ADOLF BUSCH: THE LIFE OF AN HONEST MUSICIAN. Complete in Two Volumes: Vol. I: 1891-1939; Vol. II: 1939-52.

First edition, first printing. Two Volumes. Original black cloth lettered in gilt to spines, in the illustrated dustwrappers. Each volume with a Compact Disc in a plastic wallet affixed to the rear pastedown. A fine set, the bindings square and firm, the cloth and gilt sharp, the contents clean and bright throughout. In the fine, unclipped and unpriced dustwrappers. Scarce in the original cloth (the volumes have been reissued in print-on-demand format).

Tully Potter's monumental two-volume biography of Adolf Busch, over thirty years in the making, weighs in at over 1400 pages and documents the great violinist's life in painstaking detail. Busch was founder and leader of the great Busch Quartet (still the benchmark for Beethoven and Schubert recordings), leader of his own conductorless orchestra, one of the busiest soloists active between the wars, and a composer to boot. His politically motivated decision to boycott both Germany and Italy during the 1930s seriously reduced his income and hindered his career, leading to his emigration to the US in 1939. Potter's appendices consider Busch as violinist, violist and teacher, his repertoire, his interpretations, his colleagues, his recordings and compositions. There are also two compact discs, one featuring Busch as performer, the other as composer. "[T]hanks to Tully Potter's two-volume biography [...], what [Busch] achieved and suffered, what made him the transcendent musician he was – the idealism and moral greatness that suffused his interpretations, above all of Beethoven – are for the first time laid out for all to see." (David Cairns, The Sunday Times).