GREAT RECORDINGS phase 19

BEETHOVEN
Late Quartets

Busch Quartet

5 09655 2 (D&T)
5 09656 2 (Angel)

Mono
ADD
Recorded 1932-1941
3:42:36 (3CD)

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In an authoritative and immensely informative essay, Tully Potter notes: ‘Say “Beethoven” and music lovers the world over will produce a list of favourite artists. Say “Beethoven quartets”, however, and one name is likely to predominate: Busch.’

This is the first authorised release of the Busch Quartet’s complete late Beethoven: the 1930s EMI recordings are joined by the two works Busch recorded for American Columbia in 1941, after his emigration to the United States in 1939: the Quartet in B flat Op.130 and the Grosse Fuge (with the conductorless Busch Chamber Players) appear under licence from Sony BMG.

Potter reveals that to achieve the astonishing Innigkeit in the long adagios of the late quartets, Busch developed a unique strategy: to keep the intensity going from one side to another, he often made just a single take, eschewing the customary second ‘safety’ take. (If more takes were necessary he and his colleagues would return another day.) Thus the entire Heiliger Dankgesang of Op.132 was achieved in single takes.

This new state-of-the-art remastering of the EMI material by Abbey Road 78 expert Andrew Walter improves greatly on the recordings’ previous appearance, as do the Columbia transfers, which are by the noted New York engineer Seth Winner.

Awards: 10 de Répertoire; Choc du Monde de la Musique