[1] He received his early musical training under the composer and pianist Ferdinand Hiller, to whom Robert Schumann dedicated his Piano Concerto in A minor.

The Bohemian composer and piano virtuoso Ignaz Moscheles recognized the aptitude of Bruch.

He wrote many minor early works including motets, psalm settings, piano pieces, violin sonatas, a string quartet, and even orchestral works such as the prelude to a planned opera, Joan of Arc.

The farm belonged to an attorney and notary named Neissen, who lived there with his unmarried sister.

After briefly studying philosophy and art in Bonn (1859), Bruch had a long career as a teacher, conductor, and composer, moving among musical posts in Germany: Mannheim (1862–1864), Koblenz (1865–1867), Sondershausen (1867–1870), Berlin (1870–1872), and Bonn, where he spent 1873–78 working privately.

See: List of music students by teacher: A to B#Max Bruch.Bruch married Clara Tuczek, born in 1854, a singer whom he had met on tour in Berlin, on 3 January 1881.

Their first son, Max Felix Bruch, was born on 31 May 1884 in Breslau and showed great aptitude for music at an early age.

In his time, he was known primarily as a choral composer and often, to his chagrin, was overshadowed by his friend Brahms, who was more popular and widely regarded.

The two other works of Bruch that still are widely played, also were written for solo string instrument with orchestra: the Scottish Fantasy for violin and orchestra, which includes an arrangement of the tune "Hey Tuttie Tatie", best known for its use in the song "Scots Wha Hae" by Robert Burns; and the Kol Nidrei, Op.

47, for cello and orchestra (subtitled "Adagio on Hebrew Melodies for Violoncello and Orchestra"), which begins and ends with the solo cello's setting of the Kol Nidre ("All Vows ... ") incantation that opens the Jewish (Ashkenazic) Yom Kippur service.

This work may well have inspired Ernest Bloch's Schelomo (subtitled "Hebrew Rhapsody") of 1916, an even more passionate and extended one-movement composition, also with a Jewish subject and also for solo cello and orchestra.

Although written for amateurs, it is a fair composition and was completed only after Bruch, having left Liverpool, was gently persuaded to finish the last movement.

Sir Donald Tovey wrote "I find myself entirely in agreement with the writer of the article in Grove's Dictionary who says that Bruch's greatest mastery lies in the treatment of chorus and orchestra.

All three of these late chamber works exhibit a 'concertante' style in which the first violin part is predominant and contains much of the musical interest.

The American Sutro sisters piano duo, Rose and Ottilie Sutro, however, had asked Bruch for a concerto specifically for them, which he produced by arranging this suite into a double piano concerto, but only to be played within the Americas and not beyond.