The Busch-Serkin Duo: Public Performances and Broadcasts = MOZART: Sonata in E-flat Major, K. 380; Sonata in E-flat Major, K. 481; Sonata in G Major, K. 379; BACH: Sonata for Violin and Continuo, BWV 1016; Sonata in G Minor for Solo Violin, BWV 1001; SCHUBERT: Rondo in B Minor, D. 895; Sonatina in A Minor, D. 385; Fantasy in C Major, D. 934; BEETHOVEN: Sonata No. 10 in G Major, Op. 96; Sonata in G Major, Op. 30, No. 3; BRAHMS: Sonata No. 3 in D Minor, Op. 108 (2 performances); SCHUMANN: Violin Sonata No. 1 in A Minor, Op. 105; Sonata No. 2 in D Minor, Op. 121; BUSCH: Sonata No. 2 in A Minor, Op. 56
Music & Arts CD-1244, (4 CDs) 72:38; 71:20; 77:30; 74:02 [Distr. by Albany] ****:
Perhaps remembered as a relatively “chaste” performer on the violin, Adolf Busch (1891-1952) set a high example among European virtuosi of the period 1910-1950, both as a soloist and as an eminent pedagogue. Busch had his fateful encounter with Rudolf Serkin (1903-1991) in 1920, and they made their Berlin debut in 1921, immediately establishing themselves as the finest sonata team on the Continent. The tutelage of Rudolf Serkin with Adolf Busch proved musically exciting and sonically generous; for one could attribute Serkin’s later habit of clipping phrase-endings to the influence of Arturo Toscanini, who maintained a penchant for streamlining his music.
We can relish the suave clarity of line Busch and Serkin shared in their plastic renditions of Mozart, for example, in the Sonata in E-flat Major, K. 380 (19 January 1942) and an even more fleet performance of the E-flat Sonata, K. 481 (7 November 1944). One commentator calls Adolf Busch’s rhythmic drive “airborne,” and Serkin’s contribution urges Busch to flamboyant heights. Serkin always wrestled with the piano’s percussive nature, and he applies a silken patina to the incredibly fast passages to create the illusion of perpetual cantilena. The Adagio of the K. 481 proves a transparent recipient of the duo’s studied approach to Mozart’s singing line. The sense of ensemble, seamless and fluid, testifies to a true equality of talents and unity of musical mind. The strummed introduction, Adagio, by Serkin for the Sonata in G, K. 379 (3 November 1950, previously unpublished) lets us enter an ethereal world, a rarified atmosphere of galant courtesy. The ensuing Allegro fills a role either of a swift arietta or a baroque trio-sonata movement in rapid figures, brilliant and lithe. Attacca to the stately theme and variations that closes this gem of a sonata, whose extensive variants allow Serkin to range from thunder to the most diaphanous of music boxes.
Aside from a commercial recording of the Schubert B Minor Rondo Brilliant by the Menuhin duo and an inscription by Szigeti, few musicians championed Schubert so consistently as Busch and Serkin. Their 26 April 1943 Rondo unfolds in liquid lines, with Busch’s wiry tone complemented by Serkin’s solid punctuations. Typically, the presto passages explode with color and light, only to ebb into a controlled legato in both parts that makes Schubert a perpetual song. The last thrilling pages exemplify the duo’s bravura and their unyielding tension even in otherwise sentimental melodic passages. The A Minor Sonatina (3 November 1950, previously unissued) possesses a jarring authority, a white heat where we might expect a tempered Romanticism. Both artists are superb Schubertians, classically demure in the midst of driven furies. Serkin’s non-legato enunciations prove as melodious as Busch’s arched, wiry line. The impish Menuetto punishes the performers with metric angularities and wicked slides for Busch. The final Allegro, an operatic duet, alternately floats and rages in measured figures, the main theme a weaving figure of voluptuous beauty.
The big Schubert work–in every sense–remains the C Major Fantasia (10 December 1944, previously unpublished), one of those single-movement-subdivided affairs Schubert and Liszt found congenial. The music opens with liquid: Serkin’s sustained tremolos require Busch to maintain a fervent legato above; later, the piece will exploit the composer’s own song, “Sei mir gegruesst” for the monumental adagio section of variants. What limpid figures dance before and after the grand adagio! The illusion of limitless incandescent energy and digital finesse seems entirely natural to these matched talents. A moment of cyclic recollection – the opening tremolo and legato violin – ushers in a sense of security, but the tension mounts to a manic pitch for the last hurtle to rondo, a sustained arch of triumph in the manner of the Wanderer Fantasy’s epic conclusion.
The first of the two Brahms D Minor Sonata inscriptions derives from the Edinburgh Festival 28 August 1944–in considerably faded sonics, especially for the first half of the Adagio–a realization as fast as it furious. The moments of relative relaxation allow the Brahms autumnal melancholy its fill of pliant resignation. The classical lines of the Adagio, with its air of melancholy self-possession could have been exemplary, in better sound. What fire Busch brings to the dalliance of the Un poco presto e con sentimento third movement, the runs by Serkin dazzling! Volatile thunder marks the last movement, which even in distant sound registers a thorough sympathy for Brahms in every inflamed measure, a performance that should have demanded front-row sonics. The same work as performed on 9 March 1939, however, provides a visceral, well-recorded document of these artists’ masterful conception and control of this passionate work by the aging Brahms, both broader and more vehemently aggressive than the later document from Edinburgh.
Elegantly light feet characterize the Beethoven G Major Sonata (27 April 1943), a galant energy and crisp ensemble that literally sparkle in fluid measures from the outset. The happy salon expression advances with graceful solemnity in the second movement, marked Tempo di Minuetto, ma molto moderato e grazioso, all of which evoke nice adjustments from Busch and Serkin, a delicate balance of poise and plasticity of phrase. The spirited last movement enjoys a dervish flavor, a sizzling round dance in deft colors and stop-on-a-dime accents. A study in exuberant ensemble, the music frolics in every bar. Beethoven’s G Major Sonata, Op. 96 (3 November 1950, previously unpublished), a product of that fertile late period in Beethoven in which he concentrates Classical forms into tiny spaces, permits us a relaxed vision of the seamless parity of our musical participants. Listen to the strength of Serkin’s trill, over which Busch draws an arched melodic curve. Busch never allows a sostenuto period to sag, and the musical line flourishes with a nervous tension that marks the Busch style – the Adagio espressivo a spectacular case in point. A long held note segues to the dashing Scherzo, a razor-honed tempest in a concerted teapot. The last movement Poco allegretto–Allegro projects a naive clarity, ingenuous and eminently poised.
The A Minor Sonata of Robert Schumann (10 December 1946) offers a hothouse flower, immaculately presented while driven by earnest passions. The audience already feels the heat by the end of the first movement, and the applause remains poised in abeyance. The feverish sentiments coalesce in the last movement, Lebhaft, breathless, animated but never turgid despite the furors that haunt the passages. The mad dash at the coda releases the energy the rapt audience had patiently withheld. The 1851 D Minor Sonata of Schumann (27 April 1943) reveals the late stresses in the composer’s psyche and his tendency to through-compose each work–reworking the same materials throughout–as if it were a baroque piece in dark affects. While riding some wild storms of emotion in the first movement, the violin part rarely soars, the middle register receiving the workout. The 6/8 D Major Scherzo has Busch and Serkin in a hunting-music mode, the affect similar to the militant scherzi in the Brahms Horn Trio and Piano Quintet. Busch plays pizzicato triple-stops to open the G Major theme-and-variations movement, music deliberately marked “semplice.” The turbulent finale wants to conclude in D Major and must grapple with some demons before achieving its end. Busch and Serkin negotiate the obsessive labyrinths with a resolution worthy of Theseus, and the hard-won coda rouses the otherwise quiet audience.
Adolf Busch and the music of Bach remain virtually synonymous for several record companies, but M&A has created the first full performance of the G Minor Solo Sonata by splicing the opening Adagio (16 January 1948, previously unissued) from the Library of Congress to the remaining three movements taken 18 January 1934 in Copenhagen [and issued on Danacord’s “Great Musicians in Copenhagen” (DACOCD691-696)]. Busch’s Bach is virile, aggressive, big-boned and polyphonically resonant. The Fuga indeed sounds as if a chest of strings were in colloquy. The ensuing Siciliano emanates as much intimacy as the Fuga generates a Paganini demonism. The Presto can fry the bark off the trees, a rendition of blazing prowess, breathless and exalted at once. The E Major Sonata for Violin and Continuo (26 April 1943) relents emotionally, not overtly inflamed, as the opening Adagio sings in the manner of an intimate church sonata aria, ornamentally Italianate. Serkin’s hard patina bursts forth in the Allegro, Busch’s violin shading the piano’s right hand. The chugging motion quite resembles aspects of the Brandenburg Third Concerto. Bach has already exploited the relation between E Major and C-sharp Minor, and so the third movement passacaglia assumes the minor mode, the violin melody in triplets. For the final Allegro, Serkin and Busch engage in brilliant counterpoint over a four-part structure, alternating brisk 16ths with triplets. We intimate how Serkin might have played the Bach set of Inventions, and the Busch capacity for poignant lyrics in the midst of musical furor awes us at every turn of phrase.
Finally, music by Adolf Busch the composer, his 1941 Sonata in A Minor (10 December 1946). Angular but eminently tonal, the music registers the Busch fascination with Bach and the classical tradition upheld by Busoni, cross-fertilized by the harmonic syntax in another of Busch’s idols, Max Reger. The volatile expressive content carries forward in the appropriately marked Adagio ed espessivo second movement, an interlude driven in the Schumann manner. The Scherzo, Molto vivace, quasi presto, though modal in sound, has the deftly mischievous fury of late Brahms or even Richard Strauss. Its volcanic coda has the audience muttering to itself. The Allegretto amabile that concludes the sonata exhibits less melodic invention than a capacity for running figures and the bravura temperament. A dramatic second subject appears, militant, and the subsequent cross-breeding of motifs testifies to Busch’s learned style. A third motif waxes sentimental, perhaps a touch of Vienna. The ending, soft and plaintive, beckons a grateful throng.
–Gary Lemco
