Surely the appearance of a volume of fourteen
quite distinctive songs by a virtually unknown composer, written
between 1933 and 1944, must set us running to consult Professor
Banfield’s encyclopaedic account of English song – yet only
to find that neglect has pursued him there also. Banfield’s
reasoned disclaimer why, in company with Bowen, Felix White,
Rebecca Clarke and others, Busch is not discussed at length
is perfectly understandable. One may have known of these songs
– but where to find them until now? Only five had previously
been published (by OUP) in the 1940s.
Anyhow, as with the equally neglected Erik Chisholm,
it is a daughter who has now moved to right this unfortunate
state of affairs, and which has resulted in this present publication
by a young and enterprising publisher. From her account of her
father(www.musicweb.uk.net/classrev/2003/Nov03/William_Busch.htm)
it seems however that his neglect was not entirely due to lack
of discernment on the part of the establishment – for Busch
himself, trained initially as a concert pianist, was, in her
words, “dogged with frustration at his inability to get down
to serious composition”.
William Busch was born in England of German parents
in 1901. The family had spent some years in South Africa and, at the age of fourteen, William
had travelled to New York to study for five
years.
Further study in Berlin lasted for three years before his father,
concerned at the cost of his son’s studies, brought him back
to England A considerable time was taken in developing his talent
as a pianist, although throughout the urge to compose was strong.
It appears that he mixed with musical circles
that thought highly of his work. He took composition lessons
from Alan Bush, and from John Ireland: Gerald Finzi also encouraged
him (indeed in these songs one can hear the occasional influence
of Finzi) There seems little doubt that indecision as to the
future, further hampered by parental misgivings, led to depression,
nervous frustration and the development of a self-effacing personality,
all exacerbated by his ambivalent feelings about the war with
Germany, where he still had many friends, in 1939. The meagre
recompense from recital work however probably concentrated his
mind on composition for, although late in the day, there was
a change of fortunes. In the next decade his creative ability
became productive – and it is unfortunate that the war intervened
just at this juncture which also involved him in the stress
of a conscientious objector tribunal. More attention might surely
then have followed performances of a Piano Concerto (1939),
a Piano Quartet (1939/40) and a Cello Concerto (1940/41) and
several piano works premiered by himself. A Violin Concerto
was also in progress – but his tragic and untimely death in
January 1945 meant that this was never completed. Had the CD
revolution taken place then things might have been different,
for performance, even broadcasts, in the late 1930s and early
1940s are long enough ago to be forgotten.
The list of works in such a short life must be
considered impressive – and now publication of some of these
items. In addition to the volume of songs, is announced by this
young publisher. For the present however no in-depth assessment
is possible, and we must simply consider that the good opinions
of such as John Ireland, Alan Bush and Finzi may at least vouch
for his position in the music of these decades before and during
the war. What we do now have is this volume of fourteen songs
– settings of Campion, Blake, Keats and others – which might
suggest a predisposition for the English lyric voice.
This however, is just what it does not. The music,
on this showing, is not the stuff of English song – if it suggests
anyone from that era it reminds me a little of Holst in its
spare texture. There are no lush clusters of harmony, no pastoral
melismata (even in Blake’s Shepherd) – but a deeply-felt, even
agonised sentiment. This is particularly true of the brief cycle
to poems of the Northumbrian Wilfrid W Gibson, even although
Gibson’s actual experience of War (1914-18) was also vicarious.
The text is pointed, often by a single note, and there is true
agony in the skeletal codas. His setting of ‘Come O Come my
Life’s Delight’ is almost reserved, lacking the exultation of
Quilter’s setting, touching the latter perhaps only in the eighth
bar. The most immediately appealing is the first song ‘Rest’
to words by the Irish poet and mystic AE (George W Russell)
the opening canonic pattern being developed cogently into a
deeply felt and most moving song. The setting too of Keats –
‘To Autumn’ a quasi-scena, originally written for voice and
string quartet as is evident in the texture – is quite different
from the spare texture of many of the other songs, and is an
important work that should be recorded in its original medium.
Overall these highly original songs show a distinct
and strong musical personality – one who wastes no words (or
notes) in drawing lithe and sinuous contrapuntal phrases which
tint rather than colour the text. On this too brief acquaintance
Busch is a composer whose longer works must not remain longer
neglected.
Colin Scott-Sutherland
Foreword by John Amis - JustAccord Music
