Elizabeth Arenas

Today, 1. April was born Ferrucio Busoni

Ferruccio Dante Michelangelo Benvenuto Busoni (1 April 1866 – 27 July 1924) was an Italian composer, pianist, conductor, editor, writer, and piano teacher.

Biography

Ferruccio Busoni was born in the Tuscan town of Empoli, Italy, the only child of two professional musicians. His father, Ferdinando, was a clarinetist. His mother, Anna, was a pianist from Trieste. 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 published his own compositions under 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.

Commemorative plate in Berlin

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.
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.

Portrait of Ferruccio Busoni, 1916
by Umberto Boccioni
Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna, Rome

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, Friedrich Löwe, Aurelio Giorni and Stefan Wolpe.
Other notable Busoni pupils included Egon Petri, Alexander Brailowsky, Natalie Curtis, Maud Allan (the famous dancer), Michael von Zadora, Louis Gruenberg, Dimitri Mitropoulos, Beryl Rubinstein, Edward Steuermann, Dimitri Tiomkin, Rudolf Ganz, Lloyd Powell, Herbert Fryer, Augusta Cottlow, Leo Kestenberg, Gregor Beklemischeff, Leo Sirota, Edward Weiss, Theophil Demetriescu, Theodor Szántó, 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 rolls. He was an atheist.^[1]
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.

Birth house, today is a museum

Music

Ferruccio Busoni.

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 Schoenbergian 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.

The tomb in Berlin

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."^[2] (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.

Piano Transcriptionen

F. Busoni: Introduction & Fugue on the Chorale Herzliebster Jesu, for orchestra (after J.S. Bach, BWV 244/3; incomplete)
F. Busoni: Improvisation on the Bach Chorale Wie wohl ist mir, o Freund der Seele, for 2 pianos (after BWV 517)
Prelude & Fugue in D major ("Little"), BWV 532, transcribed for piano [Breitkopf]
Prelude & Fugue in E minor, BWV 533, transcribed for piano [Breitkopf]
Prelude & Fugue in C major, BWV 545, transcribed for piano [Schirmer]
Prelude & Fugue in E flat major ("St. Anne"), BWV 552, transcribed for piano [Rahter]
Toccata, Adagio & Fugue in C major, BWV 564, transcribed for piano [Breitkopf]
Toccata & Fugue in D minor, BWV 565, transcribed for piano [Breitkopf]
Chorale Prelude Nun komm der Heiden Heiland (I), BWV 599, transcribed for piano [actually BWV 659]
Chorale Prelude In dir ist Freude, BWV 615, transcribed for piano [Breitkopf]
Chorale Prelude Herr Gott, nun schleuß den Himmel auf, BWV 617, transcribed for piano [Breitkopf]
Chorale Prelude Komm, Gott, Schöpfer!, BWV 631, transcribed for piano
Chorale Prelude Durch Adams Fall ist ganz verdebt, BWV 637, transcribed for piano
Chorale Prelude Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ, BWV 639, transcribed for piano [Breitkopf]
Chorale Prelude Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, BWV 645, transcribed for piano [Breitkopf]
Chorale Prelude Nun komm' der Heiden Heiland, BWV 659 (II), transcribed for piano [Breitkopf]
Chorale Prelude Jesus Christus, unser Heiland, BWV 665, transcribed for piano [Breitkopf]
Chorale Prelude Komm, Gott, Schöpfer!, BWV 667, transcribed for piano [Breitkopf]
Chorale Prelude Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr (V), BWV 675, transcribed for piano
Chorale Prelude Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir, BWV 686, transcribed for piano
Chorale Prelude Durch Adams Fall ist ganz verdebt, BWV 705, transcribed for piano [Breitkopf]
Chorale Prelude Nun freut euch, lieben Christen, BWV 734, transcribed for piano [Breitkopf]
Two-Part Inventions (15), BWV 772-786 & Three-Part Inventions (Sinfonias) (15), BWV 787-801, transcriptions for piano
Four Duets BWV 802-805, arrangements for piano
WTC 1 BWV 846-869, arrangement for piano
F. Busoni: Widmung, arrangement for piano (after Fugue No. 1 in C major, BWV 846 from WTC 1)
WTC 2 BWV 870-893, arrangement for piano
WTC 2: Fugue No. 15 in G major, BWV 884, transcribed for 2 pianos [Breitkopf]
Chromatic Fantasia & Fugue in D minor, BWV 903, arrangement for piano
Chromatic Fantasia & Fugue in D minor, BWV 903, arranged for cello & piano
Fantasia & Fugue in A minor, BWV 904, transcribed for piano
Fantasia & Fugue in D minor, BWV 905, transcribed for piano [Breitkopf]
Fantasia, Fugue, Andante & Scherzo, BWV 905/969/844, transcribed for piano
Fantasia, Adagio & Fugue, BWV 906/968, transcribed for piano
Goldberg Variations BWV 988, free arrangement for piano (Part 1: Aria, Variations, 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13; Part 2: Variations 17, 15, 19, 20, 22, 23, 25; Part 3: Variations 26, 28, Allegro finale, Quodlibet, Reprise) [Breitkopf]
Aria & Variations in the Italian Style in A minor, BWV 989, arrangement for piano
Sarabande & Partita in C major, BWV 990, transcribed for piano
Capriccio on the Departure of a Beloved Brother in B flat major, BWV 992, transcribed for piano [Breitkopf]
Prelude, Fugue & Allegro in E flat major, BWV 998, transcribed for piano [Breitkopf]
Chaconne (Mvt. 5) from Partita for solo violin No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1004, transcribed for piano [Breitkopf]
Partita for solo violin No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1004, transcription for orchestra (incomplete)
Concerto for harpsichord, strings & continuo No. 1 in D minor, BWV 1052, transcription for piano & orchestra
Concerto for harpsichord, strings & continuo No. 1 in D minor, BWV 1052, transcription for 2 pianos [Breitkopf]
Canonic Variations & Fugue from Musical Offering BWV 1079, transcribed for piano
F. Busoni: Grosse Fuge, contrapuntal fantasy for piano (based on Die Kunst der Fuge BWV 1080)
F. Busoni: Fantasia contrappuntistica (I), for piano ("Edizione definitiva") (described as an attempt to complete the unfinished final three-subject fugue in Die Kunst der Fuge BWV 1080, or an hommage to J.S. Bach & Die Kunst der Fuge BWV 1080)
F. Busoni: Fantasia contrappuntistica (II), for piano ("Edizione minore")
F. Busoni: Fantasia contrappuntistica (III), for 2 pianos
Kenneth Leighton: Fantasia contrappuntistica (IV), for organ (arrangement of Busoni's composition)
Wilhelm Middelschulte: Fantasia Contrappuntistica (Homage to Bach) for piano, (arrangement of Busoni's composition)
F. Busoni: Fantasia nach J.S. Bach, for piano