Adolf Busch
Adolf Georg Wilhelm Busch (8 August 1891 – 9 June 1952) was a German-Swiss
Life and career
Busch was born in Siegen in Westphalia. He studied at the Cologne Conservatory with Willy Hess and Bram Eldering. His composition teacher was Fritz Steinbach but he also learned much from his future father-in-law Hugo Grüters in Bonn.
In 1912, Busch founded the
The additional member of the circle was Rudolf Serkin, who became Busch's duo partner at 18 and eventually married Busch's daughter, Irene, 1935 in Basel. The Busch Quartet and Serkin became the nucleus of the Busch Chamber Players, founded in Basel, a forerunner of modern chamber orchestras.[2]
In 1927, with the rise of Adolf Hitler, Busch decided he could not in good conscience stay in Germany, so he emigrated to
The Busch Quartet was particularly admired for its interpretations of Brahms, Schubert, and above all Beethoven. It made a series of recordings in the 1930s that included many of these composers' works for string quartet. In 1941, it set down three Beethoven quartets that it had not previously recorded, including Opus 130. The Busch Quartet never recorded the Grosse Fuge, Opus 133; an arrangement was recorded by the Busch Chamber Players, with Busch leading from the first violin desk.
Busch was a great soloist, as well as a chamber musician, and live recordings exist of him playing the Beethoven, Brahms, Dvorák and Busoni Concertos, as well as the Brahms Double Concerto. In the studio he recorded concertos and chamber orchestra performances of Bach and Mozart, and of the Concerti grossi, op.6 by Handel; his recordings of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos brought them to prominence[4] after many years of relative obscurity. He had a highly individual tone and great technique. Among his students were Stefi Geyer, Erica Morini and Yehudi Menuhin.
As a composer, Busch was influenced by Max Reger. He was among the first to compose a Concerto for Orchestra, in 1929. A number of his compositions have been recorded, including the Violin Concerto (A minor, opus 20, published 1922),[5] String Sextet (G major, opus 40), Quintet for Saxophone and String Quartet, Violin Sonata No 2, Op. 56,[6] Clarinet Sonata,[7] and several large scale works for organ. Regarding the last, Busch once remarked that if he could come back after his death he would like to return as an organist.
He was the son of the luthier Wilhelm Busch; brother of the conductor Fritz Busch, the cellist Hermann Busch, the pianist Heinrich Busch and the actor Willi Busch, father in law of the pianist Rudolf Serkin and maternal grandfather of the pianist Peter Serkin and the cellist Judith Serkin. An exhaustive two-volume biography of Busch by Tully Potter was published in 2010 by Toccata Press [8] In November 2015, Warner Classics released a 16-CD collection of Busch's recordings of Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, and other composers.[9]
References
- ^ a b Dominik Sackmann: Busch, Adolf in German, French and Italian in the online Historical Dictionary of Switzerland, 2005-02-16.
- ^ Rehm, Wolfgang (1957). "Busch,Adolf Georg Wilhelm". Neue Deutsche Biographie (in German). 3: 58. Retrieved 2016-03-19.
- ^ "Kein falscher Ton" [No wrong note]. Siegener Zeitung. 24 December 2011. p. 20.
«mit Freuden an dem Tag zurückkehren» werde, da «Hitler, Goebbels und Göring öffentlich gehängt» würden.
[permanent dead link] - ^ "Classical Notes – Classical Classics – Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, By Peter Gutmann". classicalnotes.net. Archived from the original on 4 September 2013. Retrieved 2 September 2015.
- ^ "Hofmeisters Monatsberichte" (in German). 1922. p. 187. Retrieved March 22, 2011.
- Coolidge Auditorium, Library of Congress with Rudolf Serkin. Pristine Audio PACM114 (2022)
- ^ 'Adolf Busch: the Composer', Pristine Audio PACM115 (2022), reviewed at MusicWeb International
- ^ "Recently published titles from Toccata Press". toccatapress.com. Archived from the original on 4 March 2012. Retrieved 2 September 2015.
- ^ "Warner Classics: Busch, Adolf: The Complete Warner Recordings". 13 November 2015. Retrieved 21 November 2015.
External links
- Works by or about Adolf Busch at Internet Archive
- www.angel.org/busch/background.htm[permanent dead link]
- Adolf Busch Discography (pdf)
- Performances of orchestral music by Adolf Busch performed by the Busch Kollegium Karlsruhe)
- Free scores by Adolf Busch at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)