Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Dedication
- Introduction
- Acknowledgements
- I The Busch Family
- II The Prodigy
- III The Cologne Conservatory
- IV The Young Virtuoso
- V The Vienna Years
- VI Berlin and Busoni
- VII The Darmstadt Days
- VIII Burgeoning in Basel
- IX The Break
- X Busch the Man
- XI The Chamber Players
- XII The Lucerne Festival
- Volume Two: 1939–52
- XIII The New World
- XIV Between Two Continents
- XV The Marlboro School of Music
- Appendices
- Envoi: Erik Chisholm talks about Adolf Busch
- Select Bibliography
- Index to Discography
- Index of Busch’s Compositions
- General Index
- Index to Adolf Busch’s Compositions on Record
- Index to Discography
3 - Busch as Interpreter: Comments on his Performances
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 May 2024
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Dedication
- Introduction
- Acknowledgements
- I The Busch Family
- II The Prodigy
- III The Cologne Conservatory
- IV The Young Virtuoso
- V The Vienna Years
- VI Berlin and Busoni
- VII The Darmstadt Days
- VIII Burgeoning in Basel
- IX The Break
- X Busch the Man
- XI The Chamber Players
- XII The Lucerne Festival
- Volume Two: 1939–52
- XIII The New World
- XIV Between Two Continents
- XV The Marlboro School of Music
- Appendices
- Envoi: Erik Chisholm talks about Adolf Busch
- Select Bibliography
- Index to Discography
- Index of Busch’s Compositions
- General Index
- Index to Adolf Busch’s Compositions on Record
- Index to Discography
Summary
The musicianship of Adolf Busch was founded on a wealth of knowledge virtually unrivalled among performers of his era. His limitations of repertoire, such as they were, could be put down to choice rather than ignorance; and in his chosen field his erudition ran deep. His brother Fritz constantly sought his counsel on bowings and even tempi: when Adolf advised on a tempo for part of the final quartet in Act 2 of Die Entführung aus dem Serail, which seemed wrong in the Breitkopf edition, the first printing (by Andre) bore him out. With Toscanini he argued about a Beethoven piano sonata, only to be proved right; and a dispute over a Mozart quartet ended with ‘Tosca’ expostulating: ‘Only Mozart can decide that’. Busch investigated the autograph, discovered he was correct and copied the relevant passage on to a postcard, sending it to the Maestro with the legend: ‘Mozart has decided’. Hedwig Busch recalled her husband routing a critic who had objected to a detail in a Busch-Serkin performance of a Mozart sonata: ‘Adolf had looked at the manuscript’. The musicologist Frederick Dorian wrote:
Anyone who heard and saw Adolf Busch play chamber music experienced an unforgettable event. He endowed performances of masterworks with striking interpretative empathy. Whether he played a sonata with Rudolf Serkin, a quartet with his own ensemble or a solo partita, the interpretations lived, before all, through an authenticity of style of which he was a faithful guardian. These memorable performances were guided by the principle of historic correctness. The notation of old scores, such as those of the Baroque and early Classicism, lacks instructions of a kind that is taken for granted in scores of later periods (for example, indications of the tempo). Furthermore, the graphic signs and symbols of notescript, in general, cannot express the intangibles of performance. Only the searching imagination of the intuitive interpreter can find the indispensable answers to the multiple problems that must be solved in the performance. Adolf Busch combined an incomparable performing practice, acquired since his early youth, with the accumulated knowledge of a profound scholar. His virtuosity as a violinist was controlled by a style-conscious, iron discipline.
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- Adolf BuschThe Life of an Honest Musician, pp. 949 - 996Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2024