Two lp releases, in sequential order, on the Relief label today. Both contain live performances of Beethoven's 7th Symphony and Brahms' 4th Symphony, from October 1950, featuring Fritz Busch conducting the Vienna Symphony Orchestra.
I have tremendous respect for the Busch brothers, Fritz the conductor and Adolf the violinist. Both were men of great integrity and sense of purpose and the recorded documentation they left behind, in terms of performance, is among the most consistent in artistry of anything out there. In particular, Fritz's series of Mozart operas from Glyndebourne have long been viewed as benchmarks in performance.
These two recordings capture Busch's sense of line and organic structure extremely well. Both Beethoven and Brahms were core to his repertoire so the performances combine a great sense of authority with a deep knowledge of what the works are about. In spite of some untidiness in the playing, these are afterall live recordings, the orchestra responds to Busch touchingly and with great respect. We are fortunate to have these documents, considering they were made only months before Busch's untimely, and early, death.
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