The most amazing thing about these recordings of Brahms' G minor Piano Quartet and G major Violin Sonata by the Busch Ensemble is not that they're so soulful and so musical, it's that they're so out of tune and out of sync. For listeners who grew up with the idea that the first duty of performers is to get the notes right, this will be quite a shock to the system. How can performances in which the players are so often excruciatingly flat, in which the rhythms are so often painfully disjointed, in which the ensemble is so ...
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The most amazing thing about these recordings of Brahms' G minor Piano Quartet and G major Violin Sonata by the Busch Ensemble is not that they're so soulful and so musical, it's that they're so out of tune and out of sync. For listeners who grew up with the idea that the first duty of performers is to get the notes right, this will be quite a shock to the system. How can performances in which the players are so often excruciatingly flat, in which the rhythms are so often painfully disjointed, in which the ensemble is so often appallingly sloppy be so deeply soulful and wonderfully musical? It's simple. Fifty years ago, when getting the notes right was important but getting the spirit right was more important, it was possible for players as skilled as violinist Adolf Busch and pianist Rudolf Serkin to play out of tune and out of sync and still be considered great musicians. Which, of course, they are. Listen to the nuanced melancholy of the Allegro that opens the quartet -- does it matter that the...
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