Bruch: Violin Concerto No. 1 & Other Works (Hyperion Romantic Violin Concerto 19)

Jack Liebeck, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Martyn Brabbins2015年12月31日 • 8 首歌

Bruch: Violin Concerto No. 1 & Other Works (Hyperion Romantic Violin Concerto 19)

Jack Liebeck专辑介绍：Max Bruch’s Violin Concerto No 1 is the daddy—the most popular ever written. Much recorded, Jack Liebeck turns in a dazzling performance of youthful vigour, prefacing the Concerto with the gorgeous Serenade and a Romance. * * * Max Bruch belongs to a select group of composers who sold the copyrights of their greatest hits for a pittance and spent the rest of their lives bitterly regretting their hasty actions—two others were Edward Elgar (Salut d’amour) and Fats Waller (Ain’t Misbehavin’, Honeysuckle Rose). The work in question was Bruch’s Violin Concerto No 1 in G minor, Op 26, which nowadays comes at or near the top of listeners’ polls as the most popular violin concerto, and is routinely bracketed with those by Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Brahms and Tchaikovsky. Bruch, born in Cologne in 1838 and trained by Ferdinand Hiller and Carl Reinecke, began writing the G minor concerto in the summer of 1864, when he was based in Mannheim and had recently met the great Hungarian violinist Joseph Joachim. During the concerto’s tortuous gestation, Bruch moved to Koblenz in 1865 to take the post of Court Kapellmeister and then moved on again in 1867 to Sondershausen. Along the way he rewrote the concerto ‘at least half a dozen times’, and a number of violinists were associated with its development and the refining of the solo part, although the major contribution was made by Joachim, himself a fine composer. ‘My violin concerto is progressing slowly—I do not feel sure of my feet on this terrain’, Bruch wrote to his old teacher Hiller in November 1865. That perceptive critic Clara Schumann liked what she saw when the manuscript was shown to her, however, so the work presumably already revealed individuality. Bruch sought technical advice from the Mannheim concertmaster Johann Naret-Koning and by early 1866 he had completed his first draft. This version was premiered in Koblenz on 24 April, at the last winter concert of the Musik-Institut, with Bruch conducting and Otto von Königslöw, professor at the Cologne Conservatory and leader of the Gürzenich Orchestra, as soloist. Having heard it in performance Bruch was dissatisfied, and during the summer he sent the manuscript to Joachim in Hanover. In August he received a very detailed letter, making a number of structural suggestions. Joachim also reassured him that it was appropriate to call the work a concerto rather than a fantasy. After making his revisions and detailing them to Joachim, Bruch went to Hanover, where the two men worked together on the concerto and then performed this second version with the Court Orchestra. Bruch also received advice from the conductor Hermann Levi and the celebrated Leipzig violinist Ferdinand David; and in October 1867 he spent more time working on the concerto in Hanover with Joachim. On 5 January 1868, Joachim premiered the final version in Bremen, with Carl Martin Reinthaler conducting; and he repeated it in Hanover and Aachen. On 6 July it was introduced to London at a Philharmonic Concert in the Hanover Square Rooms, conducted by W G Cusins, with the orchestra’s Austrian concertmaster Ludwig Straus as soloist. The critic of The Times found it ‘full of pretension, but almost destitute of interest’, a verdict posterity has not endorsed. The Spanish violinist Pablo de Sarasate, who would actively champion Bruch’s violin music, gave the American premiere in New York on 3 February 1872, with the New York Philharmonic under Carl Bergmann, and also played the concerto in Paris, Lyons and Brussels. Bruch follows Mendelssohn in having the three movements play almost continuously. At the start he pays homage to Beethoven by opening with a soft timpani roll and takes another leaf out of Mendelssohn’s book by doing without a full orchestral tutti. Instead orchestra and soloist alternate brief flourishes before the orchestra sets the Allegro moderato on its way. Bruch carefully styles this movement a Prelude because, although it is basically in sonata form with the usual two contrasting themes, he telescopes the recapitulation into almost nothing. After the return of the opening flourishes, the orchestra ushers in a meditative passage for the soloist, leading to the beautiful first theme of the Adagio. Again, although this lovely movement—the heart of the concerto—is essentially in sonata form, with three themes, its recapitulation is drastically foreshortened. The Finale (Allegro energico) is introduced by the orchestra and the solo violin takes off on a Hungarian-tinged theme, no doubt a tribute to Joachim, with characterful double-stops. It is most unusual to have all three movements of a concerto in sonata form but, as noted, Bruch treats this form in an original and arresting way. The second theme of the Finale is broader, allowing the soloist points of expansion, and the closing Presto wind-up, combining both themes, is extremely exciting. The G minor concerto was always Bruch’s most popular work, eclipsing his other music even in his lifetime, greatly to his irritation. Its length made it easy to programme, while its strong melodic profile helped audiences to take it in at first hearing. Its hold on the repertoire was strengthened in the 1950s, when it turned out to be the ideal length for an LP record side and many companies coupled it with Mendelssohn’s E minor concerto. Having sold it outright to the publisher August Cranz for 250 thalers, Bruch reaped no benefit from its popularity—it would have provided him with a pension in his last years, when he lived in penury. The final insult was being cheated out of the manuscript, six months before his death, by the American sisters Rose and Ottilie Sutro, for whom he had written his concerto for two pianos. Bruch expended much time and energy unsuccessfully on trying to repeat the sucess of the G minor violin concerto. In 1874, by now based in Bonn, he started what he thought would be a second concerto but progressed no further than the opening movement, which he allowed to stand on its own as the Romance in A minor, Op 42. The genre of the romance for violin and orchestra was a popular form in the nineteenth century, usually composed in ternary song form, and Bruch later wrote one for viola. The Romance for violin, however, has no contrasting central section; indeed it is rather uneventful, although very beautiful. Bruch told Wilhelm Altmann that his inspiration was Gudrun’s Lament by the Sea from the Nordic sagas. After an atmospheric opening featuring woodwinds and solo horn, the soloist is asked to play ‘with simple expression’; a second theme in F major, featuring double-stops, does not greatly change the mood and both themes are repeated, the first now featuring octaves for the soloist and the second in A major, before the piece comes to a gentle conclusion. Once again Bruch sought help from Joachim but he was also assisted by the Cologne concertmaster and quartet leader Robert Heckmann, to whom he dedicated the Romance—thus ensuring that Joachim would never play it. Heckmann made up for Joachim’s neglect by performing it a number of times; and Königslöw, to whom Bruch sent an inscribed copy, also played it. From the age of twelve Bruch was a regular visitor to the country house known as the Igeler Hof, in the hills near Bergisch Gladbach. He knew both the families who owned it in his time, first the Brussels-based Neissen family and then, from 1888, the Zanders family. The composer was a welcome guest there and much of his music was written during summer sojourns, including the Serenade in A minor, Op 75, one of his largest works for violin and orchestra, which came into being in August 1899. Once again Bruch thought he was writing a concerto but he finally settled on the alternative title. By this time the main proponent of his violin music was Sarasate and he wrote to his publisher Simrock that the piece was composed ‘at Sarasate’s insistence’ and ‘entirely for him’, although as usual he depended on Joachim for technical advice. It was also Joachim who gave the first performance, at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik on 19 December. The opening Andante con moto is in a loose sonata form: the soloist enters almost at once, with a lyrical theme derived from Nordic folk music; the orchestra introduces the second theme, slightly faster, and the solo violin shares it before taking off with a third theme. The slower and faster motifs go along hand in hand—there is no dramatic development. The Allegro moderato, subtitled ‘alla marcia’, is a sort of scherzo-rondo in march rhythm: the soloist spins attractive melodies, echoed by the orchestra, with lyrical writing for the woodwinds. One episode features double-stops but it is all very relaxed and gemütlich. The Notturno, based on a lovely melody with a tinge of folk music, creates a dreamlike atmosphere as the solo violin decorates it and elaborates on it. Only in the substantial finale do we meet music tailored to Sarasate’s light, quicksilver technique. It starts with a chiming figure before the soloist sets off on a vigorous dance, definitely Mediterranean in character although it could as easily be Italian as Spanish. This attractive work ends unusually with a quiet return to the main theme—and the mood—of its opening. Tully Potter © 2016

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Bruch: Violin Concerto No. 1 & Other Works (Hyperion Romantic Violin Concerto 19)

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