Ferruccio Busoni
Encyclopedia
Ferruccio Busoni (April 1, 1866 – July 27, 1924) was an Italian composer
, pianist
, editor, writer, piano and composition teacher, and conductor
.
in Tuscany
in Italy, the only child of two professional musicians. His father, Ferdinando, was a clarinet
ist and man-about-town. Though his mother, Anna, had a German surname (Weiss) she was an Italian from Trieste
, and a pianist. They were often touring during his childhood, and he was brought up in Trieste
for the most part.
Busoni was a child prodigy
. He made his public debut on the piano
with his parents, at the age of seven. A couple of years later he played some of his own compositions in Vienna
where he heard Franz Liszt
play, and met Liszt, Johannes Brahms
and Anton Rubinstein
.
Busoni had a brief period of study in Graz
with Wilhelm Mayer
(who used the pseudonym of W. A. Rémy and also taught Felix Weingartner
) and was also helped by Wilhelm Kienzl
, who enabled him to conduct a performance of his own composition 'Stabat Mater' when he was twelve years old, before leaving for Leipzig
in 1886 where he studied with Carl Reinecke
(a former pupil of Felix Mendelssohn
and Robert Schumann
). He subsequently held several teaching posts, the first in 1888 at Helsinki
, where he met his wife, Gerda Sjöstrand, the daughter of Swedish sculptor Carl Eneas Sjöstrand
, and began a lifelong friendship with Jean Sibelius
. In 1890 he won the Anton Rubinstein Competition
with his Concert Piece for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 31a. He taught in Moscow
in 1890, and in the United States from 1891 to 1894 where he also toured as a virtuoso pianist.
In 1894 he settled in Berlin
, giving a series of concerts there both as pianist and conductor. He particularly promoted contemporary music. He also continued to teach in a number of masterclasses at Weimar
, Vienna
and Basel
; among his pupils were Egon Petri
and Stanley Gardner
. His piano playing and philosophy of music influenced Claudio Arrau
and Alfred Brendel
.
In 1907, he penned his Sketch of a New Aesthetic of Music, lamenting the traditional music "lawgivers", and predicting a future music that included the division of the octave into more than the traditional 12 degrees. His philosophy that "Music was born free; and to win freedom is its destiny," greatly influenced his students Percy Grainger
and Edgard Varèse
, both of whom played significant roles in the 20th century opening of music to all sound.
.jpg)
During World War I
, Busoni lived first in Bologna
, where he directed the conservatory, and later in Zürich
. He refused to perform in any countries that were involved in the war. He returned to Berlin in 1920 where he gave master classes in composition. He had several composition pupils who went on to become famous, including Kurt Weill
, Edgard Varèse
and Stefan Wolpe
.
Other notable Busoni pupils included Egon Petri
, Alexander Brailowsky
, Natalie Curtis
, Maud Allan
(the famous dancer), Michael von Zadora, Louis Gruenberg
, Dimitris Mitropoulos
, Beryl Rubinstein
, Edward Steuermann, Dimitri Tiomkin
, Rudolf Ganz, Augusta Cottlow, Leo Kestenberg, Gregor Beklemischeff, Leo Sirota
, Edward Weiss, Theophil Demetriescu, Theodor Szàntò, Gino Tagliapietra, Gottfried Galston, Otto Luening
, Gisella Selden-Goth, Philipp Jarnach
, Vladimir Vogel, Guido Guerrini, Woldemar Freeman, and Robert Blum.
Busoni died in Berlin from a kidney
disease. He was interred in the Städtischen Friedhof III, Berlin-Schöneberg
, Stubenrauchstraße 43-45. He left a few recordings of his playing as well as a number of piano roll
s. His compositions were largely neglected for many years after his death, but he was remembered as a great virtuoso and arranger of Bach for the piano. Around the 1980s there was a revival of interest in his work.
He is commemorated by a plaque at the site of his last residence in Berlin-Schöneberg, Viktoria-Luise-Platz
11, and by the Ferruccio Busoni International Competition
.
Most of Busoni's works are for the piano. Busoni's music is typically contrapuntally
complex, with several melodic lines unwinding at once. Although his music is never entirely atonal
in the Schoenberg
ian sense, his mature works, beginning with the Elegies
, are often in indeterminate key
. He was in contact with Schoenberg, and made a 'concert interpretation' of the latter's 'atonal' Piano Piece, Op. 11
, No. 2 (BV B 97), in 1909. In the program notes for the premiere of his own Sonatina seconda of 1912, Busoni calls the work senza tonalità (without tonality). Johann Sebastian Bach
and Franz Liszt
were key influences, though late in his career much of his music has a neo-classical
bent, and includes melodies resembling Mozart's
.
Some idea of Busoni's mature attitude to composition can be gained from his 1907 manifesto, Sketch of a New Aesthetic of Music, a publication somewhat controversial in its time. As well as discussing then little-explored areas such as electronic music
and microtonal music
(both techniques he never employed), he asserted that music should distill the essence of music of the past to make something new.
Many of Busoni's works are based on music of the past, especially on the music of Johann Sebastian Bach
(see below). The first version of Busoni's largest and best known solo piano work, Fantasia Contrappuntistica
, was published in 1910. About half an hour in length, it is essentially an extended fantasy on the final incomplete fugue from Bach's The Art of Fugue
. It uses several melodic figures found in Bach's work, most notably the BACH motif
(B flat, A, C, B natural). Busoni revised the work a number of times and arranged it for two pianos. Versions have also been made for organ
and for orchestra.
Busoni used elements of other composers' works. The fourth movement of An die Jugend
(1909), for instance, uses two of Niccolò Paganini
's Caprices for solo violin
(numbers 11 and 15), while the 1920 piece Piano Sonatina No. 6 (Fantasia da camera super Carmen) is based on themes from Georges Bizet
's opera Carmen
.
Busoni also drew inspiration from non-European sources, including Indian Fantasy
for piano and orchestra. It was composed in 1913 and is based on North American indigenous tribal melodies drawn from the studies of this native music by ethnomusicologist
, Natalie Curtis Burlin
.
Busoni was a virtuoso pianist, and his works for piano are difficult to perform. His Piano Concerto, Op. 39
(1904) is one of the largest such works ever written. Performances generally last over seventy minutes, requiring great stamina from the soloist. The concerto is written for a large orchestra with a male voice choir
that is hidden from the audience's view in the last movement. British pianist John Ogdon
, one of the champions of the work, called it "the longest and grandest piano concerto of all." (However, it was not the first piano concerto to include a chorus, as is often assumed; Daniel Steibelt
wrote a similar work in 1820.)
Busoni's Turandot Suite
(1905), probably his most popular orchestral work, was expanded into his opera
Turandot
in 1917, and Busoni completed two other operas, Die Brautwahl
(1911) and Arlecchino
(1917). He began serious work on his best known opera, Doktor Faust
, in 1916, leaving it incomplete at his death. It was then finished by his student Philipp Jarnach
, who worked with Busoni's sketches as he knew of them, but in the 1980s Antony Beaumont
, the author of an important Busoni biography, created an expanded and improved completion by drawing on material that Jarnach did not have access to.
His music falls in that most fractious of periods, the fin de siècle, where chromatic elements became part of the structure of the music, rather than being decoration. By studying Busoni's aesthetic beliefs we can suggest that his music is metatonal - given that he sought to include the old with the new to create limitless compositions. This is not to suggest (as Pfitzner
did, when he attacked The Sketch of a New Aesthetic of Music by Busoni) that his music is without form, nor is it without any sense of tonality (a common mistake when one finds oneself between Classical and Serial music). This grey area of music history is more engaging because the traditional forms and pitch structures have taken a side road, a road that did not ultimately lead to serialism.
In order to understand Busoni's compositions one should take only what is given in the music, and interpret them through his aesthetic beliefs (though this is no easy task, and the everpresent binarism between what a composer says and what a composer does should be kept in mind). Busoni can be recognised as a man with a variety of musical abilities. He wrote compositions and libretti, performed as a concert pianist, transcribed pieces by other composers (such as Bach, Mozart and Liszt), taught master classes, and produced aesthetic writings. It is to this end that Busoni considered music a fusion of disciplines, or to use his words 'to recognise the whole phenomenon of music as 'oneness'. (Busoni, 'The Essence of Oneness of Music', 1921).
For more information on this see: Paul Fleet, Ferruccio Busoni: A Phenomenological Approach to his Music and Aesthetics (Lambert Academic Publishing, 2009).
, Liszt
, and Mozart.
The best known of these is his edition of the solo keyboard works of Bach
, which he edited with the assistance of his students Egon Petri
and Bruno Mugellini. He adds tempo markings, articulation and phrase markings, dynamics and metronome markings to the original Bach, as well as extensive performance suggestions. In the Goldberg Variations (BV B 35), for example, he suggests cutting eight of the variations for a "concert performance", as well as substantially rewriting many sections. The edition of the Goldberg Variations remains controversial, but has recently been reprinted. Its world premiere recording was by Sara Davis Buechner
(aka David Buechner).
He created many other piano transcriptions of Bach works, including Toccata and Fugue in D Minor (BV B 29, no. 2) (originally for organ
) and Chaconne (BV B 24) from the Partita No. 2 in D minor for solo violin, BWV 1004. Busoni became so well-known as a transcriber of Bach's pieces, that the name "Bach-Busoni" was sometimes mistaken for his surname, and on one occasion his wife was introduced to someone as "Mrs. Bach-Busoni".
He edited three volumes of the 34-volume Franz Liszt Stiftung edition of Liszt's works, including most of the etudes. The Liszt edition was a scholarly endeavor and was faithful to the originals, but Busoni also prepared more freely adapted versions intended for concert performance, including transcriptions of the Paganini-Liszt etudes. The most famous of these is La Campanella (BV B 68), which has been championed by pianists such as Ignaz Friedman
and Josef Lhévinne
, and more recently by John Ogdon
. Another famous transcription is his piano arrangement of Franz Liszt's organ work Fantasy and Fugue on the chorale "Ad nos, ad salutarem undam" (BV B 59).
On a smaller scale, Busoni edited works by Beethoven
, Brahms
, Chopin
, Schoenberg
and Schumann
.
In the last seven years of his life Busoni worked sporadically on the Klavierübung
, a compilation of exercises, transcriptions, and original compositions of his own, with which he hoped to pass on his accumulated knowledge of keyboard technique. It was issued in five parts between 1918 and 1922, and a second edition was published posthumously in 1925.
He had definite views on some composers. Franz Schubert
he considered "a gifted amateur". He felt Beethoven did not have the technique to express his emotions. He ridiculed Robert Schumann
's Carnaval
. But he considered Felix Mendelssohn
"a master of undisputed greatness" and "an heir of Mozart". He was planning to play some of Mendelssohn's Songs without Words
in a series of recitals in London in the year of his death.
was very limited, and unfortunately many of the original recordings were destroyed when the Columbia
factory burnt down. The following pieces (recorded for Columbia) survive from February 1922:
Busoni also mentions recording the Gounod-Liszt Faust Waltz in a letter to his wife in 1919. However, this recording was never released. Originally, he had recorded a considerable number of other pieces, including Liszt's Sonata in B minor
and Beethoven's Hammerklavier Sonata
. Unfortunately for posterity, Busoni never recorded his original works. Kaikhosru Sorabji
, a fervent admirer, found the records to be the best piano recordings ever made, when they were first released.
s, and a small number of these have been re-recorded onto vinyl record or CD. The value of these recordings in ascertaining Busoni's performance style is a matter of some dispute. Many of his colleagues and students expressed disappointment with the recordings and felt they did not truly represent Busoni's pianism. His student Egon Petri
was horrified by the piano roll recordings when they first appeared on LP and said that it was a travesty of Busoni's playing. Similarly, Petri's student Gunnar Johansen
who had heard Busoni play on several occasions, remarked, "Of Busoni's piano rolls and recordings, only Feux follets (Liszt's 5th Transcendental Etude) is really something unique. The rest is curiously unconvincing. The recordings, especially of Chopin
, are a plain misalliance".
In 1950 Columbia Records released five individual long playing records entitled Great Masters of the Keyboard. They were designated Volume I, II, III, IV, and V. The records were sourced from piano rolls made by The Welte Company of Germany. Volume II (ML 4292) featured Busoni on side one. He plays three pieces:
1) Paganini-Liszt: La Campanella (Etude No. 3);
2) Chopin: Prelude No. 15 in D-flat Major, Op. 28 ("Raindrop");
3) Beethoven-Liszt: Fantasia on "Ruins of Athens".
The liner notes refer to Busoni as "One of the towering pianists of all time."
.
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
, pianist
Pianist
A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...
, editor, writer, piano and composition teacher, and conductor
Conducting
Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...
.
Biography
Ferruccio Busoni was born in EmpoliEmpoli
Empoli is a town and comune in Tuscany, Italy, about 20 km southwest of Florence, to the south of the Arno in a plain formed by the latter river. The plain has been usable for agriculture since Roman times. The commune's territory becomes a hilly one as it departs from the river...
in Tuscany
Tuscany
Tuscany is a region in Italy. It has an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.75 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence ....
in Italy, the only child of two professional musicians. His father, Ferdinando, was a clarinet
Clarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...
ist and man-about-town. Though his mother, Anna, had a German surname (Weiss) she was an Italian from Trieste
Trieste
Trieste is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is situated towards the end of a narrow strip of land lying between the Adriatic Sea and Italy's border with Slovenia, which lies almost immediately south and east of the city...
, and a pianist. They were often touring during his childhood, and he was brought up in Trieste
Trieste
Trieste is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is situated towards the end of a narrow strip of land lying between the Adriatic Sea and Italy's border with Slovenia, which lies almost immediately south and east of the city...
for the most part.
Busoni was a child prodigy
Child prodigy
A child prodigy is someone who, at an early age, masters one or more skills far beyond his or her level of maturity. One criterion for classifying prodigies is: a prodigy is a child, typically younger than 18 years old, who is performing at the level of a highly trained adult in a very demanding...
. He made his public debut on the piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
with his parents, at the age of seven. A couple of years later he played some of his own compositions in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
where he heard Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...
play, and met Liszt, Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
and Anton Rubinstein
Anton Rubinstein
Anton Grigorevich Rubinstein was a Russian-Jewish pianist, composer and conductor. As a pianist he was regarded as a rival of Franz Liszt, and he ranks amongst the great keyboard virtuosos...
.
Busoni had a brief period of study in Graz
Graz
The more recent population figures do not give the whole picture as only people with principal residence status are counted and people with secondary residence status are not. Most of the people with secondary residence status in Graz are students...
with Wilhelm Mayer
Wilhelm Mayer
Wilhelm Mayer was a German Luftwaffe ace and recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross during World War II. The Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross was awarded to recognise extreme battlefield bravery or successful military leadership. On 4 January 1945, Wilhelm Mayer was killed after being...
(who used the pseudonym of W. A. Rémy and also taught Felix Weingartner
Felix Weingartner
Paul Felix von Weingartner, Edler von Münzberg was an Austrian conductor, composer and pianist.-Biography:...
) and was also helped by Wilhelm Kienzl
Wilhelm Kienzl
Wilhelm Kienzl was an Austrian composer.-Biography:Kienzl was born in the small, picturesque Upper Austrian town of Waizenkirchen. His family moved to the Styrian capital of Graz in 1860, where he studied the violin under Ignaz Uhl, piano under Johann Buwa, and composition from 1872 under the...
, who enabled him to conduct a performance of his own composition 'Stabat Mater' when he was twelve years old, before leaving for Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
in 1886 where he studied with Carl Reinecke
Carl Reinecke
Carl Heinrich Carsten Reinecke was a German composer, conductor, and pianist.-Biography:Reinecke was born in Altona, Hamburg, Germany; until 1864 the town was under Danish rule. He studied with his father, Johann Peter Rudolph Reinecke, a music teacher...
(a former pupil of Felix Mendelssohn
Felix Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...
and Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....
). He subsequently held several teaching posts, the first in 1888 at Helsinki
Helsinki
Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...
, where he met his wife, Gerda Sjöstrand, the daughter of Swedish sculptor Carl Eneas Sjöstrand
Carl Eneas Sjöstrand
Carl Eneas Sjöstrand was a Swedish sculptor.He was born and died in Stockholm. He is the father of Gerda Sjöstrand, the pianist who married Ferruccio Busoni.-External links:* in English*...
, and began a lifelong friendship with Jean Sibelius
Jean Sibelius
Jean Sibelius was a Finnish composer of the later Romantic period whose music played an important role in the formation of the Finnish national identity. His mastery of the orchestra has been described as "prodigious."...
. In 1890 he won the Anton Rubinstein Competition
Anton Rubinstein Competition
The original Anton Rubinstein Competition was staged by Rubinstein himself every five years from 1890 to 1910 . The winners of the piano competition usually received a white Schroeder piano as the prize. Winners include:...
with his Concert Piece for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 31a. He taught in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
in 1890, and in the United States from 1891 to 1894 where he also toured as a virtuoso pianist.
In 1894 he settled in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, giving a series of concerts there both as pianist and conductor. He particularly promoted contemporary music. He also continued to teach in a number of masterclasses at Weimar
Weimar
Weimar is a city in Germany famous for its cultural heritage. It is located in the federal state of Thuringia , north of the Thüringer Wald, east of Erfurt, and southwest of Halle and Leipzig. Its current population is approximately 65,000. The oldest record of the city dates from the year 899...
, Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
and Basel
Basel
Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...
; among his pupils were Egon Petri
Egon Petri
Egon Petri was a classical pianist.-Biography:Petri's family was Dutch and he was born a Dutch citizen, but he was born in Hanover in Germany and was brought up in Dresden. His father was a professional violinist who taught his son that instrument. Petri played in the Dresden Court Orchestra and...
and Stanley Gardner
Stanley Gardner
Stanley Gardner was a Canadian pianist and music educator. As a performer he was best known as one half of a piano duo with Rose Goldblatt with whom he performed in concerts throughout Canada and on Canadian radio from 1936-1945...
. His piano playing and philosophy of music influenced Claudio Arrau
Claudio Arrau
Claudio Arrau León was a Chilean pianist known for his interpretations of a vast repertoire spanning from the baroque to 20th-century composers, especially Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Brahms and Debussy...
and Alfred Brendel
Alfred Brendel
Alfred Brendel KBE is an Austrian pianist, born in Czechoslovakia and a resident of the United Kingdom. He is also a poet and author.-Biography:...
.
In 1907, he penned his Sketch of a New Aesthetic of Music, lamenting the traditional music "lawgivers", and predicting a future music that included the division of the octave into more than the traditional 12 degrees. His philosophy that "Music was born free; and to win freedom is its destiny," greatly influenced his students Percy Grainger
Percy Grainger
George Percy Aldridge Grainger , known as Percy Grainger, was an Australian-born composer, arranger and pianist. In the course of a long and innovative career he played a prominent role in the revival of interest in British folk music in the early years of the 20th century. He also made many...
and Edgard Varèse
Edgard Varèse
Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse, , whose name was also spelled Edgar Varèse , was an innovative French-born composer who spent the greater part of his career in the United States....
, both of whom played significant roles in the 20th century opening of music to all sound.
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, Busoni lived first in Bologna
Bologna
Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...
, where he directed the conservatory, and later in Zürich
Zürich
Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...
. He refused to perform in any countries that were involved in the war. He returned to Berlin in 1920 where he gave master classes in composition. He had several composition pupils who went on to become famous, including Kurt Weill
Kurt Weill
Kurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...
, Edgard Varèse
Edgard Varèse
Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse, , whose name was also spelled Edgar Varèse , was an innovative French-born composer who spent the greater part of his career in the United States....
and Stefan Wolpe
Stefan Wolpe
Stefan Wolpe was a German-born composer.-Life:Wolpe was born in Berlin. He attended the Klindworth-Scharwenka Conservatory from the age of fourteen, and the Berlin Hochschule für Musik in 1920-1921. He studied composition under Franz Schreker and was also a pupil of Ferruccio Busoni...
.
Other notable Busoni pupils included Egon Petri
Egon Petri
Egon Petri was a classical pianist.-Biography:Petri's family was Dutch and he was born a Dutch citizen, but he was born in Hanover in Germany and was brought up in Dresden. His father was a professional violinist who taught his son that instrument. Petri played in the Dresden Court Orchestra and...
, Alexander Brailowsky
Alexander Brailowsky
Alexander Brailowsky was a Ukrainian French pianist who specialized in the works of Frédéric Chopin. He was a leading concert pianist in the years between the two World Wars.-Early life:...
, Natalie Curtis
Natalie Curtis
Natalie Curtis was an American ethnomusicologist. Curtis, along with Alice Cunningham Fletcher and Frances Densmore, was one of a small group of women doing important ethnological studies in North America at the beginning of the 20th century...
, Maud Allan
Maud Allan
Maud Allan was a pianist-turned-actor, dancer and choreographer remembered for her "famously impressionistic mood settings".- Early life :...
(the famous dancer), Michael von Zadora, Louis Gruenberg
Louis Gruenberg
-Life and career:He was born near Brest-Litovsk , to Abe Gruenberg and Klara Kantarovitch. His family emigrated to the United States when he was a few months old. His father worked as a violinist in New York City...
, Dimitris Mitropoulos
Dimitris Mitropoulos
Dimitri Mitropoulos , was a Greek conductor, pianist, and composer. Also known as Dimitris Mitropoulos.-Life and career:Mitropoulos was born in Athens, the son of Yannis and Angeliki Mitropoulos. His father owned a leather goods shop at No. 15, St Marks Street. He was musically precocious,...
, Beryl Rubinstein
Beryl Rubinstein
Beryl Rubinstein was an American pianist, composer. and teacher.Rubinstein was born in Athens, Georgia, where his father Isaac Rubinstein was the rabbi of the Congregation of the Children of Israel. He was a child prodigy on the piano, and made his New York City debut in 1911, with a concert at...
, Edward Steuermann, Dimitri Tiomkin
Dimitri Tiomkin
Dimitri Zinovievich Tiomkin was a Russian-born Hollywood film score composer and conductor. He is considered "one of the giants of Hollywood movie music." Musically trained in Russia, he is best known for his westerns, "where his expansive, muscular style had its greatest impact." Tiomkin...
, Rudolf Ganz, Augusta Cottlow, Leo Kestenberg, Gregor Beklemischeff, Leo Sirota
Leo Sirota
Leo Sirota was a Jewish pianist born in Kamianets-Podilskyi, Podolskaya Guberniya, Russian Empire, now Ukraine....
, Edward Weiss, Theophil Demetriescu, Theodor Szàntò, Gino Tagliapietra, Gottfried Galston, Otto Luening
Otto Luening
Otto Clarence Luening was a German-American composer and conductor, and an early pioneer of tape music and electronic music....
, Gisella Selden-Goth, Philipp Jarnach
Philipp Jarnach
Philipp Jarnach was considered in the 1920s to be one of the most important composers of modern music....
, Vladimir Vogel, Guido Guerrini, Woldemar Freeman, and Robert Blum.
Busoni died in Berlin from a kidney
Kidney
The kidneys, organs with several functions, serve essential regulatory roles in most animals, including vertebrates and some invertebrates. They are essential in the urinary system and also serve homeostatic functions such as the regulation of electrolytes, maintenance of acid–base balance, and...
disease. He was interred in the Städtischen Friedhof III, Berlin-Schöneberg
Schöneberg
Schöneberg is a locality of Berlin, Germany. Until Berlin's 2001 administrative reform it was a separate borough including the locality of Friedenau. Together with the former borough of Tempelhof it is now part of the new borough of Tempelhof-Schöneberg....
, Stubenrauchstraße 43-45. He left a few recordings of his playing as well as a number of piano roll
Piano roll
A piano roll is a music storage medium used to operate a player piano, piano player or reproducing piano. A piano roll is a continuous roll of paper with perforations punched into it. The peforations represent note control data...
s. His compositions were largely neglected for many years after his death, but he was remembered as a great virtuoso and arranger of Bach for the piano. Around the 1980s there was a revival of interest in his work.
He is commemorated by a plaque at the site of his last residence in Berlin-Schöneberg, Viktoria-Luise-Platz
Viktoria-Luise-Platz
Viktoria-Luise-Platz is an oval on Motzstraße in Schöneberg, Berlin. It was laid out in 1900. It is named after Princess Viktoria Luise of Prussia 1892 - 1980, the daughter of Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, and Great-Grand daughter of Queen Victoria....
11, and by the Ferruccio Busoni International Competition
Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition
The Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition is a music competition for young pianists that takes place in Bolzano, Italy.-History: The first Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition was organized by Cesare Nordio in 1949 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the death of pianist and...
.
Music
Counterpoint
In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more voices that are independent in contour and rhythm and are harmonically interdependent . It has been most commonly identified in classical music, developing strongly during the Renaissance and in much of the common practice period,...
complex, with several melodic lines unwinding at once. Although his music is never entirely atonal
Atonality
Atonality in its broadest sense describes music that lacks a tonal center, or key. Atonality in this sense usually describes compositions written from about 1908 to the present day where a hierarchy of pitches focusing on a single, central tone is not used, and the notes of the chromatic scale...
in the Schoenberg
Schoenberg
Schoenberg is the surname of several persons:* Arnold Schoenberg , Austrian-American composer* Claude-Michel Schoenberg , French record producer, actor, singer, popular songwriter, and musical theatre composer...
ian sense, his mature works, beginning with the Elegies
Elegies (Busoni)
Elegies by the Italian composer Ferruccio Busoni is a set of solo piano pieces which can be played as a cycle or separately. Initially published in 1908 with six pieces, it was subsequently expanded to seven by the addition of the Berceuse...
, are often in indeterminate key
Key (music)
In music theory, the term key is used in many different and sometimes contradictory ways. A common use is to speak of music as being "in" a specific key, such as in the key of C major or in the key of F-sharp. Sometimes the terms "major" or "minor" are appended, as in the key of A minor or in the...
. He was in contact with Schoenberg, and made a 'concert interpretation' of the latter's 'atonal' Piano Piece, Op. 11
Drei Klavierstücke
Drei Klavierstücke, Op. 11 is a set of pieces for solo piano written by the Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg in 1909. They represent an early example of ‘atonality’ in the composer’s work...
, No. 2 (BV B 97), in 1909. In the program notes for the premiere of his own Sonatina seconda of 1912, Busoni calls the work senza tonalità (without tonality). Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
and Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...
were key influences, though late in his career much of his music has a neo-classical
Neoclassicism (music)
Neoclassicism in music was a twentieth-century trend, particularly current in the period between the two World Wars, in which composers sought to return to aesthetic precepts associated with the broadly defined concept of "classicism", namely order, balance, clarity, economy, and emotional restraint...
bent, and includes melodies resembling Mozart's
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
.
Some idea of Busoni's mature attitude to composition can be gained from his 1907 manifesto, Sketch of a New Aesthetic of Music, a publication somewhat controversial in its time. As well as discussing then little-explored areas such as electronic music
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
and microtonal music
Microtonal music
Microtonal music is music using microtones—intervals of less than an equally spaced semitone. Microtonal music can also refer to music which uses intervals not found in the Western system of 12 equal intervals to the octave.-Terminology:...
(both techniques he never employed), he asserted that music should distill the essence of music of the past to make something new.
Many of Busoni's works are based on music of the past, especially on the music of Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
(see below). The first version of Busoni's largest and best known solo piano work, Fantasia Contrappuntistica
Fantasia Contrappuntistica
Fantasia contrappuntistica is a solo piano piece composed by Ferruccio Busoni in 1910. Busoni created several versions of the work including several for solo piano, and one for two pianos. It has been arranged for organ and for orchestra since the composer's death.The work is in large part a...
, was published in 1910. About half an hour in length, it is essentially an extended fantasy on the final incomplete fugue from Bach's The Art of Fugue
The Art of Fugue
The Art of Fugue , BWV 1080, is an incomplete work by Johann Sebastian Bach . It was most likely started at the beginning of the 1740s, if not earlier. The first known surviving version, which contained 12 fugues and 2 canons, was copied by the composer in 1745...
. It uses several melodic figures found in Bach's work, most notably the BACH motif
BACH motif
In music, the BACH motif is the motif, a succession of notes important or characteristic to a piece, B flat, A, C, B natural. In German musical nomenclature, in which the note B natural is written as H and the B flat as B, it forms Johann Sebastian Bach's family name...
(B flat, A, C, B natural). Busoni revised the work a number of times and arranged it for two pianos. Versions have also been made for organ
Organ (music)
The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...
and for orchestra.
Busoni used elements of other composers' works. The fourth movement of An die Jugend
An die Jugend
An die Jugend is a sequence of pieces of classical music for solo piano by Ferruccio Busoni.- Plan of the work :The collection was written June–August 1909 and consists of four volumes, the last with an epilogue. It was published later in the same year by Zimmermann of Leipzig under four separate...
(1909), for instance, uses two of Niccolò Paganini
Niccolò Paganini
Niccolò Paganini was an Italian violinist, violist, guitarist, and composer. He was one of the most celebrated violin virtuosi of his time, and left his mark as one of the pillars of modern violin technique...
's Caprices for solo violin
24 Caprices for Solo Violin (Paganini)
The 24 Caprices for Solo Violin, Op. 1 was written by Niccolò Paganini between 1802 and 1817 and published in 1819. They are also designated as M.S. 25 in Maria Rosa Moretti and Anna Sorrento's Catalogo tematico delle musiche di Niccolò Paganini, which was published in 1982...
(numbers 11 and 15), while the 1920 piece Piano Sonatina No. 6 (Fantasia da camera super Carmen) is based on themes from Georges Bizet
Georges Bizet
Georges Bizet formally Alexandre César Léopold Bizet, was a French composer, mainly of operas. In a career cut short by his early death, he achieved few successes before his final work, Carmen, became one of the most popular and frequently performed works in the entire opera repertory.During a...
's opera Carmen
Carmen
Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...
.
Busoni also drew inspiration from non-European sources, including Indian Fantasy
Indian Fantasy
The Indian Fantasy is a fantasy for piano and orchestra by Ferruccio Busoni. Composed in 1913, it was first performed in Zürich in January, 1916, under the direction of Volkmar Andreae. The piece is based on several melodies and rhythms from various American Indian tribes; Busoni had received...
for piano and orchestra. It was composed in 1913 and is based on North American indigenous tribal melodies drawn from the studies of this native music by ethnomusicologist
Ethnomusicology
Ethnomusicology is defined as "the study of social and cultural aspects of music and dance in local and global contexts."Coined by the musician Jaap Kunst from the Greek words ἔθνος ethnos and μουσική mousike , it is often considered the anthropology or ethnography of music...
, Natalie Curtis Burlin
Natalie Curtis
Natalie Curtis was an American ethnomusicologist. Curtis, along with Alice Cunningham Fletcher and Frances Densmore, was one of a small group of women doing important ethnological studies in North America at the beginning of the 20th century...
.
Busoni was a virtuoso pianist, and his works for piano are difficult to perform. His Piano Concerto, Op. 39
Piano Concerto (Busoni)
The Piano Concerto in C major, Op. 39 , by Ferruccio Busoni, is one of the largest works ever written in this particular genre. The concerto is in five movements, the last of which also utilizes a male chorus singing words from the final scene of the verse drama Aladdin by Adam Oehlenschläger.The...
(1904) is one of the largest such works ever written. Performances generally last over seventy minutes, requiring great stamina from the soloist. The concerto is written for a large orchestra with a male voice choir
Choir
A choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...
that is hidden from the audience's view in the last movement. British pianist John Ogdon
John Ogdon
John Andrew Howard Ogdon was an English pianist and composer.-Biography:Ogdon was born in Mansfield Woodhouse, Nottinghamshire, and attended Manchester Grammar School, before studying at the Royal Northern College of Music between 1953 and 1957, where his fellow students under Richard Hall...
, one of the champions of the work, called it "the longest and grandest piano concerto of all." (However, it was not the first piano concerto to include a chorus, as is often assumed; Daniel Steibelt
Daniel Steibelt
Daniel Gottlieb Steibelt , was a German pianist and composer who died in Saint Petersburg, Russia.-Life and music:Daniel Steibelt was born in Berlin, and studied music with Johann Kirnberger before being forced by his father to join the Prussian army. Deserting, he began a nomadic career as a...
wrote a similar work in 1820.)
Busoni's Turandot Suite
Turandot Suite
The Turandot Suite, Op. 41 is an orchestral work by Ferruccio Busoni written in 1904-5, based on Carlo Gozzi's play Turandot. The music – in one form or another – occupied Busoni at various times between the years 1904-1917. Busoni arranged the suite from incidental music which he was...
(1905), probably his most popular orchestral work, was expanded into his opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
Turandot
Turandot (Busoni)
Turandot is a 1917 opera with spoken dialogue and in two acts by Ferruccio Busoni. Busoni prepared his own libretto, in German, based on the play by Count Carlo Gozzi. The music for Busoni's opera is based on incidental music, and the associated Turandot Suite , which Busoni had written in 1905...
in 1917, and Busoni completed two other operas, Die Brautwahl
Die Brautwahl
Die Brautwahl is a "comic-fantastic" opera in three acts and an epilogue by Ferruccio Busoni. The German libretto, by Busoni himself, is based on a short story by E.T.A. Hoffmann. Busoni began work on this, his first completed opera, in 1905.Die Brautwahl was first performed at the Stadttheater,...
(1911) and Arlecchino
Arlecchino (opera)
Arlecchino, oder Die Fenster is a one-act opera with spoken dialog by Ferruccio Busoni, with a libretto in German written by the composer in 1913. He completed the music for the opera while living in Zurich in 1916...
(1917). He began serious work on his best known opera, Doktor Faust
Doktor Faust
Doktor Faust is an opera by Ferruccio Busoni with a German libretto by the composer himself, based on the myth of Faust. Busoni worked on the opera, which he intended as his masterpiece, between 1916 and 1924, but it was still incomplete at the time of his death. His pupil Philipp Jarnach finished it...
, in 1916, leaving it incomplete at his death. It was then finished by his student Philipp Jarnach
Philipp Jarnach
Philipp Jarnach was considered in the 1920s to be one of the most important composers of modern music....
, who worked with Busoni's sketches as he knew of them, but in the 1980s Antony Beaumont
Antony Beaumont
Antony Beaumont is an English and German musicologist, writer, conductor and violinist. As a conductor, he has specialized in German music from the first half of the 20th century, including works by Zemlinsky, Weill, and Gurlitt...
, the author of an important Busoni biography, created an expanded and improved completion by drawing on material that Jarnach did not have access to.
Aesthetics
Busoni's music can be considered in the context of his three major aesthetic beliefs: essence, oneness and junge Klassizität (literally 'young classicism'). The essence of music suggests that music is free from any prescriptive labels; in other words, it is absolute. For example, Busoni asked us to question just what it was in a piece of instrumental church music, that was inherently 'church'. The oneness of music proposes that music is free from prescriptive devices, and that there are endless possibilities of composition. Finally, in his words, junge Klassizität (often mistaken for neo-classicism) included 'the mastery, the sifting and the turning to account of all the gains of previous experiments and their inclusion in strong and beautiful forms' (Busoni, 'Letter to Paul Bekker', 1920).His music falls in that most fractious of periods, the fin de siècle, where chromatic elements became part of the structure of the music, rather than being decoration. By studying Busoni's aesthetic beliefs we can suggest that his music is metatonal - given that he sought to include the old with the new to create limitless compositions. This is not to suggest (as Pfitzner
Hans Pfitzner
Hans Erich Pfitzner was a German composer and self-described anti-modernist. His best known work is the post-Romantic opera Palestrina, loosely based on the life of the great sixteenth-century composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina.-Biography:Pfitzner was born in Moscow, Russia, where his...
did, when he attacked The Sketch of a New Aesthetic of Music by Busoni) that his music is without form, nor is it without any sense of tonality (a common mistake when one finds oneself between Classical and Serial music). This grey area of music history is more engaging because the traditional forms and pitch structures have taken a side road, a road that did not ultimately lead to serialism.
In order to understand Busoni's compositions one should take only what is given in the music, and interpret them through his aesthetic beliefs (though this is no easy task, and the everpresent binarism between what a composer says and what a composer does should be kept in mind). Busoni can be recognised as a man with a variety of musical abilities. He wrote compositions and libretti, performed as a concert pianist, transcribed pieces by other composers (such as Bach, Mozart and Liszt), taught master classes, and produced aesthetic writings. It is to this end that Busoni considered music a fusion of disciplines, or to use his words 'to recognise the whole phenomenon of music as 'oneness'. (Busoni, 'The Essence of Oneness of Music', 1921).
For more information on this see: Paul Fleet, Ferruccio Busoni: A Phenomenological Approach to his Music and Aesthetics (Lambert Academic Publishing, 2009).
Editions and transcriptions
Busoni edited and transcribed works by other composers, in particular those of BachBạch
Bạch is a Vietnamese surname. The name is transliterated as Bai in Chinese and Baek, in Korean.Bach is the anglicized variation of the surname Bạch.-Notable people with the surname Bạch:* Bạch Liêu...
, Liszt
Liszt
Liszt is a Hungarian surname. Notable persons with that surname include:* Franz Liszt , Hungarian composer and pianist* Adam Liszt , father of Franz Liszt* Anna Liszt , mother of Franz Liszt...
, and Mozart.
The best known of these is his edition of the solo keyboard works of Bach
Bach-Busoni Editions
The Bach-Busoni Editions are a series of publications by the Italian pianist-composer Ferruccio Busoni containing primarily piano transcriptions of keyboard music by Johann Sebastian Bach...
, which he edited with the assistance of his students Egon Petri
Egon Petri
Egon Petri was a classical pianist.-Biography:Petri's family was Dutch and he was born a Dutch citizen, but he was born in Hanover in Germany and was brought up in Dresden. His father was a professional violinist who taught his son that instrument. Petri played in the Dresden Court Orchestra and...
and Bruno Mugellini. He adds tempo markings, articulation and phrase markings, dynamics and metronome markings to the original Bach, as well as extensive performance suggestions. In the Goldberg Variations (BV B 35), for example, he suggests cutting eight of the variations for a "concert performance", as well as substantially rewriting many sections. The edition of the Goldberg Variations remains controversial, but has recently been reprinted. Its world premiere recording was by Sara Davis Buechner
Sara Davis Buechner
Sara Davis Buechner is an American concert pianist and educator. She has been an assistant professor of piano at the University of British Columbia since 2003, and was formerly a member of the faculties of Manhattan School of Music and New York University.Buechner received her bachelor's and...
(aka David Buechner).
He created many other piano transcriptions of Bach works, including Toccata and Fugue in D Minor (BV B 29, no. 2) (originally for organ
Organ (music)
The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...
) and Chaconne (BV B 24) from the Partita No. 2 in D minor for solo violin, BWV 1004. Busoni became so well-known as a transcriber of Bach's pieces, that the name "Bach-Busoni" was sometimes mistaken for his surname, and on one occasion his wife was introduced to someone as "Mrs. Bach-Busoni".
He edited three volumes of the 34-volume Franz Liszt Stiftung edition of Liszt's works, including most of the etudes. The Liszt edition was a scholarly endeavor and was faithful to the originals, but Busoni also prepared more freely adapted versions intended for concert performance, including transcriptions of the Paganini-Liszt etudes. The most famous of these is La Campanella (BV B 68), which has been championed by pianists such as Ignaz Friedman
Ignaz Friedman
Ignaz Friedman Ignaz Friedman Ignaz Friedman (also spelled by languages Ignace or Ignacy; exactly Solomon (Salomon) Isaac Freudman(n), (February 13, 1882January 26, 1948) was a Polish pianist and composer. Critics (e.g. Harold C. Schonberg) and colleagues (e.g...
and Josef Lhévinne
Josef Lhévinne
Josef Lhévinne was a Russian pianist and piano teacher.Joseph Arkadievich Levin was born into a family of musicians in Oryol and studied at the Imperial Conservatory in Moscow under Vasily Safonov...
, and more recently by John Ogdon
John Ogdon
John Andrew Howard Ogdon was an English pianist and composer.-Biography:Ogdon was born in Mansfield Woodhouse, Nottinghamshire, and attended Manchester Grammar School, before studying at the Royal Northern College of Music between 1953 and 1957, where his fellow students under Richard Hall...
. Another famous transcription is his piano arrangement of Franz Liszt's organ work Fantasy and Fugue on the chorale "Ad nos, ad salutarem undam" (BV B 59).
On a smaller scale, Busoni edited works by Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
, Brahms
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
, Chopin
Frédéric Chopin
Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....
, Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
and Schumann
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....
.
In the last seven years of his life Busoni worked sporadically on the Klavierübung
Klavierübung (Busoni)
The Klavierübung , by the Italian pianist-composer Ferruccio Busoni, is a compilation of piano exercises and practice pieces, including transcriptions of works by other composers and original compositions of his own....
, a compilation of exercises, transcriptions, and original compositions of his own, with which he hoped to pass on his accumulated knowledge of keyboard technique. It was issued in five parts between 1918 and 1922, and a second edition was published posthumously in 1925.
He had definite views on some composers. Franz Schubert
Franz Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...
he considered "a gifted amateur". He felt Beethoven did not have the technique to express his emotions. He ridiculed Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....
's Carnaval
Carnaval (Schumann)
Carnaval, Op. 9, is a work by Robert Schumann for piano solo, written in 1834-1835, and subtitled Scènes mignonnes sur quatre notes . It consists of a collection of short pieces representing masked revelers at Carnival, a festival before Lent...
. But he considered Felix Mendelssohn
Felix Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...
"a master of undisputed greatness" and "an heir of Mozart". He was planning to play some of Mendelssohn's Songs without Words
Songs without Words
Songs Without Words is a series of short, lyrical piano pieces by the Romantic composer Felix Mendelssohn.-Composition and reception:...
in a series of recitals in London in the year of his death.
Audio recordings
His recorded output on gramophone recordGramophone record
A gramophone record, commonly known as a phonograph record , vinyl record , or colloquially, a record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove...
was very limited, and unfortunately many of the original recordings were destroyed when the Columbia
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
factory burnt down. The following pieces (recorded for Columbia) survive from February 1922:
- Bach: Prelude and Fugue No. 1 in C major (Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1)
- Bach-Busoni: Organ Chorale Prelude "Nun freut euch, lieben Christen"
- Beethoven-Busoni: Ecossaises
- Chopin: Étude in G-flat major, Op. 10, No. 5,
- Chopin: Étude in E minor, Op. 25, No. 5
- Chopin: Nocturne in F-sharp major, Op. 15, No. 2
- Chopin: Prelude in A major, Op.28 No.7
- Chopin: Prelude in A major, Op.28 No.7, and Étude, Op. 10, No. 5 (connected by an improvisatory passage)
- Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody No. 13 (abbreviated to fit it on two sides of a 78 record)
- Liszt: La Campanella
Busoni also mentions recording the Gounod-Liszt Faust Waltz in a letter to his wife in 1919. However, this recording was never released. Originally, he had recorded a considerable number of other pieces, including Liszt's Sonata in B minor
Piano Sonata (Liszt)
The Piano Sonata in B minor , S.178, is a musical composition for solo piano by Franz Liszt, published in 1854 with a dedication to Robert Schumann. It is often considered Liszt's greatest composition for solo piano. The piece has been often analyzed, particularly regarding issues of form.-...
and Beethoven's Hammerklavier Sonata
Piano Sonata No. 29 (Beethoven)
Ludwig van Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 29 in B flat major, Op. 106 is a piano sonata widely considered to be one of the most important works of the composer's third period and among one of the great piano sonatas...
. Unfortunately for posterity, Busoni never recorded his original works. Kaikhosru Sorabji
Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji
Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji was an English composer, music critic, pianist, and writer.-Biography:...
, a fervent admirer, found the records to be the best piano recordings ever made, when they were first released.
Piano rolls
Busoni made a considerable number of piano rollPiano roll
A piano roll is a music storage medium used to operate a player piano, piano player or reproducing piano. A piano roll is a continuous roll of paper with perforations punched into it. The peforations represent note control data...
s, and a small number of these have been re-recorded onto vinyl record or CD. The value of these recordings in ascertaining Busoni's performance style is a matter of some dispute. Many of his colleagues and students expressed disappointment with the recordings and felt they did not truly represent Busoni's pianism. His student Egon Petri
Egon Petri
Egon Petri was a classical pianist.-Biography:Petri's family was Dutch and he was born a Dutch citizen, but he was born in Hanover in Germany and was brought up in Dresden. His father was a professional violinist who taught his son that instrument. Petri played in the Dresden Court Orchestra and...
was horrified by the piano roll recordings when they first appeared on LP and said that it was a travesty of Busoni's playing. Similarly, Petri's student Gunnar Johansen
Gunnar Johansen
Gunnar Johansen was a Danish-born pianist and composer. He studied in his native Denmark with the pianist and conductor Victor Schiøler, then in Berlin with Egon Petri, the disciple of Ferruccio Busoni. He also worked with Edwin Fischer and the Liszt pupil Frederic Lamond...
who had heard Busoni play on several occasions, remarked, "Of Busoni's piano rolls and recordings, only Feux follets (Liszt's 5th Transcendental Etude) is really something unique. The rest is curiously unconvincing. The recordings, especially of Chopin
Frédéric Chopin
Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....
, are a plain misalliance".
In 1950 Columbia Records released five individual long playing records entitled Great Masters of the Keyboard. They were designated Volume I, II, III, IV, and V. The records were sourced from piano rolls made by The Welte Company of Germany. Volume II (ML 4292) featured Busoni on side one. He plays three pieces:
1) Paganini-Liszt: La Campanella (Etude No. 3);
2) Chopin: Prelude No. 15 in D-flat Major, Op. 28 ("Raindrop");
3) Beethoven-Liszt: Fantasia on "Ruins of Athens".
The liner notes refer to Busoni as "One of the towering pianists of all time."
Media
All the media files below are transcriptions of works by Johann Sebastian BachJohann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
.
See also
- Fantasy on Themes from Mozart's Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni
- Neue Berliner MusikzeitungNeue Berliner MusikzeitungNeue Berliner Musikzeitung was a musical periodical that appeared in the years 1847-1896 published by Bote & Bock. It was a continuation of the Berlin musical newspaper published between 1844-1847 by Karl Gaillard.-History:...
- Friedrich Hieronymus TruhnFriedrich Hieronymus TruhnFriedrich Hieronymus Truhn was a 19th century German conductor, composer and music writer who worked mainly in Berlin, Danzig, Elbing and Riga. He was the son of Hofmarschall Nathanael Truhn and the grandfather of Selma Erdmann-Jesnitzer, born Bethge-Truhn, father of Clara and Anna Marie Elizabeth...
Further reading
- Antony Beaumont. Busoni the Composer. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985.
- Della Couling. Ferruccio Busoni: "A Musical Ishmael". Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2005.
- Judith Crispin. The esoteric musical tradition of Ferruccio Busoni and its reinvigoration in the music of Larry Sitsky : the operas Doktor Faust and The Golem / with a preface by Larry Sitsky Edwin Mellen Press, Lewiston, N.Y. : 2007
- Edward J. Dent. Ferruccio Busoni: A Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1933.
- Jürgen Kindermann. Thematisch-chronologisches Verzeichnis der musikalischen Werke von Ferruccio B. Busoni. Regensburg: Gustav Bosse Verlag, 1980.
- Marc-André Roberge. Ferruccio Busoni: A Bio-Bibliography. New York, Westport, Conn., London: Greenwood Press, 1991.
- Larry SitskyLarry SitskyLazar Sitsky AM, usually referred to as Larry Sitsky, born 10 September 1934, is an Australian composer, pianist, and music educator and scholar...
. Busoni and the Piano: The Works, the Writings, and the Recordings. New York, Westport, Conn., London: Greenwood Press, 1986, 409 pp. Second edition published by Pendragon Press as no. 3 of its Distinguished Reprints series (2009), 414 pp. - The Piano Quarterly Issue No. 108 (Winter 1979-80) has Busoni as the feature composer. Interviews with Gunnar JohansenGunnar JohansenGunnar Johansen was a Danish-born pianist and composer. He studied in his native Denmark with the pianist and conductor Victor Schiøler, then in Berlin with Egon Petri, the disciple of Ferruccio Busoni. He also worked with Edwin Fischer and the Liszt pupil Frederic Lamond...
and Guido AgostiGuido AgostiGuido Agosti was an Italian pianist and piano teacher.Agosti was born in Forlì in 1901. He studied piano with Ferruccio Busoni, Bruno Mugellini and Filippo Ivaldi, earning his diploma at age 13. He studied counterpoint under Benvenuti and literature at Bologna University. He commenced his...
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External links
- Ferruccio Busoni website featuring pre-WWII materials
- The Infography about Ferruccio Busoni
- List of Works From klassika.info (German)
- An English translation of Sketch Of A New Esthetic Of Music from 1911 at archive.orgInternet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
Music scores
- 4 Poesie liriche Op.40 for chorus Score from Sibley Music Library Digital Scores Collection
Recordings and MIDI files
- Recording of Busoni's transcription of Bach's Chaconne in D minor by Boris GiltburgBoris GiltburgBoris Giltburg is an Israeli-Russian classical pianist . - Biography and career :Giltburg was born in Moscow, Russia, and began studying piano with his mother at the age of five...
in MP3MP3MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
format - Ferruccio Busoni String Quartet Nos.1 and 2, with short biography & soundbites
- Kunst der Fuge: Ferruccio Busoni - MIDI files
- Piano Rolls (The Reproducing Piano Roll Foundation)