Fritz Busch

Fritz Busch.

Fritz Busch (13 March 1890 - 14 September 1951) was a German conductor.

Early life

Busch was born on March 13. 1890 in Siegen, Province of Westphalia, the son of a former itinerant musician. His brothers were also musicians, the violinist Adolf Busch and the cellist Hermann Busch. He attended the Cologne Conservatory in 1906 where he studied conducting with Fritz Steinbach. He served as conductor at Deutsches Theater, Riga in 1909, and from 1911 to 1912 toured as a pianist. Busch was hired as the music director by the city of Aachen in 1912, and worked there until the beginning of World War I, when he enlisted. At the end of the war, he returned to Aachen where he conducted the Aachen Municipal Opera. However six weeks later, he was appointed music director of the Stuttgart Opera. There he became known for his efforts to increase the breadth of the repertoire including featuring new composers, such as Paul Hindemith and Hans Pfitzner. His performances, including modern stagings and set designs by Adolphe Appia for Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle operas, led to his increasing renown. In 1922 he was appointed the music director of the Dresden State Opera. During his tenure of 11 years he kept the opera at the highest level, combining innovative, provocative stagings, with prominent artists engaged to design costumes and sets. He premiered works by Richard Strauss (Intermezzo (1924) and Die Ägyptische Helena (1928), Ferruccio Busoni (Doktor Faust (1925), Hindemith (Cardillac (1926), and Kurt Weill (Der Protagonist (1926). In 1924 he made his only appearance at the Bayreuth Festival conducting Die Meistersinger. Upon arrival, he decided to attend to a chorus rehearsal that was in progress, only to be dragooned into the tenor section by the chorus master Hugo Rüdel who had mistaken him for a member of the choir. His 1932 Salzburg Festival production of Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail, which was designed by Carl Ebert and was sung by a carefully selected cast, was a highly successful collaboration.

Nazi regime

Five weeks after Hitler came to power in 1933, Busch was removed from his post at the Dresden State Opera in a politically motivated dismissal. The March 1933 dismissal was humiliating: Nazis in the front rows shouted "Out with Busch" at the beginning a performance of Rigoletto, leading to his replacement as conductor by Kurt Striegler. The Nazis charged that despite his high salary, Busch had taken frequent leaves from the opera to take up guest conducting jobs elsewhere, although these had been built into his contract. Not himself Jewish, he counted many Jews among his friends and was opposed to dictatorship.

He went on to make several tours of South America before becoming the music director of Glyndebourne Festival Opera in England in 1934. He remained at Glyndebourne until the outbreak of World War II in 1939. He focused on work at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires (1934–36 and (1940–47) and at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, and from 1934 at the Danish National Symphony Orchestra. He conducted the Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra from 1937 until 40. Despite assistance from the German writer Thomas Mann, he was unsuccessful in getting Swiss citizenship, but in 1936 succeeded in obtaining Argentinian papers. He resumed the Glyndebourne musical directorship in 1950 following a healing of breach with the organisation over Busch's failure to cast Audrey Mildmay for a 1941 New Opera Company, New York production of Così fan tutte at a time when she badly needed money. He also conducted at the Met in New York from 1945 to 1949, and the Chicago Symphony from 1948 to 1950. Post-war he also returned to work in Copenhagen and Stockholm.

He was a National Patron of Delta Omicron, an international professional music fraternity.

Busch was the brother of the distinguished violinist Adolf Busch and of the cellist Hermann Busch. He was married to Margarete Boettcher Busch. His son, Hans Busch, later stage director at the Indiana University Opera, was born in 1914. Busch died in London in 1951.

Notable recordings

• 1934–1935: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Così fan tutte, with the Glyndebourne Festival Opera, feat. soloists Heddle Nash, John Brownlee, et al. (EMI Références, Naxos Historical)
• 1935: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, The Marriage of Figaro, with the Glyndebourne Festival Opera, feat. soloists Roy Henderson, Norman Allin, et al. (Naxos Historical)
• 1936: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Don Giovanni, with the Glyndebourne Festival Opera, feat. soloists John Brownlee, Roy Henderson, et al. (Naxos Historical)
• 1951: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Così fan tutte, with the Glyndebourne Festival Opera, feat. soloists Sena Jurinac, Richard Lewis, Sesto Bruscantini et al. (Guild Historical, Immortal Performances)
• 1951: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Idomeneo, with the Glyndebourne Festival Opera, feat. soloists Sena Jurinac, Birgit Nilsson, Richard Lewis, Léopold Simoneau, Alexander Young, et al. (Immortal Performances)

Source: Fritz Busch discography (in German) [1]

Bibliography

• Busch, Fritz (1953). Pages from a Musician’s Life. Translated by Marjorie Strachey. London: Hogarth Press.

External links

• Fritz Busch at AllMusic
• Fritz Busch - Profile at The Remington Site

Cultural offices
Preceded by none	Musical Directors, Glyndebourne Opera Festival 1934-1951	Succeeded by Vittorio Gui
Preceded by Václav Talich	Principal Conductors, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra 1937-1940	Succeeded by Carl Garaguly
Preceded by Nikolai Malko	Principal Conductors, Danish National Symphony Orchestra 1937-1951	Succeeded by Mogens Andersen