We are becoming used to modern transfers which bring out the
hidden life of old recordings, both LPs and 78s, but this one
made by Andrew Rose in October, 2009 is without doubt the best
re-mastering that I have heard of any pre-war recording. I should
not have been surprised - my colleagues have been singing the
praises of these re-masterings for some time now. You wouldn’t
mistake it for something recorded recently, but you might well
be forgiven for thinking it a transfer of a mid-1950s master
tape. I am not normally a great fan of historical recordings
- they have to be special, like the Beecham
La Bohème -
but this is certainly a recording that I shall be keeping in
my collection.
The Busch Quartet’s Schubert has always been well regarded,
but this was the first time that I have been able to judge that
reputation for myself and I am as impressed by the performances
as by the brushing up of the recording. I had half-expected to
hear some pre-war quirks of playing; in the event, I was not
aware of anything of the sort.
String Quartet No.15, D887, is comparatively well known today
- less so in 1938, I imagine - and there are several good modern
recordings. The Busch Quartet version was already available on
a mid-price EMI CD, coupled with the
Death and the Maiden
Quartet, No.14, from 1936 - not listed by some dealers, so
it may be destined for deletion - and in the same coupling from
Urania. I haven’t heard either of those transfers, but
it is difficult to believe that they might excel or even equal
the Pristine Audio. Evan Dickerson wrote about the EMI in detail
and I urge you to read that
review,
since it contains a detailed analysis of D887 that sits so well
with my own that it would be senseless to repeat it.
I’m not quite sure how the engineers in 1938 fitted D887
on five 78s. Presumably the first movement at 13:26 and the second
at 11:33 each ran to three sides, though I can’t see how
the remaining movements, at 5:58 and 9:32 could then have been
fitted on the remaining four sides.
There must have been some temptation to adapt tempi to suit a
more convenient set of side-breaks, but artistic considerations
clearly triumphed over the technical. I was never conscious of
tempi increasing as the engineers desperately signalled the end
of a side. Some repeats are omitted, but that is not unusual
in live performance or on modern recordings where time restraints
are not relevant. In fact, I rather feel that this quartet benefits
from the omission of some repeats; it is rather a long work.
Naxos manage only the
Five German Dances, D90, as the
coupling for their performance by the Kodály Quartet (8.557125),
though I continue to recommend that performance as the best combination
of quality and price, along with the Philips Duo set of all the
late quartets with the Quartetto Italiano: 446 163-2 - one to
snap up if you want a good stereo set of Quartets 12-15: Philips
Duos seems to be on a deletions roll. I regard the Kodály
Quartet performance rather more highly than did Michael Cookson
- see
review -
I’m more inclined to agree with Terry Barfoot, who thought
it a triumphant performance - see
review.
That Naxos recording, downloaded from classisconline, has recently
been my version of choice - see my April, 2009,
Download
Roundup. Now I shall be hard put to choose between it and
the Busch Quartet. I haven’t yet tried the Belcea Quartet’s
recent recording of Quartets 14 and 15, with the String Quintet,
an EMI 2-CD bargain which Michael Cookson made
Recording of
the Month - see
review.
From past experience of the Belcea’s Schubert, I shouldn’t
be surprised to find myself placing that version, too, at or
near the top of the pile.
String Quartet No.8 is far less well known. The Busch version
is already available on a 4-CD EMI set coupling it with Mendelssohn
and Beethoven which was awarded a Rosette in the Penguin Guide.
The performance certainly earns my equivalent of that rosette
and I cannot imagine the Pristine Audio transfer being bettered
or even rivalled. I can’t remember having heard this quartet
more than once or twice and I had not tended to think of it as
one of Schubert’s best works in this form, but the Busch
Quartet left me wondering why. The central movements offer a
typically Schubertian contrast between the profundity of the
Andante
sostenuto and the sheer delight of the
Menuetto, a
contrast which is very effectively brought out in this performance.
Again, I don’t hear any evidence of tempi being forced
to accommodate the work on six 78 sides, though the engineers
probably held their breath over the 9:12 time for the second
movement, which is pushing the limit for two 78 sides somewhat.
By their own reckoning, Pristine Audio had good material to work
with here in some of HMV’s finest 78 rpm recordings. Their
website describes the techniques employed and the various stages
of the process, two of which are illustrated with recorded examples.
The crackle caused by HMV’s employment of hard shellac
was comparatively easy to deal with, though I remember that it
was the bane of those of us who, in the dying days of 78s, tried
to preserve our records by using Imhof fibre needles, which had
to be regularly re-sharpened. The harder the shellac, the more
frequent the sharpening, especially if the grooves had to cleared
of detritus in the case of a record that had been played with
steel needles.
Surface swish, the 78 equivalent of tape hiss, is harder to remove
when it falls within the frequencies which the engineers wish
to preserve. It is briefly apparent in the third movement of
Quartet No.8, if heard on phones, but it is never really troublesome.
The final stage of the re-mastering involves the application
of an ambient stereo effect - not the kind of frequency filtering
that Decca and others employed in the 1970s, though I never found
that quite as troublesome as many did - but something far more
subtle. EMI’s German partner Electrola used to employ a
subtle technique called
Breitklang, to add greater breadth
and depth to mono recordings without artificial spatial pinpointing
of voices or instruments. I seem to recall some Rudolf Kempe
opera recordings benefited from the technique and I imagine that
something similar has been employed here. The final result still
sounds a little dry, but that’s all there is to complain
about.
Pristine Audio offer no analysis of the music, though they give
details about the recording, including the matrix numbers and
which takes were chosen. The notes on Adolf Busch, from Wikipedia,
on the rear insert are printed in a very small font (Goudy?)
which is hard to read - a sans-serif font might have been more
legible at this size. Perhaps it all ties in with Pristine’s
campaign to persuade everybody to take the green route and download
their recordings. In addition to the CD, this recording is available
in mp3 form for €7 and in lossless flac for €9. Whichever
form you choose, I urge you to listen and to go for it. Look
at the Pristine Audio
website,
too; there are several other recordings there that I find very
tempting and I think you will, also.
Brian Wilson
The Busch String Quartet (Adolf
Busch (violin); Gösta Andreasson (violin);
Karl Doktor (viola); Hermann Busch (cello)) 
