Great string players of the past: Violinist Adolf Busch

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This article appeared in the October 2013 issue of The Strad

I heard Adolf Busch playing all the Beethoven quartets in six concerts at London’s Chelsea Town Hall in 1947. He was about 56 and I’d just started playing quartets.

I’d heard about him and I had a record of him playing the Beethoven sonatas with Serkin, which was very good. I went with Norbert Brainin and we went backstage afterwards to see Busch. I can’t remember what he said, but he was a very distinguished gentleman.

What impressed me was that the most difficult passages didn’t worry him at all. You never felt anything was difficult – he just played. The second violin came in wrong once and Busch looked at him as if to say, ‘What are you doing?’ His sound suited Beethoven. He had a remarkable quality which one felt straight away. He was a great master and one was immediately aware of this mastery.

INTERVIEW BY ARIANE TODES

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