Ferruccio Busoni – the Six Sonatinas: an Artist’S Journey 1909-1920 – His Language and His World
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Ferruccio Busoni – The Six Sonatinas: An Artist’s Journey 1909-1920 – his language and his world Jeni Slotchiver This is the concluding second Part of the author’s in-depth appreciation of these greatly significant piano works. Part I was published in our issue No 1504 July- September 2015. t summer’s end, 1914, Busoni asks for artists in exile from Europe. Audiences are A a year’s leave of absence from his in thin supply. He writes to Edith Andreae, position as director of the Liceo Musicale June 1915, “I didn’t dare set to work on in Bologna. He signs a contract for his the opera… for fear that a false start American tour and remains in Berlin over would destroy my last moral foothold.” Christmas, playing a Bach concert to Busoni begins an orchestral comp- benefit charities. This is the first all-Bach osition as a warm-up for Arlecchino, the piano recital for the Berlin public, and Rondò Arlecchinesco. He sets down ideas, Dent writes that it is received with hoping they might be a useful study, if all “discourteous ingratitude.” Busoni outlines else fails, and writes, “If the humour in the his plan for Dr. Faust, recording in his Rondò manifests itself at all, it will have a diary, “Everything came together like a heartrending effect.” With bold harmonic vision.” By Christmastime, the text is language, Busoni clearly defines this complete. With the outbreak of war in composition as his last experimental work. 1914 and an uncertain future, Busoni sails The years give way to compassionate to New York with his family on 5 January, reflection. The war will change him. shoulder. Mature Busoni compositions 1915. He writes to Egon Petri: “When shall In America, Busoni completes Sona - mirror the composer’s ontological state, as we ever meet again? This state of tina ad usum infantis Madeline M.* well as his temporal environment. There uncertainty (Planlosigkeit), after ten years Americanae, pro Clavicimbalo comp- are no dated sketches or surviving of deliberate constructive work, at the osita, Red Indian Diary, the Rondò manuscripts. The piece is published in climax of my vital strength, is the hardest Arlecchinesco, his editions of Bach’s Well- 1916 and performed by Busoni on 6 of all blows to bear!” He is battling Tempered Klavier Book 2, and Goldberg November, 1917, at Tonhalle in Zurich. disillusionment, yet hopes to proceed with Variations. Sonatina ad usum infantis is probably his opera Arlecchino. Modelled on 16th Each Sonatina has a Latin title and completed shortly before the composer’s century puppet plays, the composition is bears a dedication. With Sonatina ad Red Indian Diary, dated 20 June, 1915. an organic link to Dr. Faust. Busoni takes usum infantis Madeline M.* America - Busoni references Sonatina ad usum the two librettos with him. His letters nae, pro Clavicimbalo composita, infantis as, “A sonatina for a child which describe a growing isolation: “When one Busoni obscures the dedicatee, omitting itself has the air of a child.” Considering is no longer master of one’s own freedom her full name. A photograph of Madeline the catastrophic times, it is a rite of of movement, life has no further value.” Manheim, dated 1918, was found among purification, a cleansing of self-doubt and He abhors the provincial limitations of his papers in Berlin. She was a friend of uncertainty. He introduces a composition American audiences, and expresses fear Busoni’s eldest son, Benvenuto. He had with clear and simple melodies, gentle that the war in Europe will cause cultural American citizenship, born during one of harmony and transparent beauty. This destruction. He is consumed by a his father’s extended teaching and concert Sonatina is not for a child, but graciously paralysing anxiety about the future, and tours. Busoni composes Sonatina ad warm, and disarmingly uninhibited. Busoni this precipitates a desperate emotional usum infantis in America and perhaps writes to Edith Andreae in 1916: “My state. Busoni writes, “I shall never over - meets her then. The portrait of Madeline heart… is in a state of adolescence again; come this criminal amputation on my life.” Manheim shows a beautiful young shy and full of longing and lacking practical At a time when the composer’s attention woman with a thoughtful expression. The impact.” is tightly focused on the realisation of a title hints at the Sonatina’s encapsulated The subtitle is pro Clavicimbalo comp- masterwork, Busoni is obliged to proceed innocence, and offers an insider’s view of osita (harpsichord). Busoni plays the with the scheduled tour, and in so doing; the composer’s ability to regenerate his piece on piano and the long silky legatos, he nervously anticipates a creative youthful enthusiasm. Now, he sees the with sustained pedal harmonies, con trad - drought. Compounding these difficulties, world as a wide-eyed child, without the ict a harpsichord touch. The writing style Mephistophelean cynic looking over his points towards the rich warm tone of New York is deluged with celebrated ▼ MUSICAL OPINION QUARTERLY JANUARY-MARCH 2016 7 the piano, yet the elegant ornamentation (un poco cerimonioso). of four compositions written in Zurich, is reminiscent of a remote past. By using The Molto tranquillo and the Andant - with Dr Faust material. the term ‘harpsichord’ the composer ino melancolico pair as prelude and The Sonatina in diem nativitatis Christi designates a youthful piano, constructing fughetta. The Vivace (alla Marcia) has two MCMXVII is a profound work. The manu- a symbolic recapitulation to an earlier variations with a brief coda. The fourth script, a modest eight pages, has enor- period of time, recalling Gregorian chant, movement restates the Molto tranquillo mously condensed emotional material. and the pure lines of Palestrina. This is theme, ascending towards the lumin es - The entire composition maintains a Busoni’s Gothic harmony, and the lang - cent transfiguration of a chorale motif, serene beauty. Fortes are rare, emerging uage of Arlecchino as well as Sonatina in drawn from the first movement. This brief from Busoni’s characteristic long lyrical diem nativitatis Christi MCMXVII. passage serves as unifying bridge to the lines, blended arpeggiated strands, and The third Sonatina’s visionary aspects elegant and enchanting Polonaise. sonorous chorale reverberations. The are significant. After 1900, Busoni begins The third Sonatina is born at a time melody is marked dolce. In a gently to use a pure form of polyphony (‘free when Busoni attempts to toss off his rocking three meter, the bass is slightly off polyphony’). He often combines this brooding spirits and re-enter his creative centre, entering with the melody on the technique with the development of mel - journey with Dr Faust. Despite his opera’s third beat of each measure. Although odic and constructive materials, forming quasi-autobiographical elements, the lyrically dolce, the music is not reassuring. motifs of usually two or three notes. In his composer believes personal hardships An oscillating broken-chord strand rises definitive study of Busoni’s piano music, could poison an objective perspective. from the quasi-berceuse accompaniment the composer-scholar Larry Sitsky traces After nine torturous months in America, and begins to sound quietly subversive, all musical material used in Sonatina ad Busoni returns to Europe and settles in implying an underlying menace. A usum infantis to the opening few bars of Zurich, where he completes Arlecchino, structurally inverted motif from the Pezzo the composition. An except ionally integ- classifying the composition as a “Marion - serioso of the Piano Concerto smoothly rated work, motifs are treated to rhythmic etten Tragödie.” Dent writes that the punctuates the end of this oscillating variation, augmentation, inversion and composer feels it is his “most individual figure. First impressions of calm stability other techniques used by great masters. and personal work,” and describes it as a give way. Characteristic of a medieval folk Busoni is cognisant and hopeful for the satire on war and human failings. Reality song, a contrasting theme enters in path of new music, when he writes his and illusion fuse. Grim humour combines intervals of fourths, articulated above un treatise on ‘Absolute Melody’, 1913. with fantasy and philosophical paradox, poco vivace triplets. This melody reaches Prophetically, this very style becomes resulting in a labyrinth of meanings and a crescendo with four chiming F major widely popular after the Second World finely interwoven themes. chords, adamant and painful. This stag - War. Busoni describes ‘Absolute Melody’: This is the era of Stravinsky’s Petrushka, nant chord passage, mirroring Busoni’s “A row of repeated ascending and Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire, and the toy death motif, fades to a restatement of the descending intervals, which are organised boxes of Debussy and Fauré. ‘Commedia opening thematic material. The next and move rhythmically. It contains in itself dell’ Arte’ returns to the stage in the 20th passage remembers the veiled world of a latent harmony, reflects a mood of century. Despite the popular tide, Busoni the Elegies. The right hand weaves a feeling.” He further explains that express- has a long attraction to 16th century Lisztian figured accompaniment, falling ion does not depend on a text or puppet plays; he is enthralled with the and rising above lyrical, sotto voce bass accompanying voices and declares, “It marionettes’ contra-human characteristics. octaves. These low melodic lines are must be maintained here that melody has Contrasting the outward gentle beauty prayerful and questioning, while shifting expanded continuously, that it has grown of Sonatina ad usum infantis, the fourth harmonies glaze the transparent atmos- in line and capacity for expression and that Sonatina retreats inward. Busoni dedicates phere. The music seems to be moving in the end it must succeed in becoming Sonatina in diem nativitatis Christi towards a resolution.