Adolf practises the whole day long’, Hedwig reported to Otto and Hanna Grüters from Riehen in September 1949. Busch began the season with a Bach evening in Zurich on the 25th: the two solo Concertos and the Double Concerto with Straumann and a reduced Tonhalle Orchestra. Then on the 28th he flew into West Berlin for a performance of the Beethoven Concerto with the Philharmonic under its young Romanian chief conductor Sergiu Celibidache, at its temporary home, the Titania-Palast. The airlift was still going on – although the Russians and their former Allies were reaching agreement and the last relief plane would fly to the beleaguered city on 6 October – and it was a grim experience to make music in a city unwillingly divided against itself. Busch appeared unaffected at his press conference, of which Rudolf Bauer reported: ‘Broad-shouldered the 58-year-old sits at the table; during the conversation warm good humour shines out of the blue eyes in the massive Westphalian face’. But Bauer, who went to the performance on the 29th, noticed that Busch seemed stirred by ‘deep and painful emotions’ during the orchestral introduction of the Beethoven, after the welcome given him by the audience:

Another critic reported from Busch's recital with Klaus Billing at the same venue that the violinist was at his best in pieces where he was ‘free of all technical inhibitions’:6 Reger's Aria from Op. 103, the Sarabande of Bach's D minor Partita and an encore, the Gavotte en Rondeau from the E major Partita.

The name Busch, a common one in Germany, was borne by several notable men in the nineteenth century: the publicist Moritz, the industrialist Adolphus and the comic artist and poet Wilhelm, who worked for the Fliegende Blätter. But the first half of the twentieth century brought it a new association, with music, through a remarkable family that sprang from relatively humble origins in Westphalia.

The making of a great musician is a complex process and begins before he or she is even aware of music. From their parents the brothers Fritz and Adolf Busch, so close in age and affinity, inherited unerring senses of pitch and rhythm, a rare combination of gifts. From their mother Henriette, the Busch children acquired a simple German Protestant faith, emotional stability and optimism: their father Wilhelm contributed the introspective, temperamental, even stormy characteristics which led so many of them into the performing arts. Although this Wilhelm Busch was of peasant stock, with origins firmly rooted in Westphalia, he was an extraordinary character who soon outgrew his background and had something of the bohemian about him. He was born in the village of Erndtebrück in the Sauerland in 1861, the youngest of twelve children, but no one could ever agree on whether his birthday was 1 or 30 July – he happily celebrated both. His sons suspected a gipsy element in his ancestry, as his mother Marie Elise had jet-black hair and unusually brown skin for a German. He himself liked to say: ‘Our house in Erndtebrück was called the Spaniards’ House. We all originally came from Spain’. His dark eyes had the deep-set, burning look which was such a feature of his second son Adolf; his mind and body were nimble, well exercised by innumerable boyhood scrapes; and he soon developed a fierce self-reliant streak after the suicide of his father Heinrich, a Tagelöhner or day-labourer who managed a small farm. As a boy Wilhelm loved music and made himself willow pipes to play when he was the village cowherd. Deeply attached to wild birds, he developed the knack of catching them with his hands. In his teens he ran away to Hamburg to study the violin and soon became a wanderer, living by his wits and his fiddle-playing.

A musician like myself can speak most effectively about music and musicmaking to his students and friends. In discussing specific things in music itself, one feels a certain accomplishment, but it is not easy to address oneself to a more general public. Interviews and articles about music and musical education have a tendency to become negative, although that is utterly foreign to the speaker's intentions. It is very easy to take the good things for granted, and to speak almost exclusively of those conditions with which one is dissatisfied. For this reason I have always been reluctant to have statements published which might very easily misrepresent my true attitude.

There are limitless possibilities for musical development in America, and it must be exciting to every musician to observe the musical life of this land and to mark those elements in it which he feels will lead to the most good. With its unrivalled orchestras, its resources and good will there is every reason to believe that the best and truest in music will continue to thrive here. The past has shown that people always desire what is authentic in music as soon as they have been familiarized with it. America has inherited the great musical traditions of Europe as a part of her own active musical life. And we can see here developments parallel to those in the older countries.

Chamber Music Public Growing

To take a specific example, one in which I am deeply interested, there is a heartening growth in the interest of the public in chamber music. In a certain sense, the status of chamber music in a country is a measuring rod of its musical intelligence, for in chamber music we find the art in one of its purest forms. In former days my quartet used to tour throughout Germany and other countries, visiting scores of cities, large and small.

HEINRICH ANDERS, acknowledged by Busch as his first real violin teacher, was born Heinrich Schweinefleisch in Beuel on 24 April 1877 and studied at the Cologne Conservatory with Gustav Hollander, graduating in 1893. He led the Duisburg Symphony Orchestra and from 1902 was second concertmaster of the Cologne City Orchestra, becoming first concertmaster in 1910. He taught at the Conservatory until 1922 and led an eponymous quartet – with Max Topstedt, Jean Schmitz (later Focco Klimmerboom) and Paul Ludwig (later Karl Schafer) – which was well known in the Rhineland. Anders appeared as a soloist at the Gurzenich and directed many of the popular summer concerts there. On Good Friday, 19 April 1935, he was performing the solo in the Benedictus of the Missa solemnis, with Max Fiedler conducting, when he broke off playing and died onstage.

GÖSTA ANDREASSON, born in Gothenburg, Sweden, on 9 December 1894 as Gustav Adolf Andreasson, had his violin lessons seriously disrupted in his teens by a bout of tuberculosis which affected a hip, leaving him with a limp. He studied at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm (1913–18) with Julius Ruthstrom, a pupil of Burmester, Heermann, Moser and Joachim, played in Ruthstrom's quartet (1916–18) and won the silver medal. From 1913 to 1917 Andreasson attended Leopold Auer's summer courses in Dresden, St Petersburg and Oslo. He played at the Royal Opera, Stockholm (1917–18), and for the Gothenburg Orkesterforening (1918–19), before moving to Berlin in 1919 to study with Busch. Berlin changed the course of his life, as he met his future wife and found his métier for the next 25 years. First appearing with the Busch Quartet in autumn 1920, he at once proved the perfect ‘second fiddle’.

Now that the Nazi era and the Holocaust have passed into history, it is difficult to imagine a time when choices could still be made – when musicians, with their eyes on the approaching Brahms centenary in 1933, could keep their heads down and mutter, in effect: ‘I’m just a Musikant, I don't get involved in politics’. For Busch, Brahms loomed large without blotting out what was happening all around. Yet even he, who had so often warned about the onset of Nazism in Germany, could not know how close he was to the precipice over which his country, his profession and his own life would soon tumble. At the outset of the 1932–33 season, he stood at the pinnacle of his career. Virtually every work he composed was assured of performances and he featured in the catalogues of three leading publishers. Among German executant musicians, his distinction was rivalled only by Furtwängler, Walter and Backhaus. No Beethoven, Brahms or Reger festival was complete without him. ‘He was unquestionably the greatest German violinist’, Szymon Goldberg said, and Berthold Goldschmidt attested that: ‘Busch was always considered in Germany as a typical German musician and fiddler, the one and only interpreter of Beethoven and Brahms’. As the inheritor of Joachim's mantle, he had a bulging concert diary, in which the name Brahms appeared on virtually every page: apart from innumerable bookings at home and abroad for the Concerto – his edition, with cadenza, was being published by Breitkopf – he planned an exhaustive review of the chamber music.

For the Quartet and Serkin the season started in London, ushered in by Busch's first Promenade Concert engagements: the Brahms and Beethoven Concertos in Queen's Hall on 14 and 16 September respectively, with Sir Henry Wood and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. He confessed to friends that he was put off initially by the Promenaders milling about in the body of the hall, where the seats were removed for the Proms; and the composer Harold Truscott noted that he looked nervous in the opening tutti of the Brahms, transferring his violin from one hand to the other, placing it under one arm and finally playing along with the first violins – an old campaigner's stratagem for steadying nerves and checking tuning.

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:

Joseph Szigeti on Adolf Busch

A short time ago a woman violinist visited me, to play me the Bach G major Sonata from Adolf Busch's edition which was published in 1929 by Friedrich Blume. This afternoon would have been a complete waste of time, had it not brought home to me once more how present-day violin-playing is straying further and further away from the ideal which inspired Adolf Busch. The young lady did actually use a copy bearing Adolf Busch's indications, but had dismissed all the subtle phrasing and the fingering and bowing which were so characteristic of his style, and had set a pastoral tone to the piece! And gone was the profound expression, that deeply satisfying eloquence for which Busch gave the performer exact indications. In order to make this clear to readers who are non-violinists, I should like to emphasise just one characteristic of his style, namely the so-called reprise de l’archet – an almost inaudible lifting of the bow between two consecutive up- or down-bows, rather like the inaudible breath of a singer. For instance, if Bach wrote

then Adolf Busch's reprise de l’archet would imbue this fragment with the meaningful expression which is quite lost if it is disposed of as a smooth phrase, as is so common today, i.e.,

This and other aspects of his technique were, of course, not apparent to the listener who was not a string player. He would simply listen spellbound by the abandon, the unaffectedness and the sincerity with which this great musician played – and this was what I too experienced every time I heard Adolf Busch play.

The reading and performing of chamber music is a necessary part of every musician's education. It is especially vital to players of stringed instruments. Pianists, also, would do well to give a certain amount of time and attention to chamber music, even though their own library is comparatively rich in its own right. But the library for solo violin is none too extensive, and some of the greatest works for the violin are not solo pieces at all. In the case of the violoncello, the situation is even worse. These instrumentalists would be denied access to some of the most sublime music in the world, if they did not seek an opportunity of exploring the rich library of ensemble or chamber works.

Furthermore, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to gain genuine musicianship as a soloist exclusively. Virtuosity, no doubt, may be achieved by applying one's self to his own instrument and nothing more. But well-rounded, wellgrounded musicianship requires more than that. It requires musical building.

An Ideal Plan of Work

In my own student days, two hours a week of ensemble work were set down as part of the regular Conservatory training. It was as much part of the curriculum as theory and harmony. And after those ‘required’ hours were done, my fellow students and I made music together, purely for the enjoyment of it. We would meet at my home, where my father was always ready to listen to us, and would read through quartets, trios, octets, everything. After supper, then, we went at it again, reading, playing, discussing the music, and arguing about it.

This talk, one of a series on ‘Men and Music’ given at the University of Cape Town summer school in 1964 by the Scottish composer, pianist and musical administrator Erik Chisholm and illustrated with slides and recordings, came to light too late to be included in the first edition of this book, but its closing image of the departing Busch brothers can now provide an apposite, and touching, envoi. Chisholm met Adolf, Herman and Serkin when he asked Adolf to present a programme of his own works to the Active Society for the Propagation of Contemporary Music1 in Glasgow. This concert by the Busch Trio, on 14 December 1934, included the world premiere of the Trio in C minor, Op. 48. It is good to be able to note that Chisholm's pessimism over the future of Busch's music has not been borne out.

One of the most talented German families of musicians born in the last decade of the nineteenth century was the Busches of Westphalia: Fritz Busch, founder conductor of the Glyndebourne Opera; Adolf Busch, noted violinist, leader of the famous string quartet which bore his name, and composer of concertos, symphonies and much chamber music; and Herman Busch, a very fine cellist. All three of them were friends of Sir Donald Tovey who, in 1934, nominated Fritz and Adolf for honorary D.Mus. degrees at Edinburgh University. As soon as I heard of this plan, I wrote to Adolf Busch in Switzerland, asking him if there was a possibility of him giving us a concert. He replied by telegram; I have it here – it reads:

Busch's 21st birthday was spent en route to Switzerland for a walking and climbing holiday with the Grüters family. He was already friends with two Swiss artists, Max Schulthess and A. H. Pellegrini (who had painted a portrait of Frieda for him), and had long wanted to see their country. He and Frieda were equally captivated by the landscape and the people and, perhaps because they were in love, that first visit inspired a devotion to Switzerland which would never flag. When the weather was good, they spent every possible moment outdoors; when it was bad, they made music in the hotel – fellow guests in their first base, at Les Plans, gave Adolf and Hugo two pictures of the locality in gratitude for renderings of Beethoven and Mozart sonatas. From Les Plans, at the southern end of the Bernese Alps, the party trekked to Trachsellauenen near the Jungfrau peak. They had a musical opus with them which matched the grandeur of their surroundings, as Hugo was studying the new Universal Edition full score of Mahler's Eighth Symphony. When he drew Adolf's attention to a particularly harsh dissonance, the younger man's only comment was that at least it would quickly be passed over in performance. Within little more than a year, this first all-choral symphony would be mounted by Hugo (in Bonn), Fritz (in Aachen) and Steinbach (in Cologne).

While on holiday, Busch was offered the post of first concertmaster of the Vienna Konzertverein Orchestra in succession to Max Grohmann. Both Grümmer and Karl Doktor (who had heard praise of Busch from Reger) had been urging the conductor Ferdinand Löwe to approach Busch as soon as the leader's chair fell vacant; and although Löwe had expressed grave reservations – which it would take him a year to overcome – on account of the candidate's youth, he had finally given in. Only in June, Busch had turned down a similar approach from Stuttgart, but Vienna presented an additional attraction: the orchestral board wanted the string principals to function as a quartet, which would be allowed to tour.

Holzdorf was again the scene of the Quartet's September rehearsals, as Dr Krebs did not take it amiss that the Busches had forsaken the house designed for them in Darmstadt. The sessions were evidently congenial: the four were photographed in various mock-acrobatic poses, including one where they pretended to stand on one another's shoulders – they found it hilarious that on their travels they were occasionally mistaken for employees of the famed Zirkus Busch. The more serious side of their work was interrupted by a trip to Dresden, to hear Fritz conduct Otello and give a morning run-through with the Staatskapelle of Adolf's new Symphony in E minor, which Fritz found ‘magnificent’. This rehearsal afforded the composer the opportunity to hear his music in conditions akin to a performance and make adjustments to the orchestration. Hans Gál, who was present, noted that Fritz had his own suggestions to make and was able to bring his practical experience to bear on Adolf's work, modifying the written dynamics in certain passages so as to clarify the texture and reveal the structure.

On 20 September, Wilhelm Schmitz-Scholl died in the Munich hospital; and around the time of the funeral, the Busches spent several days with his widow in Düsseldorf. The best of sponsors, who never made undue demands on his chosen beneficiary but was always inordinately proud of Adolf's achievements, Schmitz-Scholl had lived to see his judgment vindicated and his kindness bear abundant fruit.

The new concert season brought a novelty, Serkin's String Quartet in One Movement, a skilful construction packing a variety of moods into about a quarter of an hour. On holiday that summer, Busch had encouraged his protégé to write a work for the Quartet; and it received its premiere at the Berlin Singakademie on 14 October. A few more performances were given, including one in Darmstadt, and the piece stayed in the Quartet's repertoire for private occasions – it became quite a joke to say ‘Now we’re going to play Rudi's Op. 1’, the point being that there was never an Op. 2. But the lone opus had an excellent reception whenever it was aired and Serkin took the sallies about his compositional prowess in good heart.

In Basel, that autumn of 1937, the Busch Chamber Players brought a Bach cantata and works by their leader's other professed favourite, Mozart, into their repertoire. Now that Mozart's music has become so accessible, it is surprising to discover how little of it was performed before the 1941 sesquicentenary of his death stimulated his rise in popularity. In the interwar years, even the Salzburg, Würzburg and Munich festivals did not probe far beyond the handful of familiar Köchel numbers. In 1917 Busoni complained to Volkmar Andreae: ‘Mozart is altogether terra incognita; for how much is known and played of all his 650 works? While not a single bar of Dr Johannes, for example, is overlooked, whether for clarinet or – contrabassoon!’ When Schnabel performed three of the piano concertos in Vienna in 1934, k503 in C major had not been heard in the city since the composer's time. When Serkin made his United States orchestral debut in 1936, the critic Lawrence Gilman described k595 in B flat as ‘a forgotten piano concerto’. And in 1935 Fritz Busch wrote to Adolf: ‘Do you know a Mozart quartet for flute, violin, viola and cello in D major? It is something especially beautiful’. He had clearly come across k285 for the first time. Even the land of Mozart's birth was slow to appreciate him: in the mid-1980s the Viennese essayist Hans Weigel, born in 1908, wrote:

In Austria everything happens belatedly, at second instance. Thirty years ago Franz Schubert barely existed, Mozart was only taking on his true dimensions when I was already in control of my conscious mind.

No wonder there was so little understanding of Mozart's style, let alone the difference between his and Haydn’s. Yet through the 1930s a quiet Mozartian revolution was going on, in which the Busch brothers played their parts. At Glyndebourne Fritz brought Così fan tutte to the fore, as he later did with Idomeneo; and although he was rightly criticised for omitting appoggiature from both recitatives and arias, he did offer an alternative to Furtwängler, who romanticised Mozart's scores, Beecham, who prettified them, or Walter, who treated them too lovingly. ‘Walter was inclined to over-sweeten Mozart and Busch reacted against that’, said Berthold Goldschmidt.

The earliest known public performance by Adolf Busch took place on 17 November 1895, in Siegen: before an audience of two hundred teachers, the four-year-old played a solo to Fritz's piano accompaniment well enough to earn a round of applause; a brief mention in the local paper; and, more to his taste, a fee of two frankfurters and a glass of milk. The boys’ first paid engagement was less formal, more in line with Fritz's comment that they ‘lived like real street arabs’. Adolf was having violin lessons from a tubercular young man on the other side of town and Fritz would walk with him to the teacher's lodgings, playing a six-keyed piccolo borrowed from their father's shop. Adolf required little encouragement to strike up on his fiddle and the two of them would give impromptu concerts in the market place, opposite the town hall. One day they got carried away, stayed longer than usual and provoked a kindly onlooker into taking a collection for them from their motley audience. When the boys proudly took home 2 Marks 17 Pfennigs, their parents were horrified and firmly forbade any further public displays of their artistry. Yet their fame was spreading in the locality and at an evening concert of the town choral society Adolf and Fritz both played solos, finishing with a joint rendering of variations on The Carnival of Venice. Bored by his simple accompaniment, Fritz began to improvise at the keyboard and Adolf was first amused, then enraged, as he lost his place in the music. He laid into Fritz with his bow, Fritz retaliated – and the curtain was hastily lowered on a furious fist fight. ‘Nowadays’, Fritz remarked later, ‘we settle our differences in a more intellectual fashion.’

Adolf showed other signs of temperament. When he was scolded for doing anything wrong, he was liable to bang his head against the wall in fury and frustration. He was the introspective half of the Busch ‘musical twins’, lacking Fritz's sang-froid: his self-confidence was harder won. When he started at the local school at Easter 1898, he was always in trouble with the staff, incurring regular thrashings until his class teacher discovered he was a violinist and asked what he could play. ‘The Concerto by Bériot.’ – ‘Then play it for us.