Concert for violin and orchestra No. 1 (Bruch)

Bruch began working on his concert in the summer of 1864 in Mannheim , using the advice of the accompanist of the local orchestra Johann Nareth-Koning , and continued to work in 1865-1866. in Koblenz , where he headed the city Institute of Music. As a result, the composer took about one and a half years to write this composition. The concert premiered in Koblenz on April 24 of the same year, was soloed by Otto von Koenigslev , the author conducted the orchestra of the Institute of Music. After the premiere, Bruch, not satisfied with the result, turned to Joseph Joachim for advice and received from the outstanding violinist a long list of amendments and recommendations; subsequently, the composer twice visited Joachim in Hanover to work on the concert. In addition, Bruch consulted with another famous violinist, Ferdinand David , and with conductor Herman Levy . The updated edition was first performed by Joachim on January 5, 1868 in Bremen , conducted by Carl Martin Reintaler ; in the same year he was presented at the Lower Rhine Music Festival in Cologne . As a result, Bruch inscribed on the score of the concert a dedication to Joseph Joachim as a sign of respect ( German: Joseph Joachim in Verehrung zugeeignet ); Joachim crossed out the word “respect” with his hand and wrote the word “friendship” on top of it ^[1] .

1. Vorspiel - Allegro moderato
2. Adagio
3. Finale - Allegro energico

Bruch's work belongs to the most characteristic examples of the violin concerto of the Romantic era, from the very beginning pointing to the continuity of two famous predecessors - Beethoven and Mendelssohn concerts ^[2] . All three parts are in sonata form , which is not quite usual, but Bruch interprets it in a non-standard way.

The British premiere of the concert in 1868 was met with sharply negative criticism, which rated the work as uninteresting and pretentious ^[2] . This did not prevent the triumphal procession of the composition in different countries; in particular, Pablo Sarasate introduced him to the audience of Paris and Brussels , and in 1872 he performed the New York premiere with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Karl Bergman . In 1893, Bruch conducted a concert in London already as one of the outstanding composers of our time (he arrived in England at the invitation of the University of Cambridge Music Society with Arrigo Boyto , Camille Saint-Saens and P.I. Tchaikovsky ), performance (soloed by Ladislas Gorski ) was greeted with a standing ovation ^[3] . Josef Joachim noted in 1906 that Bruch’s concert belongs to the four most important German violin concerts, of which Beethoven’s most undisputed, Brahms ’s most serious, Mendelssohn’s most cordial, and Bruch’s concert is the most seductive ^[4] .

The concert is included in the standard repertoire of violinists and among the most popular works of classical music. So, in 2000, he took first place in the vote of listeners of the British radio station , not much ahead of the Second piano concert of Sergei Rachmaninov ^[5] .

The composer sold the rights to publish the concert in 1868 to publisher Alvin Krantz for 250 talers and subsequently bitterly regretted the lost profit, since he received nothing from further sales. Nevertheless, his whole manuscript was kept all his life, with which he parted only shortly before his death in 1920, hoping to gain at least some money in this way. American pianists of the Sutro sister took the concert with them to the United States, promising to sell the manuscript and send the composer money in dollars. Bruch died without waiting for this money, and his heirs after some time received a certain amount in German marks, which in reality cost almost nothing due to the galloping hyperinflation . Further attempts to find out from the Sutro sisters the fate of the notes did not lead to success. It was only in 1968 that it became clear that pianists sold them only in 1949 to the American collector Mary Flagler Carey, according to whose will the entire music collection, including Bruch's concert, passed into the possession of the Morgan Library in New York ^[6] .

• Violin Concerto No. 1 (Bruch): sheet music at International Music Score Library Project