Max Bruch was born in 1838 in Cologne to Wilhelmine (née Almenräder), a singer, and August Carl Friedrich Bruch, a lawyer who became vice president of the Cologne police. Max had a sister, Mathilde (“Till”). 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.

The first music theory lesson he had was in 1849 in Bonn; it was given by Professor Heinrich Carl Breidenstein, a friend of his father’s. At this time, Bruch was staying at an estate in Bergisch Gladbach, where he wrote much of his music. The farm belonged to a lawyer and notary named Neissen, who lived in it with his unmarried sister. The estate was later bought by the Zanders family, who owned a large paper mill. The young Bruch was taught French and English conversation by his father. In later years, Maria Zanders [de] became a friend and patron to Bruch.

Bruch married Clara Tuczek, a singer whom he had met on tour, in Berlin on 3 January 1881. The couple returned to Liverpool and took lodgings in Sefton Park. Their daughter, Margaretha, was born in Liverpool in 1882.

To this triple output he added three orchestral suites in later life, of which the third has a remarkable history. The origin can be found in Capri, where Bruch had witnessed a procession in which a tuba played a tune that “could very well be the basis of a funeral march”, and would be the basis of this suite, finished in 1909. 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. The Concerto in A-flat minor for Two Pianos and Orchestra, Op. 88a, was finished in 1912 for the Sutros, but was never played in the original version. They performed the work only twice, in two different versions of their own. The score was withdrawn in 1917 and rediscovered only after Ottilie Sutro’s death in 1970. The sisters also played a major part in the fate of the manuscript of the Violin Concerto No. 1: Bruch had sent it to them to be sold in the United States, but they kept it and sold it for profit themselves.

He taught composition at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik from 1890 until his retirement in 1910. Notable students included the German pianist, composer, and writer Clara Mathilda Faisst (1872–1948). See: List of music students by teacher: A to B#Max Bruch.

In 1918, toward the end of his life, Bruch once more considered smaller ensembles with the composition of two string quintets, of which one served as the basis for a string octet, written in 1920 for four violins, two violas, cello, and a double bass. This octet is somewhat at odds with the innovative style of the decade. While composers such as Schönberg and Stravinsky were part of the forward-looking modern trend, Bruch and others tried to keep composing within the Romantic tradition, effectively glorifying a form of Late Romanticism and avoiding the revolutionary spirit that was engulfing the then-defeated Germany. 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. By the time they came to be performed professionally for the first time, in the 1930s, Bruch’s reputation had deteriorated and he was known only for the famous Concerto.

Bruch died in his house in Berlin-Friedenau in 1920. He was buried, next to his wife (who had died on 26 August the previous year), at the Old St. Matthäus churchyard at Berlin-Schöneberg. Margaretha later had carved on the gravestone, “Music is the language of God”.