In 1909 Busch spent a season as conductor at the Deutsches Theater, Riga, and in 1911 and 1912 he toured as a pianist. He was then appointed director of music for the city of Aachen with responsibility for the Municipal Opera and the city's celebrated choral society. Among those whose works he premiered there were Donald Tovey, who became a close friend of Busch and his brothers. In 1911 Busch married Margarete Boettcher; their first son, Hans, later a stage director, was born in 1914. Busch remained at Aachen until the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, when he enlisted in the German army, rising from the ranks to become a junior officer. In 1918 Busch successfully applied for the vacant post of Württemberg Court Kapellmeister – musical director of the Stuttgart Opera – in succession to Max von Schillings. The conservative tradition of the house, until then the court opera of the Kingdom of Württemberg within the German Empire, was swept away in the November Revolution of 1918, and Busch took advantage of the freedom to widen the repertoire, introducing new works by composers including Hindemith and Pfitzner, and presenting modern stagings such as Adolphe Appia's for Wagner's "Ring". In 1922, Busch was appointed musical director of the Dresden State Opera. In the words of "The Musical Times": This was success indeed: a musician in his early thirties raised to the post where Ernst von Schuch himself had conducted the premieres of [Richard Strauss's] "Salome", "Elektra" and "Der Rosenkavalier". No opera house in Germany held greater repute. Under Fritz Busch Dresden maintained its lead. To Dresden's series of Strauss premieres Busch added "Intermezzo" (1924) and "Die ägyptische Helena" (1928)). He presented the world premieres of works by Ferruccio Busoni ("Doktor Faust", 1925), Paul Hindemith ("Cardillac", 1926) and Kurt Weill ("Der Protagonist", 1926), and others, and the German premiere of Puccini's "Turandot" (1926). During his eleven-year tenure he kept the Dresden house at the highest level, mounting innovative, provocative stagings with the help of prominent costume and set designers. In 1924 Busch conducted "Die Meistersinger" at the first post-war Bayreuth Festival.