BEETHOVEN: String Quartet No. 7 in F Major, Op. 59, No. 1 “Rasumovsky”; String Quartet No. 12 in E-flat Major, Op. 127 – Busch Quartet – Dutton

by | Dec 7, 2008 | Classical Reissue Reviews | 0 comments

BEETHOVEN: String Quartet No. 7 in F Major, Op. 59, No. 1 “Rasumovsky”; String Quartet No. 12 in E-flat Major, Op. 127 – Busch Quartet

Dutton CDBP 9786, 78:06 [Distrib. by Harmonia mundi] ****:

Adolf Busch (1891-1951) maintained his passionate devotion to chamber music ensemble even as appeared regularly as a concert soloist: his Busch Quartet, established in 1912, endured in various forms until Busch’s retirement from illness in 1951. This Volume 3 from Michael Dutton captures historic inscriptions from the “Old World” Busch Quartet, when Gosta Andreasson, violin; Karl Doktor, viola; and cellist Herman Busch constituted the quartet membership.  The Beethoven F Minor Quartet recording (15, 25 May 1942, New York) appeared on CBS LP (ML 4155); the E-flat Quartet (16-17 October and 2 November 1936) was recorded in London strictly in shellac format.

The F Minor Quartet inscription occurred after the outbreak of WW II, when a subsequent hiatus was called by the American Federation of Musicians on shellacs’ production. The playing proves eminently seamless, despite the technique of recording 78-rpm-takes of only four minutes each; CBS used 16-inch lacquers for immediate broadcast. The Dutton CEDAR process doesn’t hurt, either, creating quietude personified. After an intensely lyrical and gracious Allegro, the Busch Quartet enters into an elastic, rhythmically acerbic Allegretto vivace whose metric antics and polished balance of competing dynamics must have delighted Mahler. Noted for his long bow, Adolf Busch made a special point of kneading Beethoven’s poignant Adagios to a fine edge, but still eschewing blatant sentimentality. The last movement utilizes a Russian tune, as stipulated by Count Rasumovsky for the Beethoven commission. Herman Busch’s cello line weaves an affecting line under the fleet upper voices, whose tender polyphonies evince an Old World charm at every bar.

The Busch Quartet recorded the Op. 127 on the same day they committed Schubert’s Death and the Maiden to posterity. The continuity of Beethoven’s extended periods never breaks, despite the limits of the recording medium. The huge opening chords come hurtling like slices of heaven, countered by soft, plangent harmonies from the two violins. The Adagio, one of Beethoven’s most sustained meditations in the form, exacts a quietude fully consonant with the Ninth Symphony, albeit that “Romantic” slides and portamenti creep into the style of performance.  Herman Busch provides the rhythmic impulse that dominates the Scherzo vivace, a lesson from the Seventh Symphony that accelerates the proximity of the beat until rhythm itself seems neutralized into a sizzling arch. The agogics acquire a ferocity that threatens to destroy the fabric of the line, spasms of sound that border on musical ague. The cello tries a brooding step-wise line to counter the hysteria. After another convulsion, the first violin takes us on a drunken, Goethean ride into the howling storm. The da capo perhaps softens the mortal blows, but not my much, as the last page whimpers in the flames. Some consolation appears in the Finale, which tries a peasant dance to celebrate or reconcile the passionate extremes of Nature. Some excellent concertante episodes from Adolf Busch himself. We know how Shakespeare’s Macbeth will end, but watching the torments play to their inevitable conclusion doesn’t get any easier. In the Busch Quartet’s case, what lasts is their absolute homogeneity of sound, their deep appreciation for Beethoven’s profound figures.

–Gary Lemco

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