Thanks to the premiere performance by Joseph Joachim and to the release of the printed edition in 1868, Max Bruch’s Violin Concerto no. 1 zipped onto the road to success and has never left it since. Yet from the preface of the Breitkopf Urtext edition, one can infer how things looked like behind the dazzling facade. After the world premiere, the composer struggled for the definitive form. He wrote 3, 4 development sections in the finale, and sought the advice of celebrated virtuosi such as Joseph Joachim and Ferdinand David to revise the solo part. And after all this was done (see above), Bruch suffered under the work’s popularity: Have I written nothing but this one concerto?

The new Urtext edition is based primarily on the first edition. Next to the main source and the autograph, what is supremely interesting is a solo part with entries by Joachim and Bruch. It confirms how intensively the two men collaborated on honing the final form of the work.