Bruch and the Viola: The Double Concerto and the Romance
Posted by Paul Wood on 16th Jun 2026
In my last post, two weeks ago, we looked at the Violin Concerto in G minor, the work that made Bruch's name and then, to his considerable frustration, effectively became it. "Did I perhaps write just this one?!" he complained to his publisher. He had not. He had written symphonies, operas, chamber music, choral works, and a substantial catalogue of concertante pieces across a career that spanned six decades. This post is about two of the ones that get the least attention: the Double Concerto in E minor, Op. 88, and the Romance for viola, Op. 85, both written in 1911, when Bruch was seventy-three.
That both works are built around the viola is not a coincidence. The instrument suited him. Where the violin's brightness can turn showy, the viola's warmth rewards exactly the kind of sustained lyrical writing Bruch did best. By 1911 he had nothing left to prove to concert programmers or critics. He wrote for his son, for a distinguished French violist, and for the instrument he found most congenial. The results are two pieces that deserve far more performances than they get.
To put 1911 in context: Schoenberg had already written his atonal Three Piano Pieces; Stravinsky's Firebird had its premiere the previous year. Bruch wrote a lyrical, tonal double concerto for clarinet and viola anyway. You can read that as stubbornness, or you can read it as a composer who had long since stopped caring what was fashionable and was writing the music he wanted to write.
The Double Concerto in E minor, Op. 88
The choice of forces was personal as much as musical. The concerto was written for his son Max Felix Bruch, a clarinettist, and the violist Willy Hess, which explains something about the intimacy of the writing. Brahms's late clarinet works, the Quintet Op. 115 and the two Sonatas Op. 120, all from the 1890s, had given the instrument a new seriousness in chamber music circles, and that combination of clarinet with lower strings carried particular weight for composers of Bruch's generation. His pairing of clarinet and viola takes the logic further: both instruments occupy the middle of the pitch spectrum, both carry a warmth that can approach the vocal at their best, and neither has the outward brilliance that tends to dominate a concerto texture. The result feels less like a competition between soloists and more like a sustained dialogue.
The three movements, Andante con moto, Allegro moderato, and Allegro molto, move from lyrical intimacy through measured argument to an energetic finale. Throughout, the viola carries the main melodic weight while the clarinet provides colour, contrast, and the more animated passagework. The orchestral forces are substantial: full winds and brass including English horn, four horns, two trumpets, and timpani alongside strings, so this is properly orchestral writing, not a chamber work dressed up. Bruch balances the texture carefully to ensure neither soloist is swamped.
The work sat unpublished until 1942, more than two decades after Bruch's death in 1920, when Rudolf Eichmann Verlag in Berlin finally issued it. The Edition Peters score and parts, edited by Nicolai Pfeffer in 2008, are the current scholarly edition.
The violin and viola arrangement by Otto Lindemann (1879–1946) offers a practical alternative for ensembles without a clarinettist. Lindemann replaced the clarinet line with violin, leaving the string orchestra parts identical across both editions. Whether that substitution changes the character of the work is a matter of taste: the clarinet version has a particular warmth that a violin cannot quite replicate, but Bruch's musical argument survives intact either way.
The Romance for viola, Op. 85
The Romance was dedicated to Maurice Vieux (1884–1951), one of the most distinguished French violists of the period and principal viola at the Opéra de Paris, which tells you something about the level of playing Bruch had in mind. In a single movement with a somewhat lighter orchestral palette than the Double Concerto, flute, oboe, clarinets, bassoons, three horns, two trumpets, timpani, and strings, it asks for something more demanding than technical fireworks: a singing tone that can cut above an ensemble, consistent melodic shaping across long phrases, and real projection. There are some fast arpeggiated passages, but the main challenge is musical rather than mechanical. At around Grade 8 level, it suits a viola soloist who wants something with genuine emotional weight but without the scale of a three-movement work. A concentrated programme item that stands on its own terms.
The MyMusicScores editions
Both versions of the Double Concerto are available as viola and string orchestra editions, with identical string parts across the clarinet and violin arrangements. The choice between them depends entirely on who you have available; the preparation for the ensemble is the same either way.
The Romance for viola offers a self-contained programme item at a manageable length, well-suited to a concert where a single substantial piece is needed rather than a full concerto.
All editions are professionally engraved, available as instant PDF downloads, with no performance licence required and permission to record included.