Busoni
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(1 April 1866 – 27 July 1924) (given names: Ferruccio Dante Michelangiolo Benvenuto)
[was an Italian composer, pianist, conductor, editor, writer, and teacher.
His international career and reputation meant that he met and had close relations with many of the leading musicians, artists and literary figures of his time, and he was sought-after both as a keyboard instructor and a teacher of composition.
Piano Concerto in C Major Opus 39
The Piano Concerto in C major, Op. 39 (BV 247), by Ferruccio Busoni, is one of the largest works ever written in this genre. The concerto lasts around 70 minutes and is in five movements; in the final movement a male chorus sings words from the final scene of the verse drama Aladdin by Adam Oehlenschläger, who also wrote the words of one of the Danish national anthems.[1]
It seems to have been Beethoven who first included a chorus in a concerted work with piano and orchestra, in his Choral Fantasy, Op. 80, of 1808;[n 1] since then only a handful of works have been scored for similar forces, including Daniel Steibelt's Piano Concerto No. 8 (first performed March 16, 1820, in Saint Petersburg)[2] and the Piano Concerto No. 6, Op. 192 (1858) by Henri Herz[3] which also have a choral finale.
Busoni intended to dedicate the concerto to his friend William Dayas, but he died in 1903.[4] His daughter Karin Dayas gave the first American performance of the concerto in 1932.
The first performance of the concerto took place in the Beethoven-Saal, Berlin, Germany, on November
10, 1904, at one of Busoni's own concerts of modern music. Busoni was the soloist, with Karl Muck conducting the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and the Choir of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church (Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche).[5] The reviews were decidedly mixed, some being filled with outright hostility or
derision.[6] The century following its premiere has seen relatively few performances, owing to the large orchestration, complex musical texture, the use of a male chorus, and the staggering demands put on the soloist.
[Movements]
Although the five movements are laid out separately in the score, Busoni stated that the concerto should be played as a continuous whole, without breaks.[7]
- I. Prologo e Introito: Allegro, dolce e solenne
- II. Pezzo giocoso
- III. Pezzo serioso:
- Introductio: Andante sostenuto
- Prima pars: Andante, quasi adagio
- Altera pars: Sommessamente
- Ultima pars: a tempo
- IV. All'Italiana: Tarantella: Vivace; In un tempo
- V. Cantico: Largamente (with chorus)
The first movement, marked "Prologo e introito" is a little over fifteen minutes long on average, and is
a broad Allegro movement which features a clangorous piano part.
The second movement, a kind of Scherzo, is mostly a light-fingered affair for the piano that makes use
of "Italianate" rhythms and melodic material, even if the melodies are more evocative of Italian popular music than actual quotations from indigenous Italian folk music.
The third and longest movement is the "Pezzo serioso", a massive meditation and exploration in four parts in the key of D flat major which has a central climax that is once again pianistically challenging and brilliantly scored for both the piano and the orchestra.
The fourth movement "All' Italiana", is perhaps the most variegated in its use of the orchestra, with a terrifically virtuosic piano part, arguably more difficult than anything that has come before it in the work. There are also two cadenzas to this movement – one, included in the printed score; the other, an insert in the
two-piano score that is an amplification of the one printed in the two-piano edition.
The final movement, "Cantico" with male chorus, brings full circle many themes that have been heard earlier in the work. The words sung by the chorus are from the final scene of Oehlenschläger's verse drama Aladdin.
Marc-André Hamelin piano. Sibelius Hall, Lahti / 31st March 2001.
Busoni was born in Empoli, just south of Florence; he was the son of professional musicians. Initially trained by his father, he later studied at the Vienna Conservatory and then with Wilhelm Mayer and Carl Reinecke. In the ensuing years, after brief periods teaching in Helsinki and Moscow, he devoted himself to composing, teaching, and touring as a virtuoso pianist in Europe and the United States. His writings on music were influential; they covered not only aesthetics but considerations of microtones and other innovative topics. He was based in Berlin from 1894 but spent much of World War I in Switzerland.
Busoni was an outstanding (if sometimes controversial) pianist from an early age. He began composing in his early years in a late romantic style, but after 1907, when he published his Sketch of a New Esthetic of Music, he developed a more individual style, often with elements of atonality. His visits to America led to interest in North American indigenous tribal melodies which were reflected in some of his works. His compositions include works for piano, including a monumental Piano Concerto, and transcriptions of the works of others, notably Johann Sebastian Bach which appeared in the Bach-Busoni Edition. His other compositions include chamber music, vocal and orchestral works, and also operas, one of which, Doktor Faust, was left unfinished at the time of his death. Busoni died in Berlin at the age of 58.