FRITZ BUSCH in Stockholm: Berwald, Erling, Larsson, R. Strauss (1939-1951) - PASC689

The richness of Fritz Busch’s repertoire as recorded by Swedish Radio has only insufficiently survived on tape. Recordings of the standard repertoire in particular have not survived, and we are more than lucky to have the live transmission of Mozart’s Così fan tutte from 1940 (PACO 195). The 1938 live broadcast of the Alban Berg Violin Concerto with soloist Louis Krasner has been frequently re-issued, and there are two more works possibly recorded on 4 December 1949 (one of the recording dates is somewhat precarious) which were released together with the only other Swedish radio recording conducted by Fritz Busch (from Malmö in 1949) in 2012. The sole work from the 4 December 1949 concert heard here is the Ostinato from Lars-Erik Larsson’s Symphony No. 2, Op. 17 – a piece that Busch and others frequently performed independently after the composer had discarded the other two movements.

The concert of 2 May 1951 (repeated on 5 May) featured, as its second half, Strauss’ Vier letzte Lieder, starring a young Sena Jurinac, and Franz Berwald’s Sinfonie sérieuse. The concert took place just a few days prior to Busch’s last performance of Così fan tutte (on 6 May) and three performances of Beethoven’s Missa solemnis the last of which, on 11 May, marked his final appearance in Stockholm.

Busch was well aware of the musical heritage of Sweden, and at his first concert in Stockholm after the war he directed Berwald’s operatic overture Estrella di Soria. He frequently conducted music by Franz Berwald, but also Larsson’s Ostinato and Hugo Alfvén’s Midsommarwaka Swedish Rhapsody.

A curiosity is the small item from the incidental music for Selma Lagerlöf’s Kejsarn av Portugallien ( The Emperor of Portugal) by Erik Erling, then organist of the Church of Hedvig Eleonora, and kapellmeister at the Kungliga Dramatiska Teatern - a recording which, according to its only release in a collection devoted to violinist Henri Marteau and his Swedish pupils and colleagues, was just an ‘interval’ recording after the other items to be recorded had been completed. Sadly, all other Swedish radio recordings involving Busch from this session (if he was involved in any) appear not to have survived.

The Berwald Symphony radio recordings stand out in Busch’s discography as it is the only work for which all three rehearsals have survived in total (and been released on LP). These 150 minutes of rehearsals are mostly of specialist interest only, and would here divert from the performances themselves. Compared to Busch’s performance of the Vier letzte Lieder taped at Copenhagen ten weeks earlier (issued in 2010), the Stockholm performance, which has been unavailable for some 30 years, is somewhat more down to earth, more subdued in tempo, yet still of much interest, not least due to Jurinac’s jubilant youthful voice. Busch had been immediately taken by the expressiveness and beauty of her voice, and engaged her on many an occasion, though not yet in Verdi roles in order to let her voice develop healthily.

Jürgen Schaarwächter
Max-Reger-Institut with BuschBrothersArchive, Karlsruhe