Busoni: Piano Music, Vol. 13 (Naxos)
Busoni: Fantasia contrappuntistica; Chopin Variations; Sonatina prima; Sonatina seconda; Prelude and Fugue BMV 532 & 565 (Bach, transcribed Busoni) (Chandos)
Busoni: Doktor Faust (Naxos)
★★★☆☆/★★★★☆/★★★☆☆
What’s the purpose in having a centenary if it doesn’t restore a popularity? 100 years have handed because the German-Italian Busoni died in Berlin and, whereas we’ve heard his large piano concerto in live performance halls throughout 1924, nothing a lot else has occurred to alter the final notion that Busoni was a formidable pianist with nice concepts that didn’t essentially translate into music of lasting worth.
Two albums of piano works reinforce that picture. The German pianist Wolf Harden has reached quantity 13 in his Naxos trawl of the whole works. Whereas awed by his persistence and dedication, I discover little of staggering originality on this one-paced choice. At a sure level, I’m inclined to endorse a cynical remark that Busoni is just at his finest when adorning works by Bach and Beethoven.
There may be extra selection in a Chandos piano album, performed by Busoni fan-boys Peter Donohoe and Karl Lutchmayer. The tracklist opens with the well-known Bach Toccata and Fugue that Vladimir Horowitz used to play as an encore. It then presents extra fugues and variations, one on a theme by Chopin, which is curious if not compelling. The large blast right here is the Fantasia contrappuntistica on a Bach chorale, diminished to 4 arms and loud sufficient to shatter a Meissen tea-set. Revised on the finish of Busoni’s life, it hints closely on the atonalities of Twenties Berlin.
Naxos have additionally issued a Florence recreation of Busoni’s opera, Physician Faust. It’s a magniloquent enterprise, stuffed with intriguing orchestral music and declamatory arias. I’ve seen it twice on stage, extra bored than awed. A file permits me to dip out and in between the German recitative longueurs.
Busoni stands out as a towering determine in musical-intellectual evolution in central Europe, the one live performance soloist whom Gustav Mahler revered. The most effective of him is discovered within the piano concerto and within the Berceuse that Mahler carried out in New York, in what was to be his personal final live performance.
On the finish of his centenary 12 months Busoni lives on, bigger than his music.
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Norman Lebrecht is likely one of the most widely-read commentators on music, tradition and cultural politics. He’s an everyday presenter on BBC Radio 3 and a contributor to the Wall Road Journal, Bloomberg, Standpoint, Sinfini and different publications. His weblog, Slipped Disc, is among the many most generally learn cultural websites on-line, breaking unique tales and campaigning in opposition to human abuse and acts of injustice within the cultural industries.
