In the latter part of the nineteenth century probably no composer has
done more for the development of the chorus, and especially of the
_Maennerchor_, 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 yearly
_stipendium_ of 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.
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