Bruch Weithaas

During his lifetime Odysseus was one of Bruch’s most frequently performed and highly regarded works: the influential English critic J. A. Fuller-Maitland thought it his masterpiece, and Brahms admired it greatly. It was a very successful performance of Odysseus in Liverpool in 1877 that led three years later to Bruch’s appointment as Director of the Philharmonic Society there. It is an oratorio, not an opera (subtitled Scenes from the Odyssey), and one reason for its decline into obscurity may be that for such a subject it is often undramatic, in word-setting (sometimes rather square and inexpressive) and in its choice of episodes: Odysseus’s return to Ithaca, and the jubilation over his rout of the suitors are portrayed, but not Penelope’s recognition of him nor the fight itself. There is no narrator, and there are very few dramatic links between the 12 self-contained sections.

Max Bruch has never made things easy for fond listeners or performers of music; his contemporaries found him hard to handle, and so have later generations. The reason behind this has nothing to do with the superlative, worldwide renown of the first of his violin concertos, or with his musical language, which had already fallen out of fashion when he died exactly a hundred years ago. Instead, Bruch himself much too quickly and all too often lost his faith in his "musical progeny" because he did not have the patience to let them mature in peace and to secure a place in the broader public consciousness. This applies to the opera Die Loreley, which offers a rewarding listening experience, as well as to his three symphonies composed between 1868 and 1882 and originally intended as a series of works forming a trilogy.

For two consecutive years listeners to Classic FM have voted Max Bruch’s First Violin Concerto their favourite among 300 classical works. His melodies have instant appeal and it is good to see three comparative rarities on this disc. Bruch loved alto-register instruments such as the clarinet and viola, and he wrote these works in 1911 when giant leaps were taking place in the development of music, all of which he eschewed in favour of mid-19th-century Romanticism. While the clarinet rides orchestral accompaniment with no difficulty, the viola sits right in the middle and can be drowned (a hazard in performing the Double Concerto but avoided in the recording studio). The viola Romance is a gem, while the Eight Pieces are colourful and varied. All the performers do ample justice to this beautiful and unashamedly Romantic music.

The three works on this album were all written by Max Bruch at the end of his life, after World War I, when he was more than 80 years old. They were not published until after his death in 1920, and then they were forgotten due to Nazi bans on Bruch's music because of his supposed Jewish ancestry, wartime manuscript loss, and the self-serving actions of modernist gatekeepers. In the world they depict, the Great War might as well never have happened, but perhaps that is part of the point.

Kyung Wha Chung's career was launched with a series of LPs made for Decca in the early 1970s, revealing an artist of exceptional technique, insight and spontaneity. One of these contained this rich-sounding performance of the Bruch G minor Violin Concerto, recorded with Rudolf Kempe and the Royal Philharmonic in 1972. It is still one of the freshest and most vital readings of this piece around, as Chung seems to know exactly where to draw the line between precision and abandon, the playing always seeming felt rather than planned, perhaps the highest achievement for a virtuoso. The 1981 recording of the Mendelssohn is a sheer delight, with fast tempos giving the work an extra sparkle, something the soloist obviously relishes.

Before the great conductor Ferenc Fricsay died (tragically young at the age of 48 in 1963), he made dozens of brilliant mono and stereo recordings for Deutsche Grammophon. Many of his most significant recordings have been released on CD, though some have already drifted out-of-print (Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra, Mozart Syms 29, 39-41 and Beethoven Syms 3, 5 & 7) and others are only available as expensive imports. This past year there has even been a limited edition boxed set of his music released (in the "Original Masters" series – see my review).

Kyung Wha Chung's career was launched with a series of LPs made for Decca in the early 1970s, revealing an artist of exceptional technique, insight and spontaneity. One of these contained this rich-sounding performance of the Bruch G minor Violin Concerto, recorded with Rudolf Kempe and the Royal Philharmonic in 1972. It is still one of the freshest and most vital readings of this piece around, as Chung seems to know exactly where to draw the line between precision and abandon, the playing always seeming felt rather than planned, perhaps the highest achievement for a virtuoso. The 1981 recording of the Mendelssohn is a sheer delight, with fast tempos giving the work an extra sparkle, something the soloist obviously relishes.