This is the first time that Adolf Busch's complete surviving acoustic
recordings with Bruno Seidler-Winkler, made between 1921 and 1922, have been
reissued in one set. To add to this bounty Guild Historical adds the 1922
recordings of the Busch Quartet, and Adolf Busch's Bach recordings of
1928-29. This ensures that 'The Berlin Records' spanning almost the whole of
the 1920s is presented complete. As a further inducement there are three
surviving test pressings: an alternative pressing to the issued 1922 Dvorák
Slavonic Dance, Op.46 No.8 and the two single movements from Bach's Partita
in D minor recorded in April 1928 (Sarabande) and June 1929 (Gigue). The
work was eventually recorded successfully in November 1929 and is the last
item in this comprehensive twofer.
Over the years there seemed to be a dichotomous critical reaction to
Busch. Many European critics venerated him, whilst Americans - used to the
high brilliance of the Russian school in their midst - remained sniffy about
his later technical problems. The more the moral question was raised - Busch
was an implacable foe of National Socialism and left as soon as Hitler came
to power - the more some critics countered it with advancement of his
Quartet at the expense of Busch as a solo artist. Things seem to have
steadied now, though there is still something of a San Andreas Fault
regarding his solo performances. I'm not sure that this release, even when
it shows Busch at his most adventurous and unbridled - as he was not in the
1930s and certainly early 1940s when illness had him in its grip - will
necessarily change that perception but I do think that if you know only the
later recordings these early ones will give you a jolt.
That's primarily for their fire and metrical freedom. That's especially
true of the Kreisler confection that he generously foisted on Pugnani, the
one Kreisler famously didn't record. It shows Busch as something of a
firebrand, foreshadowing aspects of tempo relations that marked out his
eponymous quartet; fast movements taken very fast, slow movements very slow.
That element might work over the course of a performance of a string quartet
but it doesn't work in a piece like this which, in Busch's hands, is
metrically over-free and ends with a really excessive piece of emoting. The
only advantage it has over Albert Sammons' slightly earlier and abridged
Columbia recording is that DG's five-minute side-takes in the whole work.
Otherwise, Sammons shows Busch the heel with a performance that is fiery,
virtuosic, tonally expressive and rhythmically on the money.
These conflicting feelings recur throughout the small pieces that line the
first CD. Busch's flexibility is often exciting but sometimes cavalier. He
employs far more portamenti than many will expect. I've never bought the
idea of Busch as the great Brahms Champion - not at a time when Kreisler and
Huberman were still at their zenith - and it's far better to cut the
superlatives and note that he was
one of the composer's most
resilient and consistent champions. The Hungarian Dances that he recorded
are certainly played with fiery intensity, though some of the slides in the
D minor are over-calculated. He was a devoted exponent of Dvorák, though I
find him an inconsistent one, especially of the Concerto. He essays the
Slavonic Dances and other pieces in these acoustic recordings sleekly and
with vigour, though I sometimes find the essential Czech accent missing. The
Romantic Piece is mislabelled No.4 (it's No.1) and is full of
wrenching slides and some unsubtly perfumed phrasing. Some of the most
interesting issues surround those single-movement pieces of baroquerie he
was reluctant to record - Corelli, Tartini - and the early 1922 Bach sides.
The former are played with romanticist conviction, and in the case of the
Tartini
Adagio, in the then-famous Corti arrangement, with
extrovert intensity. The Bach single-movements from the E major Partita,
however, are far more reserved, far more stylistically self-aware and
forward-thinking.
Like many quartet performances of the time the Busch was quite limited in
terms of what it could record. Thus there were two inner movements from
Mozart's K575 - slightly sugary, Busch was not the ideal Mozart performer -
the
Prestissimo from Verdi, the scherzo from Schubert's G major,
D887 and the Hofstetter in F major, for so long attributed to Haydn, which
was at least recorded complete. These sides allow us to hear the early
formation of the group on disc - Adolf Busch and Gösta Andreasson (violins),
Paul Doktor (viola) and Paul Grümmer (cello). Busch and his son-in-law
Rudolf Serkin join forces in their 1929 recording of Bach's Sonata in G
major, and we end with a magisterial performance of the Partita in D minor,
culminating in the
Chaconne. This, more than anything, points the
direction Busch's musical imperatives were to take over the next decade and
a half. The extrovert cavalier was replaced by the more sober performer.
A number of these recordings appeared on Symposium 1109 back in 1992.
Tully Potter's extensive notes for that release have been cut down to an
authoritative four-page essay for this Guild CD, though the gist remains.
Symposium's transfers employed minimal filtering, thus ensuring that the
recordings had plenty of surface crackle but quite a lot of air. By
contrast, these new ones by Peter Reynolds have very little surface noise
and are very much more filtered. To me it is too much, and a compromise
between the two would be my ideal solution, though I appreciate that this
might not happen very soon, given the exhaustive nature of this
collection.
Quibbles aside, this is an important acquisition for the violin-fancier
and can be commended for its comprehensiveness and, not least, its
generosity in presenting alternative takes.
Jonathan Woolf
Full track-listing
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) (arr. Joachim)
Hungarian Dance No. 2 in D minor [2:50]
Hungarian Dance No. 20 in D minor [2:02]
Arcangelo Corelli (arr. Busch) (1653-1713)
Sonata in G minor, Op. 5, No. 5: Adagio [3:09]
Antonín Dvorák (1841-1904) (arr. Press)
Slavonic Dance in A flat major, Op. 46, No. 3, b78 [4:06]
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Partita in E major, bwv1006, for solo violin: Preludio [3:16]
Partita in E major, bwv1006, for solo violin: Gavotte en Rondeau
[2:44]
Giuseppe Tartini (1692-1770) (arr. Corti)
Sonata in G major, Op. 2, No. 12: Adagio [3:05]
Antonín Dvorák (1841-1904) (arr. Press)
Romantic Piece, Op. 75, No. 1, b150: Larghetto [3:01]
François Joseph Gossec (1734-1829) (arr. Burmester)
Gavotte from 'Rosine' [1:58]
Fritz Kreisler (1875-1962)
Dittersdorf' Scherzo [2:35]
Robert Schumann (1810-1856) (arr. Hüllweck)
Kinderszenen, Op. 15: Träumerei [3:22]
Nicola Porpora (1686-1768) (arr. Corti)
Aria in E major [3:00]
Antonín Dvorák (1841-1904) (arr. Press)
Slavonic Dance in G minor, Op. 46, No. 8, b78 [3:24]
Slavonic Dance in G minor, Op. 46, No. 8, b78 [3:25]
Fritz Kreisler (1875-1962)
'Tartini' Variations on a Theme of Corelli [2:59]
Antonín Dvorák (1841-1904) (arr. Wilhelmj)
Humoresque in G flat major, Op. 101, No. 7, b187 [3:08]
Fritz Kreisler (1875-1962)
'Pugnani' Praeludium and Allegro [4:59]
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) (arr. Joachim)
Hungarian Dance No. 5 in G minor [2:16]
Roman Hofstetter (1742-1815)
'Haydn' String Quartet in F major, Op. 3, No. 5 - I. Presto [2:53]: II.
Andante cantabile [4:02] III. Menuett [3:19] IV. Scherzando [2:50]
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
String Quartet in D major, K575: Andante [4:58]: Menuetto [4:10]
Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901)
String Quartet in E minor: Prestissimo [2:32]
Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
String Quartet in G major, D887: Scherzo: Allegro vivace [4:29]
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Partita in D minor, BVW 1004, for solo violin: Sarabanda [3:37]
Partita in D minor, BVW 1004, for solo violin: Giga [1:57]
Sonata in G major, BWV1021 (arr. Busch, Blume) [8:02]
Partita in D minor, BWV1004, for solo violin [22:06]
