1月6日《G小调第一小提琴协奏曲》——马克斯.布鲁赫

1月6日
G小调第一小提琴协奏曲，作品 26
第一乐章：适度的快板
马克斯 • 布鲁赫 （1838—1920）
马克斯•布鲁赫是浪漫主义时期的一位旷世奇才，年仅十四岁时就完成了他的第一部交响曲，随后又相继创作了二百多部音乐作品。然而在古典音乐正典中，他更像是昙花一现的奇迹：在他所有的作品里，只有这首浑厚且摄人心魄的小提琴协奏曲脱颖而出，而布鲁赫也恰恰是因为这部作品而被人们所熟知。
布鲁赫在二十六岁时开始着手创作这首协奏曲，他对这部作品出奇地没有安全感。他花了十八个月的时间完成初稿，之后又在他的挚友、 天才小提琴演奏家约瑟夫 • 约阿希姆的建议下一遍遍地修改。尽管如此，它还是一夜间风靡乐坛。
讽刺的是，这部协奏曲的巨大成功一时间使他的其他作品黯然失色，让布鲁赫陷人了绝望。（不过老实说，这沮丧很可能因为他将所有版权卖给了出版商而加剧，这意味着之后他再没从这部作品里赚到过一分钱。）布鲁赫的儿子回忆道，当父亲再一次收到演出这部作品的邀请时，曾大喊：“又是G小调协奏曲！我受不了要再听一遍，一遍也不行！我的朋友们，演一次第二协奏曲吧，或者 《苏格兰幻想曲》也好！”
那两部作品也非常棒，但这首小提琴协奏曲已然成了布鲁赫的招牌曲目。听众与演奏家都喜爱这部作品，它一直经久不衰，并没有因为过度演出而丧失夺目的光彩。

6 January
Violin Concerto no. 1 in G minor, op. 26
1: Allegro moderato by Max Bruch (1838-1920)
Max Bruch was an immensely gifted composer from the Romantic era who wrote his first symphony at the age of fourteen and went on to produce more than two hundred pieces of music.
And yet, in the classical canon, he's become something of a one-hit wonder: of all of those works it's this seductively sonorous violin concerto that really stands out, and for which he's most celebrated.
Bruch was surprisingly insecure about the piece, which he started at the age of twenty-six. It took him over eighteen months to write and he revised it repeatedly on the advice of his great friend, the virtuoso violinist Joseph Joachim. Yet it was an immediate hit. Ironically, its huge popularity, which even at the time overshadowed everything else he wrote, plunged Bruch into despair. (Although to be fair, his frustration may well have been exacerbated by his having sold all the rights to a publisher, meaning he never made another penny from it.) Bruch's son recalls how, upon receiving yet another invitation to have it performed, the composer exclaimed: 'The G minor Concerto again! I couldn't bear to hear it even once more! My friends, play the Second Concerto, or the Scottish Fantasia for once!'
Those pieces are pretty great too, but it's this violin concerto that is iconic. Beloved of audiences and performers alike, it's a piece that endures across the generations and somehow does not tarnish with use.