Ferruccio Busoni : Concerto in D minor for piano and quartet Op. 17 (1878)

The composer in 1877

 

Ferruccio Busoni (1 April 1866 – 27 July 1924) was an Italian composer, pianist, conductor, editor, writer, and teacher. His international career and reputation led him to work closely with many of the leading musicians, artists and literary figures of his time, and he was a sought-after keyboard instructor and a teacher of composition.

 

Concerto in D minor for piano and quartet Op. 17 (1878)

Performed by Carlo Grante (piano) and I Pomeriggi Musicali conducted by Marco Zuccarini.

 

Ferruccio Busoni composed his Concerto for Piano and String Quartet in D minor, Op. 17, BV 80, in 1878, at the age of twelve.[1][2] The original title was Concerto per piano-forte con accompagnamento di quartetto ad arco, Op. 17. Conceived for string quartet, the piano can also be accompanied by a string orchestra as Concerto for Piano and Strings, the title under which it was published in 1987.

 

Busoni was a child prodigy, first taught mostly by his father, both as a pianist and a composer. After studies in Vienna from age nine to eleven at the Vienna Conservatory, Busoni moved to Graz for health reasons in October 1877.[3] The composer Wilhelm Kienzl remembered that he improvised at a mature level: "Sitting at the piano he was inspired to the most profound seriousness and totally absorbed in his task".[3] Kienzl initiated Busoni to study with Wilhelm Mayer. Some of Busoni's early pieces were published then, including two settings of the Ave Maria and piano pieces.[4]

The score and parts are kept by the Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz in Berlin as part of Busoni's Nachlass.

 

The structure of the work is in four movements. As such it resembles a classical string quartet more than a piano concerto, which typically has three movements:

1. Allegro
2. Adagio
3. Scherzo – Trio
4. Allegro vivace[2]

The duration is given as 20 minutes.[1] The work shows little premonition of the characteristics of Busoni's mature compositions, but rather pursues Mozart's models.[1] The reviewer of the first recording notes that the first entry of the piano shows "personalised nuance" and that the "Adagio has an unexpected seriousness but also a chaste intimacy and delicacy.[1] The lyrical Scherzo is reminiscent of Schubert, and the rather "conventional" finale is a display of compositional skill, including fine interplay between the piano and the strings.[영어위키 발췌]