The pieces present a significant challenge for clarinettists, as the young Busoni pushed the technical limits of the instrument without much consideration for a player's need to breathe.
Composer Biography
Ferruccio Busoni, the composer, was the only child of a touring clarinet virtuoso, Ferdinando Busoni, and a German pianist, Anna Weiss, both of whom were highly ambitious.
Compositional Technique
The early pieces on this album blend Baroque polyphony with Romantic sensibility and Classical formality, showing influences from composers like Bach, Hummel, Mendelssohn, and Brahms.
Composition History
Most of the pieces on this album were composed by Ferruccio Busoni between the ages of nine and 14, specifically from 1875 to 1879, with the exception of Elegy (1919) and Prelude K 19 (composed earlier in Trieste).
Composer Biography
Music critic Eduard Hanslick praised the nine-year-old Ferruccio Busoni's abilities as both a pianist and a budding composer, noting his clear differentiation of voices in polyphonic movements and his certainty in rhythm.
Compositional Technique
Busoni's compositional technique, even as a child, showed a tendency to link or disguise distant keys, often blurring the lines between major and minor.
Composer Biography
Busoni's early compositions were pieces for his parents' instruments, the clarinet and piano, as he was exposed to their playing from a very young age.
