works -- was Bruch really just a Salieri to Joachim's Mozart? Don't know -- here is some contrary evidence, Yehudi Menuhin playing Bruch's second violin concerto and I have to admit it is magnificent.
Bruch tells the critics where they can put it!
According to Christopher Fifield, in Max Bruch: His Life and Works, at one point Bruch agreed to hear a prospective student audition for him, but only if the G minor concerto was not played. But Bruch seemed to reserve to himself the right to criticize the work, and in 1884, when an Italin critic stated that the G minor concerto was an example of "spiritless cleverness", Bruch wrote that this was "unspeakable stupidity" and suggested that the critic could "go drown himself."
Electric guitar version
Here is a wonderful experiment -- the G-Minor concerto played on an electric guitar!
Now I realize this diary is about the Bruch violin concerto, but I can't resist commenting that the electric guitar can be a completely awesome instrument for classical music, as show here with Beethoven's Fifth played on the Axe and Moonlight Sonata played on two electric guitars (tres hot!).
Conclusion
In 1906, Joseph Joachim stated, at his 75th birthday party:
The Germans have four violin concertos. The greatest, most uncompromising is Beethoven's. The one by Brahms vies with it in seriousness. The richest, the most seductive, was written by Max Bruch. But the most inward, the heart's jewel, is Mendelssohn's.
My own view was that Beethoven and Bruch tie for first place, with Mendelssohn a close second and Brahms very much in third place. What do you think?