Early Life
Busch was born on March 13. 1890 in Siegen, Province of Westphalia, the son of a former itinerant musician. His brothers were also musicians, the violinist Adolf Busch and the cellist Hermann Busch. He attended the Cologne Conservatory in 1906 where he studied conducting with Fritz Steinbach. He served as conductor at Deutsches Theater, Riga in 1909, and from 1911 to 1912 toured as a pianist. Busch was hired as the music director by the city of Aachen in 1912, and worked there until the beginning of World War I, when he enlisted. At the end of the war, he returned to Aachen where he conducted the Aachen Municipal Opera. However six weeks later, he was appointed music director of the Stuttgart Opera. There he became known for his efforts to increase the breadth of the repertoire including featuring new composers, such as Paul Hindemith and Hans Pfitzner. His performances, including modern stagings and set designs by Adolphe Appia for Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle operas, led to his increasing renown. In 1922 he was appointed the music director of the Dresden State Opera. During his tenure of 11 years he kept the opera at the highest level, combining innovative, provocative stagings, with prominent artists engaged to design costumes and sets. He premiered works by Richard Strauss (Intermezzo (1924) and Die Ägyptische Helena (1928), Ferruccio Busoni (Doktor Faust (1925), Hindemith (Cardillac (1926), and Kurt Weill (Der Protagonist (1926). In 1924 he made his only appearance at the Bayreuth Festival conducting Die Meistersinger. Upon arrival, he decided to attend to a chorus rehearsal that was in progress, only to be dragooned into the tenor section by the chorus master Hugo Rüdel who had mistaken him for a member of the choir. His 1932 Salzburg Festival production of Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail, which was designed by Carl Ebert and was sung by a carefully selected cast, was a highly successful collaboration.
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