|
The
reissue on Music for Pleasure of the recording made of the Glyndebourne
production of Le Nozze di Figaro (Mozart) in 1934 (CFP 117-118).
RCA
Victor's 5 EP set of Busch's Glyndebourne's 'Cosi fan tutte'
Concert
Hall CHC-61 Schubert Symphony No. 5: Fritz Busch conducting the Winterthur
Symphony Orchestra.

"Symphonie-Orchester
Winthertur" conducted by Fritz Busch: Schumann First Symphony (Spring),
and Overture "Die schöne Melusine", Op. 32 (MMS 148)

The
Haydn's Symphony No. 101 in D Major The Clock: The Austrian Symphony Orchestra
conducted by Fritz Busch.
An
early edition of the Eroica Symphony.
Beethoven's
3rd Symphony on a release on Vibraton from Italy. Ref. VB K 2002. Recording
originally produced by Marcel Prawy.
Fritz
Busch on the cover of an early catalog when Remington Records was still
located at 263 West 54th St., the first address of the company.
View
also 'BUSCH MSS' - listing Busch's manuscripts.
|
As
is the case with so many artists who appeared on the Remington label,
also of conductor Fritz Busch there are only a few performances released
on this early nineteen fifties label. They landed there merely by accident,
one would suspect. However it was Don Gabor who asked impressario Marcel
Prawy in Vienna to make recordings of the conductor with the pure style.
In 1950 there were many recordings of Fritz Busch on 78 RPM
shellac discs available, like excerpts from Wagner's 'Tristan und
Isolde', a performance of Richard Strauss's 'Don Juan' and
several complete Mozart operas from the productions of John Christie's
Glyndebourne Festival in the nineteen thirties.
|
|
|
Fritz
Busch (at left) in 1950 in Glyndebourne with John Christie, Carl
Ebert (Producer) and Moran Caplat (General Manager).
Picture
taken from the cover of His Master's Voice Lp Mozart at Glyndebourne
(ALP 1731).
|
However, performances
of Busch released uniquely on the new medium, the Long Playing record,
were non existent, except for the odd Concert Hall CHC-61 of Schubert's
Fifth Symphony with the Winterthur Symphony Orchestra, released
in the fall of 1950.
Dubbings from 78 RPM plates would only gradually appear in the new format.
The first was RCA Victor's 2 Lp set (LCT 6001) of the 1934 production
of 'The Marriage of Figaro', issued in 1952. The later reissue of this
recording of 'Le nozze di Figaro' on Music for Pleasure EMI Lp (CFP
117-118) - with Roy Henderson (baritone), Aulikki Rautavaara (soprano),
Audrey Mildmay (soprano), Wili Domgraf-Fassbänder (baritone), Haddle
Nash (tenor), Norman Allin and Italo Tajo (bass), Constance Willis (mezzo
soprano), Luise Hellesgruber (soprano), Fergus Dunlop (bass), Morgan
Jones (tenor), Winifred Radford, and Fritz Busch conducting - shows
an exceptional sound quality. No wonder 'Figaro's Hochzeit' was the
first recording to be transferred to Lp.
The opera was recorded by HMV at Glyndebourne Theatre, Sussex, England
on 6/6/34, 24/6/35 and 28/6/35. First released as Volume 1 of "The
Mozart Opera Society" in 1934, and Volumes 2-3 followed in 1935.
(Note: If you do not play vinyl, or if you cannot find the analog HMV
transfer to Lp, it is good to know that 'Le nozze di Figaro'
on 78 RPM discs was recently transferred to CD by Pristine
Audio, the company which restores and transfers historical
material with great success.)
Satisfying sales of
a Remington disc with Fritz Busch conducting could not only result from
the fact that Fritz Busch was considered a significant musician and opera
conductor worldwide, but also that during the nineteen forties his name
had become familiar to many New Yorkers. During World War Two Fritz Busch
was Musical Director of the New Opera Company for several seasons,
and after the war he conducted productions of the New York Metropolitan
on various occasions.
|
|
|
Dr.
Fritz Busch, founder and director of the Glyndebourne Mozart Festivals,
formerly Chief Conductor of the Stuttgart Opera and General Music
Director of the Dresden State Opera.
Picture edited by R.A.B., taken from Etude Magazine, April 1943.
(SoundFountain Archive)
|
During his New
York period, Fritz Busch was interviewed for the Etude Magazine.
The interview was published in the April 1943 issue.
The introduction of the article gives a short biography and a survey
of his career compiled from the information he gave to the editors of
the magazine.
Fritz Busch,
son of the distinguished violin maker, Wilhelm Busch, and brother
of Adolf Busch, violinist, and of Hermann Busch, violoncellist,
has contributed more perhaps than any other contemporary musician
to the vitality of opera. Dr. Busch became operatic conductor
at Riga at the age of nineteen, and two years later he entered
upon the duties of Director of Music at Aachen. He succeeded
Max von Schillings as chief conductor of the Stuttgart Opera
and, from 1922 to the beginning of the currently political regime
in Germany, served as General Musical Director of the State
Opera at Dresden. During this period he presented world premieres
of the operatic works of Richard Strauss, Busoni, Hindemith,
Weil, Wolf-Ferrari, and Stravinsky, besides launching a Verdi
revival which drew the attention of the musical world. In 1934
Dr. Busch launched the notable Mozart Festivals at Glyndebourne,
England, during which more than two hundred performances of
Mozart's operas were given. After a period of activity in Buenos
Aires, Dr. Busch assumed directorship of the New Opera Company,
in the USA. Under the sponsorship of Mrs. Lytle Hull, the New
Opera Company has a twofold goal: the presentation of intimate,
chamber opera under the highest of traditional artistic standards,
and the training of young, entirely inexperienced American singers.
|
In his conversation,
with Burton Paige of Etude Magazine, Fritz Busch specifically aimed
his attention at young singers. He states that he does not like the
'star' system, but wants to give young and new talents a chance and
to educate them by providing the necessary professional experience.
Busch:
"In my work in pre-Nazi Dresden, I accepted dozens of untried,
inexperienced young singers into the company, many of whom today,
hold distinguished posts in great houses of the world. They showed
no greater ability, when I found them, than do young Americans
who have sung for me - but they were enabled to reach greater
heights because of a sustained period of routine experience and
drill."
|
Erna Berger
was one of the singers he certainly was referring to. And Sena Jurinac
whose mentor he was. Busch also played a significant role in the career
of Willi Domgraf-Fassbaender. Just to name a few.
Numerous are the names of artists who had been given a chance to receive
education and to reach a high degree of professionalism.
Fritz Busch had also given proof of his ideas with the New Opera Company
when, in 1942, he let Regina Resnik sing Lady Macbeth.
Regina Resnik recalls:
I can describe
the incredible beginning of my operatic life, thanks to Maestro
Busch.
I was 19 years old when I sang the entrance aria of Lady Macbeth
for Maestro Busch and his son Hans. Instead of a position in
the chorus, which I thought was going to be offered to me, they
offered to teach me the role of the Lady as a COVER UNDERSTUDY.
In the morning of December 4, 1942, I was called to come to
the Broadway theater at 8 pm. Under a work light, in costume,
I was walked through the opera (most of which I sang) with maestro
Fritz Stiedry alone in the pit and a piano on stage.
The following day, December 5th, with Toscanini present in the
audience, I sang Lady Macbeth, replacing the ailing soprano
Florence Kirk. (Stiedry conducting for Busch, who heard the
performance in the theater.) I had NO position or power to make
ANY wish known. I only had to sing to prove the faith the New
Opera Company had shown in putting this beginner on stage in
that role. I was completely prepared, yet completely unaware
of the possible consequences. The fact that my preparation was
so complete - I will always owe this to Dr.Busch - I was thrown
into the Olympic swimming pool.
- Regina Resnik (August 1st, 2005)
|
After the war -when
the New Opera Company was more or less replaced by the New
York City Opera - Fritz Busch often conducted at the Metropolitan
Opera, the company which, strangely enough, produced the opera performances
precisely on the basis of the 'star' system which Busch disliked so
much.
The art of Fritz Busch can be seen in Verdi's 'Otello', the first
live telecast ever done of an entire opera. It was done from
the stage of the old Metropolitan Opera House with Lucia Albanese, John
Garris, Thomas Hayward, Martha Lipton, Nicola Moscona, Ramón
Vinay and Leonard Warren. That was in 1948!
In this New York
context the release of Beethoven's Symphony No. 3, Opus 55, 'Eroica',
performed with the Austrian Symphony Orchestra on R-199-21 is
not only logical but also rather unique. The Schwann catalog of June
1951 lists this Remington disc (which was probably released already
several months earlier), and that is well before September 14th of 1951,
the day the maestro died.
So the appearance of Busch on Remington was not the ultimate marketing
trick with the conductor's passing away in mind, as some may have assumed.
It became however a quasi memorial album and it is suspected that quite
a lot of copies were sold worldwide.
Warren DeMotte's evaluation of the recording of Beethoven's Third Symphony
in 'The Long Playing Record Guide' may sound as a warning to some, but
to others as an incentive to buy the record: "Busch leads an inferior
orchestra in a superior performance."
The inferiority certainly being caused for a great deal by the low technical
quality of the matrix and the subsequent pressing on cheap plastic.
Yes, the sound is thin, but that could be corrected by adjusting the
bass and treble of the tube amplifier, as was the custom in those days.
Yet the orchestra is very disciplined and succeeds in following for
a good deal the ideas of the conductor who himself seems to follow the
score in a strict manner. It is a style which is in contrast to the
deeper sensitivity of performances by Wilhelm Furtwangler, the other
famous conductor of that same generation.
Another recording,
Haydn's Symphony No. 101 (The Clock), was available on a 10 inch disc
with reference R-149-31. Cecil
Smith commented on it when reviewing a batch of Remington records
in The New Republic of April 23, 1951: "The best orchestral performance
in the group I listened to is Haydn's Symphony No. 101 ("The Clock"),
conducted with taste by Fritz Busch, played expertly by the Austrian
Symphony Orchestra, and cleanly and brightly recorded."
It is indeed a lively performance, full of nuances.
The third recording
of Fritz Busch acquired by Don Gabor through producer Marcel Prawy from
Vienna was that of Beethoven's Symphony No. 8 coupled with the recording
of Haydn's 'The Clock'. These recordings were released on a 12 inch
Masterseal disc with reference number MW 39.
Haydn's 'The Clock' was at the same time a Remington release. The Masterseal
was issued around March 1952 (it was listed in the Schwann Catalog of
that month).
Note: There was another noteworthy Masterseal disc with Volkmar Andreae
conducting Bruckner's Symphony no. 1 with The Niederösterreichisches
Tonkünstler Orchester, 1950, Masterseal ML 40, which never appeared
on Remington.
The Masterseal
label was deliberately chosen to release the Andreae Bruckner recording
as well as the specific Busch performance. The Masterseal label had
a list price of $6.45 for a 12 inch record. The recordings were considered
special and probably the license fee was higher than for other recordings
produced by Marcel Prawy.
Materseal MW 39 was a special FRIZ BUSCH MEMORIAL ALBUM.
A quote from the liner notes:
Late in 1950
he (Fritz Busch) conducted a concert and performances of "Meistersinger"
and "Marriage of Figaro" in Vienna. Critics wrote
that "a new spirit had enlivened the city's musical world."
"International Masterworks, Inc." is proud that Fritz
Busch consented to record for them during his few three hours
there. After the recording sessions, he addressed the Austria
State Symphony in a wonderful farewell speech, quoting Robert
Schumann: "Where enthusiasm is the guiding spirit - there
is the center of the world". These words are a symbol of
the life of Fritz Busch, cruelly cut short by his sudden death
(...).
|
In April 1953 the
Busch performances on the Masterseal label were issued as Remington
R-199-149 and then the Masterseal issue was no longer available.
The high reference number of R-199-149 would suggest that it
was a Musirama recording and was profiting from some technical advancement.
But since it was recorded in 1950, it is not. As a Remington it was
released in December 1953.
Warren De Motte wrote about the Beethoven Op. 93 recording: "Busch
squeezes the last drop of technique out of an inferior orchestra."
This reflects that the maestro asked for discipline and precision.
But the performance also shows the tension and the hectic life the conductor
had which led to his rather unexpected and early death.
Despite the technical
qualities of the recordings and the capabilities of the orchestras,
these recordings are part of the belong to the ll legacy of a great
conductor.
Fritz Busch, who
was born in Siegen on March 13, 1890, and who was predestined to be
a great conductor (at the age of twelve he bought himself a baton),
died in London on September 14, 1951 of a heart attack.
The liner notes
on a late Remington release sums it all up:
Fritz Busch decided when he was twelve to become a conductor and
forthwith bought himself a baton. Het entered the Cologne Conservatory
in 1906 and made his European debut in 1909. His early successes
as a conductor were interrupted by World War I, but he was already
famous in Germany when called to direct the Dresden State Opera
in 1922. Much admired for his inspired and inspiring personality,
Fritz Busch was given a life contract at Dresden. However after
the rise of Hitler he felt unable to remain in Nazi Germany and
he left for England in 1934 to accept an invitation to conduct at
Glyndebourne. Until 1939, and again after the war, he conducted
the incomparable operatic performances through which he and the
Glyndebourne Festival became internationally famous. He made his
US debut in 1927 as conductor of the New York Symphony. Further
triumphs followed during his many tours in America as guest conductor
at the Metropolitan and of the major orchestras both here and in
South America. He died suddenly in 1951 during the Glyndebourne
Company's season at the Edinburgh Fesival.
|
|
|
|
Fritz
Busch near the end of his life during a recording session. It
is the same photograph as featured on the earliest Remington Records
catalog on which cover is printed the following testimony:
I
record for Remington Records because it offers me the possibility
to reach the widest audiences on high fidelity quality recordings
at prices everyone is able to pay...
Fritz Busch conductor.
Picture
taken from the back of a Remington cover. Edited by R.A. Bruil.
|
Rudolf A. Bruil,
June 10th, 2005
|