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CHAN 9394 Busoni cover.qxd 28/1/08 2:06 pm Page 1 Chan 9394 CHANDOS BUSONI Piano Works Geoffrey Tozer CHAN 9394 BOOK.qxd 28/1/08 2:08 pm Page 2 Ferruccio Busoni (1866–1924) 1 Sonatina No. 6 (1920) (Kammerfantasie super Carmen) 7:53 Allegro deciso 2 Exeunt omnes (1896) from Stücke 1:12 Pomposa marziale e vivace 3 All’Italia! (1907) from Elegien 5:40 Andante barcarolo 4 Turandots Frauengemach (1907) from Elegien 3:20 Andantino sereno – Più vivo e distaccato e ritmato 5 Berceuse (1909) from Elegien 4:03 Andantino calmo 6 Fantasia nach J.S. Bach (1909) 10:09 Molto tranquillo e gravemente 7 Giga, Bolero e Variazione (1909) from An die Jugend 3:52 Ferruccio Busoni Allegro – Allegretto – Andante, quasi adagio Mary Evans Picture Library 8 Sonatina Seconda (1912) 8:03 Il tutto vivace, fantastico con energa, capriccio e sentimento 3 CHAN 9394 BOOK.qxd 28/1/08 2:08 pm Page 4 Indianisches Tagebuch (1915) (Red Indian Diary) 9:16 Book 1 Ferruccio Busoni: Piano Works 9 No. 1: Allegro affettuoso, un poco agitato – 2:01 10 No. 2: Vivace 1:25 11 No. 3: Andante 3:23 For Ferruccio Busoni (1866–1924) the can discern Busoni’s technical inventiveness 12 No. 4: Maestoso ma andando 2:20 distinction between performing and and assured command of pianistic sonority, composing, interpreting and creating, was ill- but in other adaptations he displays a formal Toccata (1921) 10:12 defined. As one of the greatest of pianists his inventiveness that transforms the shape of the music as well. A particularly subtle 13 Prelude: Quasi presto, arditamente – 1:17 interpretations often reflected the insights of a creative mind, while as a profound and example is the Fantasia nach J.S. Bach, 14 Fantasia: Sostenuto, quasi adagio – 6:01 innovative composer he often took as his composed in June 1909 in memory of his 15 Ciaconna: Allegro risoluto 2:54 starting point music by others, or himself. father, who had died a month before. In this Such imaginative confrontations with earlier work Busoni uses material from three organ Prelude and Fugue in D, BWV 532 (1888) 12:31 music range in complexity from simple works based on chorales (Partita sopra 16 Prelude: Moderato – Alla breve – Adagio – 5:59 transcriptions, in which the material is ‘Christ der du bist der helle Tag’, BWV 766, 17 Fugue: Allegro moderato 6:32 transferred, more-or-less intact, from one ‘Gottes Sohn ist kommen’, BWV 600 and TT 77:21 medium to another, to subtle and radical ‘Lob sei dem allmächtigen Gott’, BWV recompositions of existing music, where the 602), some of which is simply transcribed Geoffrey Tozer piano earlier inventions (sometimes his own) serve for piano; other sections are recompositions as the inspiration for new, highly individual of Bach’s original and elsewhere (particularly visions. at the beginning and end) the music is The transcription of Bach’s Prelude and Busoni’s. Fugue in D for organ (BWV 532) for piano A month after completing the Fantasia was the first (1888) in a series of such works Busoni finished a collection of four piano and is typical: the original is untouched pieces called An die Jugend, of which only the except that Busoni enables the pianist to first was entirely original. The third piece in play music that involves the organist’s feet as the set, the Giga, Bolero e Variazione links well as his hands, and, through additional two dissimilar works by Mozart, the Gigue doublings, seeks to create the effect of for piano (K. 574) and the fandango from changing organ registrations. Already one the finale to Act 3 of Le nozze di Figaro. The 4 5 CHAN 9394 BOOK.qxd 28/1/08 2:08 pm Page 6 latter is brilliantly transcribed, and towards published Indian’s Book and slowly the idea Frauengemach’ has its origin in the reflecting the chief influences of the day, the end Busoni shows how a version of the of pieces based on Indian melodies took root. orchestral suite that Busoni composed in including Chopin, Liszt, Wagner and Gigue’s theme can be combined with the The first result was the enormous Red Indian 1905 under the inspiration of Turandot, the Brahms. Already a distinctive voice can music of the opera; the ‘Variation’ provides Fantasy for piano and orchestra of 1913/14, fable by Carlo Gozzi. Originally Busoni’s sometimes be heard, as in the unexpected an unexpected coda, an extraordinary but this was followed, in 1915, by a group of suite was intended for the concert hall; then harmonic moves of the otherwise transformation of the opening Gigue into four pieces for solo piano, the first volume of in 1911 (after four years of delay) it was used Schumannesque ‘Exeunt omnes’ the last music conceived in Busoni’s own terms. A the Red Indian Diary (no further volumes for a production of the original play, before from the set of piano pieces Op. 33b (1896). similar concluding device appears in the ever materialized). Of these the lyrical first Busoni finally used it as the basis for a two- In the years that followed Busoni began to Sonatina No. 6 (Kammerfantasie super and third pieces use themes from the Hopi act opera (completed in 1917, three years explore more radical harmonic progressions, Carmen) composed in March 1920. This and Pima tribes that Busoni had already before Puccini started work on his adaptation untraditional chords and scales, new textures begins firmly in the Lisztian tradition of the exploited in the Fantasy (so they are of the same text). The oriental setting of the and a very characteristic world of expression. operatic paraphrase, welding familiar themes recompositions of recompositions), the story encouraged Busoni to incorporate One of the most moving examples is the – including the Flower Song and the second incorporates an old Cheyenne tune Chinese, Turkish, Indian and Persian themes little Berceuse composed in June 1909: the Habanera – into a sequence of vividly which accompanied the return of a successful into his suite, but what is obscure is the gently lapping music has a grave, timeless contrasted sections. But the music gradually war-party, and is suitably tough in tone, reason why he chose the famous English tune beauty. In October 1909 Busoni’s mother darkens and the final page is a highly while the last, on tunes from the Wabanakis ‘Greensleeves’ for ‘Turandot’s Frauengemach’! died, and he turned to the piano work personal and rather bleak meditation on the and Hopi tribes, provides an assertive In its orchestral version it is exquisitely composed a few months earlier, recomposing song and the dance: a work that begins as conclusion to the set. scored for two flutes, two harps, and a it as a memorial to her; the result, the pure Bizet ends as quintessential Busoni. Examples of Busoni recomposing existing handful of notes from percussion and Berceuse élégiaque for chamber orchestra, is The range of music on which Busoni drew transformations of folk-based material had trumpets. When he was asked to prepare a one of his greatest works. for inspiration was astonishingly wide, and appeared earlier in Busoni’s career, notably in piano arrangement for rehearsals of the play, Other pieces were more assertively included folk melodies from countries as far the path-breaking Elegies of 1907. The Busoni’s imagination was rekindled, and he modern, and in his most far-reaching apart as China and America. He first became second of these, ‘All’Italia!’ draws on two produced a magical translation of the exploration, the Sonatina Seconda of 1912, acquainted with Red Indian tunes thanks to Italian folksongs exploited in the second and orchestral score, which expands and Busoni composed music as radical as the pioneering work of Natalie Curtis. She fourth movements of his Piano Concerto transforms his original arrangement. anything being written at the time. He had had studied with Busoni in the 1890s and in (1904), but whereas in the earlier work Latin The Elegies of 1907 represented an become interested in the occult and much of 1910 was present at a performance of her vivacity pervaded the score, here the tunes important stage in Busoni’s development as a the Sonatina is subtle and subdued, only teacher’s Turandot Suite, conducted by inhabit a more shadowy world, one that owes composer. He had begun composing at an rarely breaking out into passages of energy Mahler in New York; afterwards she something to the late piano music of Franz early age, and by the late 1890s had and power. Yet behind the elusive surface is a presented Busoni with a copy of her recently Liszt. The fourth Elegy, ‘Turandot’s produced a substantial corpus of music surprisingly taut thematic structure, the 6 7 CHAN 9394 BOOK.qxd 28/1/08 2:08 pm Page 8 result of Busoni’s confrontation with the the Ciaconna. As so often the ending is bleak issue that faced all forward-looking – indeed much of the material is related to Ferruccio Busoni: Klavierwerke composers of the day: how to write coherent themes used to portray representatives of evil music that makes little or no use of tonality. in two of Busoni’s operas, Die Brautwahl and In his final years Busoni moved away from Doktor Faust – but the inventiveness and Für Ferruccio Busoni (1866–1924) waren die Organist Hände und Füße braucht, und the complex and radical style of the Sonatina panache of the work reveal a composer Grenzen zwischen Vortrag und Komposition, außerdem durch zusätzliche Verdoppelungen towards music that integrated many of his working at the height of his powers, and still Interpretation und Kreation nicht klar die Wirkung wechselnder Orgelregister zu harmonic and tonal discoveries with a exploring new artistic possibilities.