The earliest known public performance by Adolf Busch took place on 17 November 1895, in Siegen: before an audience of two hundred teachers, the four-year-old played a solo to Fritz's piano accompaniment well enough to earn a round of applause; a brief mention in the local paper; and, more to his taste, a fee of two frankfurters and a glass of milk. The boys’ first paid engagement was less formal, more in line with Fritz's comment that they ‘lived like real street arabs’. Adolf was having violin lessons from a tubercular young man on the other side of town and Fritz would walk with him to the teacher's lodgings, playing a six-keyed piccolo borrowed from their father's shop. Adolf required little encouragement to strike up on his fiddle and the two of them would give impromptu concerts in the market place, opposite the town hall. One day they got carried away, stayed longer than usual and provoked a kindly onlooker into taking a collection for them from their motley audience. When the boys proudly took home 2 Marks 17 Pfennigs, their parents were horrified and firmly forbade any further public displays of their artistry. Yet their fame was spreading in the locality and at an evening concert of the town choral society Adolf and Fritz both played solos, finishing with a joint rendering of variations on The Carnival of Venice. Bored by his simple accompaniment, Fritz began to improvise at the keyboard and Adolf was first amused, then enraged, as he lost his place in the music. He laid into Fritz with his bow, Fritz retaliated – and the curtain was hastily lowered on a furious fist fight. ‘Nowadays’, Fritz remarked later, ‘we settle our differences in a more intellectual fashion.’

Adolf showed other signs of temperament. When he was scolded for doing anything wrong, he was liable to bang his head against the wall in fury and frustration. He was the introspective half of the Busch ‘musical twins’, lacking Fritz's sang-froid: his self-confidence was harder won. When he started at the local school at Easter 1898, he was always in trouble with the staff, incurring regular thrashings until his class teacher discovered he was a violinist and asked what he could play. ‘The Concerto by Bériot.’ – ‘Then play it for us.