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It’s good to welcome this fine book
back to currency especially brought
up to date and at a very competitive
price.
Make allowances, please: I had not read
the first edition of this book. My impressions
are from someone coming to the volume
for the first time.
Mr Fifield points out
that until his book came out from Gollancz
in its first edition in 1988 there had
been no single volume on Bruch - not
even in German. I wonder if this book
has now been translated into German.
It certainly merits that attention.
In any event Bruch
deserves a full-scale study and this
is what he and his music gets. Strange
how he could have been neglected in
print for so long. Especially when one
considers the fame of the Violin
Concerto (the one in G minor - the first
of three) for long a partner on disc
typically in harness to the Mendelssohn
or Tchaikovsky.
Bruch was long-lived,
dying at the ago of 82 in 1920. He wrote
well into old age rather like Vaughan
Williams who briefly was a pupil of
Bruch's. The Serenade on Swedish
Melodies dates from 1916, the unpublished
String Octet from the year of his death
and the String Quintet from 1919.
Bruch's pupils, for
he was a formidable and sought-after
composition teacher, included Ottorino
Respighi, Oskar Strauss and Vaughan
Williams (whose works bear the imprint
of his other non-British teacher Ravel
but not noticeably of Bruch).
Bruch shared with RVW
an obsession with folksong and there
are many examples of its influence in
his oeuvre although to completely different
effect from that of the English composer.
Mr Fifield's triumphant
success, for this is exactly what the
book is, can be discerned not only in
its monumental detail but in the humanising
of a man who from the illustrations
cuts a forbidding Old Testament figure
- bald and bearded. Strange perhaps
how those eyes seem kindlier in old
age than when young. Years that bring
the philosophic mind?
That kindly glint is
also completely consistent with his
reported observations in 1907 on his
own reputation as against that of Brahms.
Bruch said that Brahms was a far greater
composer and that essentially he took
more risks. He referred to the economic
necessity of earning a living which
prompted him to write comfortably within
mainstream expectation. He said that
he always composed good music but music
that sold readily. He then praises Brahms
to the skies for his originality.
Mr Fifield's achievement
is all the more notable because Bruch's
memoirs, part dictated in old age, reveal
nothing of his emotional life. His letters
and articles however sometimes open
the door to this dimension. The most
revealing document is that quoted in
Chapter Seven which speaks of Bruch's
devotion to Bergisch Gladbach and the
Igeler Hof. This was Bruch's ‘land of
lost content’ and the years 1850-1859
seem to have been his idyllic domain
as much as Fournier's in Le Grand
Meaulnes. In 1920, his last year,
he wrote an article almost ecstatic
in its yearning for the Igeler Hof -
it is searingly poignant; much more
than the smoke of nostalgia.
As for his musical
idiom it stood firmly and unwaveringly
struck deep into the gravid soil of
Mendelssohn and Schumann. His later
works clung to that mulch. For him there
was no modernising imperative. Not for
him was the later example of Frank Bridge
who absorbed dissonance into his post-1918
works. Like George Lloyd, like Bax and
many another composer - in fact most
- once he had found an idiom he would
not loose his grip on it ... or perhaps
its grip on him would not loosen.
The chapter layout and titles are a
model of clarity and I'll list them
here because they also give an overview
of Bruch's life:-
Origins
Childhood and Youth 1838-58
Years of Study 1858-609
Mannheim 1861-3
Folksong and Frithjof 1864
Coblenz 1865-8
Sonderhausen 1867-70
Freelance composer Berlin 1870-73
Freelance composer Bonn 1873-78
Return to Berlin 1878-80
Liverpool 1880-83
Breslau 1883-90
Berlin I 1891-7
Berlin II 1898-1911
The Final Years 1911-20
Postlude
Perhaps a few words
on his British and specifically Liverpool
sojourn. Bruch first went there in 1877
to conduct his Odysseus (a work
of which he had the highest opinion).
In 1879 he was there for a concert of
his Das Lied Von der Glocke.
His English was not perfect but good
enough having been honed in train journeys
with his father between Köln and
Bergisch Gladbach. His accent however
was a problem. During his three years
in the city he conducted 35 concerts
and all were well received. Both works
mentioned above were repeated. Also
he gave many of his other works. Other
composers’ works included Verdi’s Requiem,
Mendelssohn's Elijah, Sullivan's Martyr
of Antioch, Gounod's Redemption, Saint-Saëns
second piano concerto with the composer
at the piano and Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante
K364. Native talent also got a look-in
and works by Cowen, Stanford, Heap Benedict
and Sullivan all made appearances. He
left Liverpool for an appointment in
Breslau .
As far as I can see
the first 351 pages are a straight reprint
of the 1988 first edition. The revisions
and corrections come on pages 353 to
399. This new material consists of an
Afterword to the New Edition and a chapter
on Bruch at Sondershausen drawn from
newly conducted research in that town.
There's a long and fascinating list
of Bruch's concerts and repertoire at
Sondershausen. Mr Fifield includes six
more book and article entries in an
anhang to his original Bruch
bibliography. There's also a listing
of new editions of Bruch's works as
well as a select discography. To that
we can now add CPO's recording (777
130-2) just released (July 2005) of
the choral-orchestral Schiller setting
Das Lied von der Glocke.
The index on pp. 343-351
has not been updated to key into entries
on pages 353-399; not that this is a
major problem but it's clearly not ideal.
On the other hand it's little short
of miraculous that you can get this
book (albeit paperback) for just short
of £20.00.
The index is in several
sections: Works by Bruch, works by others
and names .
Speaking of the index
you should note that it does not take
you to entries in the new section -
i.e. the last 25 pages.
The Afterword is a
must-read for any Bruch enthusiast.
It is fascinating to see how the rarer
works have fared since 1988 with 15
performances of Moses, 5 of Odysseus
and 13 of Das Lied von der Glocke.
The Finnish composer
Ernst Mielck was just a name if that
for most of us in 1988. Now his symphony
has been recorded twice - once by Sterling
and once by Ondine.
Typos are in short
supply but here are the ones I picked
up:-
p. 391 Lorzting
should be Lortzing
p. 389 (and elsewhere)
shouldn't Benedix be Bendix.
On p.355 Mr Fifield
deals with a number of detailed corrections
of the original text.
Not wanting to criticise
the book for failing to be something
it never set out to be .... there are
two omissions. Mr Fifield must be amongst
the best informed of scholars when it
comes to the Bruch performing tradition.
With this in mind a listeners' guide
leading us to the best recordings of
each work and warning us off the ‘shipwrecks’
would have been extremely helpful. I
wonder if he can be persuaded to write
such an article.
The second omission
relates to the unrecorded works. I would
have valued Mr Fifield's observations
on those works so far unrecorded (or
having CDs in very limited circulation)
that merit a session in the recording
studio.
The book is easy to
read using a comparatively large serif
typeface.
Sources and notes are
listed neither at the foot of the text
page nor at the end of chapter. They
appear grouped altogether chapter by
chapter on pages 331-337. This is by
far the best solution and the least
disruptive to a cover-to-cover read.
This is the
work on Bruch but its merit lies
not only in being the only book
but in the detail, pacing and presentation
of Bruch's life. The humanising communicative
faculty that Mr Fifield brings to bear
lifts the book from mere gap-filling
as does its evident determination to
lift Bruch from the slough of one-work
composers. In all these ways the book
and its author bears the laurels of
victory.
Rob Barnett
