Busoni's piano transcriptions of Bach's organ chorale preludes integrate organ pedal effects using octaves and arpeggios, and vary chorale melodies with different articulations.
Critical Reception
Busoni's transcriptions of Bach's works faced significant opposition, to which he responded that all notation and performance are forms of transcription, and cannot destroy the original musical artwork.
Composer Biography
Ferruccio Busoni, a world-famous pianist, pedagogue, conductor, and theoretician, was also a composer whose genius is still awaiting proper evaluation.
Recording & Production
This recording features two different pianos: an original 1860 straight-strung Bechstein for the chorale preludes and a modern 2018 Maene Straight Strung Chamber Music Concert Grand 250 for the other pieces, which depart more from the original Bach.
Composition History
Professor Helga Thoene provided convincing proof that Bach's Chaconne for solo violin is a musical epitaph for his first wife, Maria Barbara, cryptographically inscribing her name and using chorales as its structural backbone.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Busoni, a prophet of 'music of the future,' foresaw twelve-tone and six-tone systems, and even electronic music in his Sketch for a New Aesthetic of Music.
Composition History
Busoni's Fantasia Contrappuntistica was inspired by counterpoint theorists Bernhard Ziehn and Wilhelm Middelschulte, nicknamed 'The Gothics of Chicago,' and is structurally based on the architectural proportions of the Palace of the Popes in Avignon.
