To live in the shadow of one’s own success is a peculiar and frustrating fate. For Max Bruch, the shadow cast by his First Violin Concerto in G minor was so vast and so complete that it often seemed to blot out the sun. He spent a lifetime trying to replicate its lightning-in-a-bottle success, composing a wealth of magnificent music that he felt the public, and particularly his publisher, unfairly neglected. His Violin Concerto No. 2 in D minor, Op. 44, is perhaps the greatest and most fascinating casualty of this phenomenon—a powerful, dramatic, and deeply original work written for a superstar, whose own vanity may have sealed its destiny.
Composed in 1877, a decade after the premiere of its famous sibling, the Second Concerto was not written for just any violinist. It was conceived for the great Spanish virtuoso Pablo de Sarasate, a man whose playing was the stuff of legend. Sarasate was the Paganini of his day, a dazzling showman known for his fiery temperament, flawless technique, and a tone so sweet and silvery it was said to charm the birds from the trees. Bruch, an ardent admirer, tailored every phrase of the new concerto to Sarasate’s extraordinary gifts.
The premiere, with Sarasate as soloist, was a resounding success. The work seemed poised to take its place alongside the first as a repertoire staple. And here we find one of music’s great, amusing ironies. While Sarasate championed the work for a time, he eventually, and rather unceremoniously, dropped it. The reason? It seems the concerto, for all its passion, was not quite the flashy vehicle he desired. The apocryphal story goes that Sarasate found the finale insufficiently brilliant for his taste, complaining to Bruch that it lacked the kind of pyrotechnical runway needed to bring the house down. It is a moment rich with irony: Bruch writes a concerto for one of history’s greatest showmen, only for the showman to deem it not quite showy enough! This lukewarm attitude from its intended champion undoubtedly contributed to the work's slide into relative obscurity.
What Sarasate failed to appreciate was the concerto’s profound and unconventional dramatic structure. It is a darker, more brooding, and more psychologically complex work than its predecessor. Bruch’s boldest stroke is to begin not with a fiery Allegro, but with a deeply felt Adagio ma non troppo. This immediately establishes a mood of somber, introspective passion. The violin enters like a dramatic protagonist, its voice full of pathos and yearning. The entire movement is a somber rhapsody, a dark-hued tone poem that places emotional depth far ahead of empty virtuosity.
A brief, bridge-like second movement, marked Recitativo, connects the drama. As the title suggests, the violin engages in a speech-like, declamatory monologue, leading the listener from the melancholy of the opening into the energy of the finale.
The final movement, Allegro molto, is the very music that Sarasate found wanting. Heard with fresh ears, his complaint seems baffling. It is a brilliant and driving finale, a whirlwind of motion with the spirited energy of a tarantella. The music is taut, rhythmic, and demanding, surging forward with relentless momentum to a powerful conclusion. While it may not have the swaggering, "gypsy" flair of the First Concerto's finale, it possesses a lean, muscular energy that is thrilling in its own right.
The Second Concerto may never eclipse its celebrity sibling, but it is in many ways a more mature and daring work. It is a concerto that trades immediate charm for something deeper and more turbulent. For those willing to step out of the G minor’s shadow, Bruch’s Second Concerto offers a profound and powerful musical drama, a masterpiece deserving of its own place in the light.
