Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra (Bruch)

The Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra, Op. 88a, was written by Max Bruch in 1912. It is in 4 movements, written in the rarely seen key of A-flat minor, and takes about 25 minutes to perform.

It is sometimes referred to as Bruch's Double Concerto, although this could also refer to his Concerto for Clarinet, Viola, and Orchestra, Op. 88 (1911). There are claims that the two-piano concerto is based on the earlier concerto, but thematically these two works seem to have little or nothing in common, and this supposed relationship seems to be an erroneous assumption based purely on the works having similar opus numbers.

The movements are:

In 1911, Bruch had heard the American duo-pianist sisters Rose and Ottilie Sutro play his Fantasy in D minor for 2 pianos, Op. 11, and was so delighted that he agreed to write a double concerto for them.

Bruch did not write an entirely fresh piece, but reworked music he had been writing for his planned Suite No. 3 for Organ and Orchestra (also referred to as his Orchestral Suite No. 3). The Suite used some melodies that Bruch had heard on Good Friday 1904, while convalescing in Capri, and these melodies appear in the concerto.

Bruch gave the Sutro sisters the sole performing rights to the work. Without Bruch's permission, however, they rewrote the concerto themselves to suit their pianistic abilities, copyrighting their version and depositing it with the Library of Congress in 1916. They performed the premiere of this version with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski on 29 December 1916. In 1917 they played a further revised version of the work, with the number of movements reduced from four to three, with the New York Philharmonic under Josef Stránský. Bruch himself conducted a private rehearsal of the concerto with the Sutro sisters in Berlin, but gave permission for it to be played only in the United States (it is not clear from the source which version this was; apparently he knew that the Sutros had made revisions, but to what extent is not known).

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