Busch: Piano Concerto

[mikehopf]

New to me ....

Tonight on DR:

Adolf Busch
Konzert für Klavier und Orchester C-Dur op. 31

Florence Millet, Klavier
Vogtland Philharmonie Greiz Reichenbach
Leitung: David Marlow

Produktion: Deutschlandfunk Kultur 2022 im Neuberinhaus Reichenbach

[Gareth Vaughan]

Yes, please. I would love to hear this work.

[pianoconcerto]

Here's the link:  https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/programm

It's on at 21:00 German time tonight.  Hope someone catches it in case I miss it.

[britishcomposer]

This programme (Die besondere Aufnahme) always features recordings which sooner or later will appear on disc or sometimes have just been released.

In most cases you can find the complete broadcast a day later here for downloading:
https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/die-besondere-aufnahme-100.html

[tuatara442442]

The playback of the program that day was unavailable
I remembered sampling Busch's Piano Sonata, an expressionist chromatic but not too dissonant work. Anyone heard this broadcast can tell me if this PC could be compare to the Kletzki PC?
That one I can't stand even after repeated listen because it is rooted too much in traditional tonal language when trying to throw dissonance in,  altering between dissonant and more conservative passages, resulting its being not consonant enough and not dissonant and spicy enough (Maybe I'm just drawing parallel because both are today regarded as performer-first, composer-second) .

[Alan Howe]

The Kletzki PC, as I recall, was virtually unlistenable - and wouldn't conform to the guidelines of this website anyway. It would have been good to hear Busch's PC, though...

[eschiss1]

If the concerto full score is available somewhere, it's in the public domain (it was published in 1928 (composed 1925), so it's in the PD in the USA as of 2024. The 2-piano arrangement by Rudolf Serkin (d.1991) would only be pd in the US.) Edit: the full score does seem to be available at some libraries in Germany and Switzerland, Toronto, and perhaps elsewhere. ÖNB has the Rudolf Serkin duet reduction that again is in the US public domain (but not European, not until 2062... They also have Bram Eldering's (1865-1943) violin/piano reduction of Busch's Op.20 A minor violin concerto published 1921- also yet not available at IMSLP, alas.)

[eschiss1]

There's a thesis on all of Busch's piano works, downloadable online
here, written by Jakob Fichert as part of his PhD for the University of York in 2022. (It focuses on the solo piano works, but the piano concerto is discussed at some length - along with the symphony, for that matter, though not a piano work!- to give some context to his Op.25 piano sonata (Chapter 6, pp.129-48, especially section 4. Footnote: "The piano concerto was premiered on December 19, 1924 with Rudolf Serkin as soloist accompanied by the Dresdner Staatskapelle under Fritz Busch. See Lehmann and Faber, Rudolf Serkin, 55.")

(Which means also that the "1925" composition date on the library entry of the full score needs some explanation, given the 1924 premiere date )

[tuatara442442]

I was just skimming through that treatise, too. Some examples of the PC were given. As I was quite ignorant about musical theory and analysis, a thorough reading would wait for future
(began to try to learn from basics a few weeks ago).
The thesis curiously refers to a second recording of the Sonata in 2020 by Fichert, which comes later than the toccata classics recording, and apparently not commercially available.
And it also seems to confirm that the Symphony is really not numbered, yet I saw descriptions of his oeuvres containing "symphonies" (doesn't mean he didn't wrote other ones, though).
Finally, while searching I came across ASO's webpage introducing his Three Études for Orch., mentioning the late-1940 broadcast premiere by William Steinberg. Wonder if anyone recorded it.

[tuatara442442]

And it also seems to confirm that the Symphony is really not numbered, yet I saw descriptions of his oeuvres containing "symphonies" (doesn't mean he didn't wrote other ones, though).

The Klassika page lists two other symphonies, in B min and B-flat min

[eschiss1]

the former his Op.10, they write, and the latter, Op.51, published by Edition 49, and having a final chorus/section with chorus.

[tuatara442442]

This programme (Die besondere Aufnahme) always features recordings which sooner or later will appear on disc or sometimes have just been released.

In most cases you can find the complete broadcast a day later here for downloading:
https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/die-besondere-aufnahme-100.html

thank you for your upload! I listened the Mov I 3 times to grasp the chromaticism and the rest is an easy ride. Just like his Sonata, in the Mov I, the 1st subject is chromatic, Regerite and hard to crack, the 2nd a more traditional lyrical theme. But I feel the Mov I of Reger's PC feels much more like endless chromatic-scale-climbing, while the latter movements are better.
It's more accessible than the more chromatic and slowish-throughout Kletzki PC, but not as instantly ear-catching as the Weigl F Minor PC.

[eschiss1]

The thesis mentions that the three movements of the piano concerto are
I. Allegro non troppo ma con brio
II. Andante tranquillo
III. Allegro moderato e giocoso

- information I have not yet obtained elsewhere though I haven't yet tried to get a copy of the concerto through interlibrary loan e.g.

[Alan Howe]

Thanks, Eric. Great research, as ever.