Fritz Busch was born into an intensely musical family: he was the eldest of five brothers who included Adolf the violinist, Hermann the cellist, Heinrich the composer and Willi the actor. The boys’ father was a violin maker, and they would try out all the instruments in his shop as well as play dance music with him in local hostelries. At the age of seven Fritz was giving piano recitals in Siegen where the family lived: by twelve he was familiar with most orchestral instruments, although he received piano tuition from a qualified teacher only as late as 1905. The following year he entered Cologne Conservatory, where he studied piano with Karl Boettcher and Lazzaro Uzielli, harmony and counterpoint with Otto Klauwell, and above all conducting with Fritz Steinbach, Brahms’s favourite interpreter.
Busch first conducted professionally at the end of 1908 at Trier and next year was appointed as conductor and chorusmaster at the German Theatre in Riga. Soon afterwards he became conductor of the spa orchestra in Bad Pyrmont, and also conducted the Musikverein choir at Gotha for its 1911– 1912 season. During 1911 he married Grete Boettcher, the daughter of his piano teacher; they had three children, one of whom, Hans, became an opera producer. Busch remained at Bad Pyrmont until in 1912 he became chief conductor at Aachen, where his orchestral repertoire included Mahler’s Symphony No. 8, music by Reger, of whom he was a leading interpreter, and Donald Francis Tovey, with whom he struck up a close friendship. He also had responsibility for the city’s famous choir.
When World War I broke out in 1914 Busch enlisted in the army, but was discharged after being wounded and returned to Aachen. In 1918 he conducted the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra at the Reger Festival in Jena, scoring a major success, and was invited to succeed Max von Schillings as chief conductor of the Stuttgart Opera, where he also directed the city’s symphony concerts and formed a choral society. He widened the opera company’s repertory to include works by the young Hindemith and the more established Pfitzner, as well as several lesser-known operas of Verdi, thus helping to initiate the German ‘Verdi Renaissance’ of the 1920s.
During the 1920–1921 season Busch conducted two concerts in Dresden, which went so well that he was asked to do ten in 1921–1922; and in 1922 he was appointed general music director of the opera there. Together with the opera houses of Berlin, Hamburg and Munich, the Saxon State Opera formed the top tier of German operatic and musical life. Busch did much to confirm and enhance Dresden’s reputation, founding an orchestral school, giving the first performances of important works by Busoni, Hindemith, Weill and Schoeck, maintaining momentum in the Verdi revival and directing the premieres of two operas by Richard Strauss, Intermezzo and Die agyptische Helena. In gratitude Strauss dedicated Arabella to him and the head of the Dresden opera, Alfred Reucker. Busch’s energetic conducting of Strauss’s music can be heard in his 1930s recordings of Don Juan and Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche. Guest designers invited to work at the beautiful Semper Opera House included major painters such as Oskar Kokoschka and Max Slevogt. In the symphony concerts given by the Sachsische Staatskapelle Busch conducted the music of many notable contemporary composers, including Berg, Schoenberg, Stravinsky and Bartok. In 1924 he conducted Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg at the first post-war Bayreuth Festival. He appeared in New York during 1927 and 1928 and in London during 1929.
In 1932 Busch formed a team with producer Carl Ebert and designer Caspar Neher for Mozart’s Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail at the Salzburg Festival, and shortly afterwards for Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera at the Berlin Stadtische Oper. At Dresden, Busch had found it frustrating that the artistic level of new productions could not constantly be maintained in repertory performances, and he held his collaboration with Ebert to be the high point of his work in Germany. A steadfast anti-fascist, by then he had earned the disfavour of the Nazi Party. Before a scheduled Dresden performance of Rigoletto in March 1933, Busch was called on to the stage and dismissed. He was then asked to conduct the performance, which he attempted to do, but Nazi storm troopers prevented him from starting. Shortly afterwards he left Germany, not to return until 1951.
Very soon Busch accepted an invitation to conduct the German operatic repertoire at the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, and returned there throughout the 1930s. During the winter of 1933–1934 he commenced his close association with the Danish State Radio Orchestra in Copenhagen, and was invited by John Christie to become the chief conductor of the new Glyndebourne Festival Opera, which he accepted on condition that Ebert was in charge of the stage productions. In the first season they put on Le nozze di Figaro and Cosi fan tutte. Buenos Aires, Copenhagen and Glyndebourne became the focal points of Busch’s annual schedule up to the outbreak of World War II. At each, but most noticeably in Sussex, he achieved the highest artistic standards, as can be heard in his recordings of the three Mozart–da Ponte operas, made with Glyndebourne forces for EMI. At Glyndebourne he achieved his ambition ‘…to build an opera production in the smallest detail and… with complete respect for the work’.
Busch’s international reputation was extremely high: Toscanini recommended him as his successor when he retired from the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra in 1936, but Busch declined. Apart from appearances in New York during 1942, he spent most of the war years from 1940 in South America. After the end of the war he conducted at the New York Metropolitan Opera for four seasons from 1945, and with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra during its 1948–1949 and 1950 seasons; however American commentators found his naturalness as a musician militated against favourable comparison with more flamboyant rival conductors of the period, such as Stokowski and Rodzinski.
In 1949 Busch resumed his relationship with the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra and in 1950 returned to Glyndebourne. Here he worked closely with the young John Pritchard, who was consistently to maintain Busch’s musical ideals in his own career. Busch scored a big success with the Danish orchestra at the 1950 Edinburgh Festival, to which he returned in 1951 with Glyndebourne productions of Don Giovanni and La forza del destino. In late 1950 Busch made his debut at the Vienna State Opera and was invited to become its chief conductor with effect from the 1951–1952 season. While in Vienna he also conducted several radio broadcasts and gramophone recordings. In early 1951 he returned to Germany, appearing in Hamburg and Cologne; for the West German Radio of Cologne he recorded a complete performance of Un ballo in maschera. After returning from the 1951 Edinburgh Festival he died suddenly in London.
Fritz Busch was an instinctive musician of the highest calibre. He favoured fast tempi and clear textures: his application of tempo variation was extremely subtle and always felt natural and stylish. His manner with musicians was polite, firm and often humorous. He balanced perfectly inspiration and preparation. Sadly Busch died just as tape recording and the long-playing record were becoming the preferred media of the recording industry, but before significant tracts of his repertoire could be recorded. Nonetheless his recorded legacy contains many magnificent performances.
Pride of place goes to the EMI Glyndebourne recordings of the Mozart operas, but the Cologne Radio Ballo in maschera is also important for its drive and flexibility, both hallmarks of the German Verdi renaissance. In the symphonic repertoire Busch’s Danish performances of Brahms’s Symphony No. 2 and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 have long been admired. Many ‘off-air’ recordings conducted by Busch have emerged since his death. These show that his Buenos Aires performances of Wagner and Richard Strauss were of exceptional power and spontaneity, and that in New York he could achieve true humour in music with his conducting of Don Pasquale at the Metropolitan Opera. As with all the very best conductors, no recorded performance conducted by Busch, whether in the studio or ‘live’, is without musical interest: his surviving performances fully justify Sir Rudolf Bing’s description of him as ‘a master’.
© Naxos Rights International Ltd. — David Patmore (A–Z of Conductors, Naxos 8.558087–90).