Comparison of the Two Concertos

At slightly over 20 minutes in duration, Busoni’s violin concerto is concise, melodious, and displays a balance between virtuosic play and compositional craft. But at just under half the length of the Brahms Violin Concerto in D Major Op. 77 (1878) and many other violin concertos of the late nineteenth century, it is closer in scope to concertos from earlier in the century, such as Felix Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E Minor, Op. 64 (1822).Footnote ²¹ Busoni’s violin concerto is neither grand nor effusive in contrast to many late century concertos and symphonies. Even so, it displays several Romantic stylistic and formal characteristics, such as an early entry of the soloist, the inclusion of numerous cadenzas (including in the first movement), and interlocking movements played without a pause in double function form. Written in D major, Busoni’s violin concerto recalls the violin concertos by both Beethoven and Brahms in the same key.Footnote ²² There are also some scoring and thematic similarities. Busoni’s violin concerto has lyrical melodies in the orchestral part and an exploration of distinctive orchestral colours, especially the privileging of winds and the French horn, an instrument also used frequently by Brahms; there is also developing variation threaded throughout even despite stylistic variety. The middle movement also begins with melodies in the low strings reminiscent of writing by both Beethoven and Brahms. The low strings are answered by the high winds. Overall, there are three movements, beginning with a lyrical line played by woodwinds and brass after which the violin enters with wide ranging arpeggios. Orchestral and soloist sections alternate, but there is also a march, and a sinuous andante melody. The playful carnivalesque finale is, by contrast, in the spirit of Mendelssohn’s violin concerto in E Minor, Op. 64, which increases in tempo as the woodwinds and violin exchange phrases. The violin, by contrast, assumes the lead role at the end for the final più presto.

At the same time, there are aspects that move beyond Romanticism, such as a section in movement one that is filled with sardonic humour, or the eclectic combining of diverse styles. In the first movement alone, there is march music, a scherzoso, lyrical passages, pastorale wind writing, and virtuosic cadenzas.Footnote ²³ Moreover, the violin part also frequently functions as a chamber instrument, alternating melodic material with the orchestra, performing in duets with orchestral instruments, or serving an accompanimental role to the melodic material presented by the orchestra. The piece is short, intimate, and unassuming, with thin scoring that resembles chamber music – often with only four to five instruments at once that are sometimes treated as duets or trios. For instance, beginning in bar 17, the piece is scored for strings, solo violin, and timpani, and beginning at bar 21, there is a duet between clarinet and bassoon plus solo violin figural work and a cello ostinato.

If the five-movement piano concerto is, by contrast, grandiose and monumental, it is also unconventional in its length for the time. The extreme length at more than one hour in duration was, in fact, unprecedented for the genre. By comparison, other lengthy concertos, such as Brahm’s symphonic Piano Concerto no. 2 in B-flat major, Op. 83 (1881) is about 50 minutes, and Max Reger’s Violin Concerto in A Major, Op. 101 (1908) lasts around 55 minutes and has three movements. Because of its size and synthesis of different styles and performing forces, Busoni’s concerto has frequently been compared to Gustav Mahler’s lengthy and genre blending song symphonies. Especially given that the two composers had become good friends by 1902, and exchanged scores, such comparisons might be warranted. Busoni’s debts to Liszt are evident in some of the piano figurations, and he built upon Brahms’s notion of a symphonic concerto with an opening orchestral tutti. The central slow movement of the piano concerto also recalls the lyricism of Beethoven’s slow symphonic movements, and it contains a Brahmsian oboe solo. It is possible that interactions with composers in Helsinki might have influenced Busoni’s approach. Robert Kajanus composed Aino in 1885, which included a male-voice chorus, and Busoni taught at the Helsinki Music Institute from 1888–1890. Soon thereafter Sibelius composed Kullervo (1892) for orchestra, men’s chorus and soloists, and the two maintained a professional friendship to the end of Busoni’s life, sharing scores and talking about all things related to music. Sibelius’s and Busoni’s choral writing share a similar haunting affect even if Sibelius’s choral writing is more rhythmic and the chorus is present on the stage.Footnote ²⁴

Yet Busoni was searching after his own unique genre blend, and his emphasis on the mystical over virtuosity is iconoclastic. Busoni’s piece is part symphony, part concerto, and part choral work. As a descendent of New German School traditions, Busoni achieved a new structure through a blending of art forms and instrumental forces. This extends to vague and veiled extra-musical references that were simultaneously autobiographical and literary. And while such references were not at all uncommon in music at the time in symphonic literature, they were not typical for the concerto genre.Footnote ²⁵ The piano concerto thus represented his awakening interests in combining poetry and music in new ways.Footnote ²⁶

Aesthetics

Both concertos thus stood at the boundaries of the genre in length, and both were different in affect, even if they were ultimately rooted in historical concerto literature of the late Romantic era. But they represented different solutions to artistic problems of the age. In particular, Busoni was figuring out how to balance technical difficulties with musical meaning and structure in an age that was sceptical of the musical value of virtuosity and sought to remedy that, in part, with symphonic concerti.Footnote ²⁷ In both pieces, Busoni joined other contemporaries, such as Brahms, in seeking to move away from the notion of a concerto primarily as virtuoso show piece. However, he stated that he sought unique solutions that departed from the most common contemporary remedy of writing serious and symphonic first movements but rousing and primarily virtuosic finales:

In his programme notes about the piano concerto, Busoni explained that he also selected the title ‘concerto’ to signify equal cooperation between soloist and orchestra, rather than a competition between the musical forces:

Busoni believed it was possible in his lifetime to achieve a better balance between the musical forces in piano concertos, in particular, because of changes in instrument construction. He argued that the greater power and the increased colour of the instrument of his generation meant that the piano could stand as more of an equal force with respect to the orchestra than it had historically:

Accordingly, Busoni sought equality between the soloist and the orchestra. Like Brahms, Busoni leaned toward writing what have been called symphonic concerti, by ascribing greater importance to the orchestra. But Busoni’s solutions were unique. In the piano concerto, moments of extreme virtuosity for the soloist, such as in movements two and four, are balanced by and framed by movements where the orchestra takes the leading role. This is a very different solution than writing symphonic first movements and virtuosic finales. The work opens with a lengthy orchestra tutti, but in addition, the final movement also places the piano in a subsidiary role. Instead, and without precedent, the orchestra and off-stage chorus assume prominence, while the piano serves a largely obbligato role. Thus, the piece ends with a glorification of the mystical more than the virtuosic or the symphonic.

Busoni aimed for equality in a few ways in the violin concerto, for instance, by giving important themes to the symphony, by balancing solo and orchestral sections in length and importance, and by crafting the orchestral parts with attention to colour and form. Although the violin is more consistently virtuosic throughout than in the piano concerto, Busoni nevertheless noted that he strove to give the orchestra an equally significant role. He wrote to Henri Petri stating that he hoped both parts left positive impressions and that the orchestral part was not intended to be subordinate to the solo role:

Busoni’s solutions to the concerto problem drew upon several different musical and national traditions. The composer wrote that he considered his piano concerto, although built upon the achievements of the past, to differ from its predecessors in three critical ways: in its form, in its mystical occultist affect, and in its transnational references. Busoni insisted that his use of the chorus, although paying homage to Beethoven, served a different aim and was different in mood. Indeed, the contrast between Beethoven’s and Busoni’s use of the chorus is indicative of movement away from an effusive and externalized display to one of esoteric occultism and mysticism that only became more commonplace in the late nineteenth century and that was foundational to modernism.Footnote ³² Although it might be intuitive to assume indebtedness to Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy, op. 80. Busoni wrote explicitly about connections to the finale of Beethoven’s Symphony no. 9 in D Minor, op. 125. However, if Beethoven’s Symphony no. 9 abruptly contrasts tempestuous fugal writing with a joyous and simple melody in a parallel major key set for a mixed voice chorus, Busoni’s choral writing, by contrast, emerges mysteriously and quietly from the musical material. While Beethoven’s chorus exudes joy and notions of brotherhood, Oehlenschlager’s text directs attention away from human relationships to the metaphysical and the occult. For Busoni, it is music itself as a manifestation of nature that is resounding through invisible human voices as ‘deep and quiet, the pillars of rock begin to sound’.Footnote ³³ The chorus, invisible offstage, is dehumanized and becomes part of reverential and hymn-like homophonic textures as the text speaks of a mixture of joy and pain and life, and of existence as a mystical state between life and death in a world that itself stands peacefully outside of time. Busoni differentiated his approach from Beethoven’s in the following manner:

This inclusion of a text also represents an outgrowth of New German thinking about melding the poetic and the musical to achieve a new structure and was a direct result of a mixing of several genres. In a letter to his wife, Busoni mentioned his original intent to compose an opera based on Aladdin, and then a dramatic work with music, dancing, and magic, a Singspiel in a manner similar to Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, before he settled on a piano concerto.Footnote ³⁵ Thus, rather than stemming from non-staged choral traditions, such as the cantata or oratorio, Busoni’s writing for voice seems more closely aligned with choral traditions for the stage. Accordingly, the choral writing is simple, syllabic, and homorhythmic, reminiscent of low-voice folk-like opera choruses in the German tradition. Tremolandos in the orchestra, occasional brass and wind solos, and arpeggiations in the piano support the affect. The obbligato piano writing stands out in these textures as unique. Busoni also derived thematic material in movement one from his choral setting.

In addition, Busoni noted that the piano concerto differed from predecessors in his incorporation of a five-movement structure. The placement of the weightiest movement in the centre of the piece was also highly unusual for a concerto.Footnote ³⁶ True, the structure is indebted to the Lisztian model of double function form, played without a break between movements, but the exact configuration was novel. In addition, individual movements are unique, with little resemblance to traditional sonata, rondo, or ABA structures. The first movement of the piano concerto starts with a long orchestral tutti that introduces the three themes, and the piano enters with a new theme. But the exposition alone takes up more than half of the movement, and the recapitulation is abbreviated. At the same time, the final movement recapitulates themes from the opening movement in a serious manner. At more than 20 minutes in duration, the middle movement contains four subsections that include chorales in the strings and powerful melodies in the brass. It balances out the first and final movements. The second and fourth movements, by contrast, serve as light-hearted and virtuosic interludes, with the second presenting as a scherzo. The fourth is a flamboyant tarantella with not one, but two cadenzas.

Another striking feature that represents Busoni’s imprint on the genre is his transnational mixing of Italian and Germanic elements. Although the concerto genre originated in Italy, by the nineteenth century, it was largely dominated by German composers. Even in concertos composed by nineteenth-century Italian artists, such as Niccolò Paganini, explicit references to Italian folk songs or dances were not typical. Paganini’s Violin Concerto no. 2 in B minor, op. 7, which quotes from ‘La Campanella’ is an aberrant example. The featuring of the melodies and rhythms of Italy in Busoni’s piano concerto was particularly unusual in symphonic concertos of the type that Busoni was writing. Movements two and four stand out as atypical in their explicit references to Italian content, and in juxtaposition to the outer and central movements. Movement two, for instance, features Italianate rhythms and melodies. Movement four is an Italianate tarantella that also quotes from an Italian folk song, ‘E sì, e sì, e sì, che la porteremo’. Busoni argued that ‘the tarantelle will be Naples itself’.Footnote ³⁷ But the opening is Brahmsian, and the middle movement is weighty and Germanic. Thus, the contrasting national styles are juxtaposed in audible manners. Like the piano concerto, the violin concerto also alludes to Latinate elements, although less explicitly. If it includes a full orchestra (three flutes, one doubling piccolo, two each of oboes, clarinets and bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion and strings), it is thinly scored throughout with many melodic moments for both soloist and chamber orchestra or violin plus a small group of soloists.

Reception History

Although Busoni’s concertos have not become regularly performed members of the canon, they have been played sporadically from their inception to the present by Busoni, Busoni devotees, or other virtuosi willing to tackle the challenges of the pieces. They have also received minor revivals in the twenty-first century. Busoni was actively involved in promoting and performing both concertos early on (as conductor or pianist). Egon Petri, Henri Petri’s son and Busoni’s closest piano mentee, also performed the piano concerto repeatedly, sometimes with Busoni as conductor, such as in Amsterdam in October 1905. By 1908, Busoni considered adding a new ending for the piano concerto without the chorus to make it more easily programmable, but he ultimately decided that went against the grain of his conception for the piece. He chose not to publish the alternative ending sans chorus, describing this option only as an ‘emergency exit’:

Busoni also promoted both concerti in the hope that they would become better known. He created lists of orchestras and conductors where he believed the piano concerto could be performed well, and he sometimes performed the concerto nearly at cost.Footnote ³⁹ He had scores of the violin concerto sent out to important violinists by the publisher instead of collecting the usual publication fees. Moreover, he included the violin concerto in his series of self-financed orchestral evenings featuring contemporary music in Berlin. Émile Sauret performed the piece at one of the concerts on 3 January 1908.Footnote ⁴⁰

In addition to Busoni, a few Busoni pupils or devotees performed the pieces. Mark Günzburg, who is little remembered today, was the first pianist other than Busoni and Egon Petri to perform the piano concerto, a performance that did not take place until 1908, four years after the premiere.Footnote ⁴¹ Mark Hambourg and Leo Sirota also performed the concerto in 1910, but it was not performed again by anyone other than Busoni or Egon Petri again until 1920, when it was taken up by Eduard Erdmann and Edward Weiss, both Busoni devotees. Indeed, the piano concerto initially seemed to be a piece primarily played by Busoni and his disciples, especially Egon Petri. As Roberge has documented, performances of the piano concerto declined even more after Busoni’s death, and especially into the 1970s. It continued to be performed by only a few pianists, all Busoni devotees, including John Ogdon and Garrick Ohlsson, for instance.Footnote ⁴²

Recordings of the piano concerto are few in number throughout the twentieth century, averaging about one per decade, beginning in the 1930s, with a brief increase in the late 1980s. Remarkably, seven recordings appeared between 1986 and 1990. Many Busoni aficionados, however, still praise the historic John Ogdon/Daniell Revenaugh recording as best reflecting Busoni’s ideals. Revenaugh was a close pupil of Petri and famously travelled to Zakopane during World War II to rescue many of Petri’s scores, correspondence, and manuscripts, including some of Busoni’s, bribing his way through controlled borders with wine bottles and cigarettes. But the 1966 Ohlssohn recording is another much-loved version,Footnote ⁴³ and Ohlssohn performed the concerto again in 2018 and 2019 (in Stockholm, Sweden, and Cleveland, Ohio), these times with a revised cadenza to the fourth movement.

Recordings have increased again in the twenty-first century with at least 11 recordings of the piece made in the last two decades alone. Part of this increase could perhaps be attributed to greater ease of recording, and each of them is unique as they bring out different aspects of Busoni’s multivalent piece. Several chose slower tempi, making Kirill Gerstein’s and Benjamin Grosvenor’s faster performances seem more fiendishly virtuosic, by comparison. As a feat of nearly superhuman strength, Christopher Falzone also released a recording of his personal transcription of the concerto for solo piano plus chorus (i.e. without orchestra). If it were not enough difficulty to play the massive piece with orchestra, Falzone also played the orchestral part too in his own transcription. Even despite a recent increase in recordings of the piece, the recent release of Lively’s version of the piano concerto from 1990 is a welcome addition to the available recordings.Footnote ⁴⁴ It reveals a more lyrical side to Busoni’s concerto (Table 2).

Table 2.

Recordings of Busoni’s Piano ConcertoFootnote ⁴⁵

Similarly, the violin concerto was initially championed by a few devotees. Henri Petri, a close friend of Busoni, performed the premiere, and it was subsequently adopted by Szigeti, Sauret, and Busch. Szigeti knew the concerto well, having performed the concerto under the direction of Busoni in several cities including in Paris, Berlin, and London.Footnote ⁴⁷ After the first performance, Busoni expressed his appreciation for and happiness with Henri Petri’s interpretation:

Although the concerto has never been performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and has only been rarely performed in the United States, Szigeti brought it to a Friends of Music concert in February 1927 and to the New York Symphony Orchestra for its first and only performance with that institution on 28 December 1941.Footnote ⁴⁹ He subsequently performed it again in Washington DC.Footnote ⁵⁰ As Donal Henahan claimed, in 1968, ‘Szigeti seems to have been the only major artist to carry it in his repertory in the 70 years of its existence’.Footnote ⁵¹ And while others occasionally played the piece, such as Rudolph Bergmann, who performed the piece in Jerusalem before mid-century, such performances were infrequent. Paul Zukofsky also performed the piece with the New England Conservatory Orchestra in 1968, and Jaime Laredo helped launch a brief revival of the piece in the 1990s. Annon Levy also brought the piece to Boston in 1990.Footnote ⁵² If the violin concerto is less performed than even the piano concerto, it too has received renewed interest in the twenty-first century, with four new recordings produced during the last two decades. Dego’s is the most recent recording and is notable for the technical clarity of the difficult figurations (Table 3).

Table 3.

Recordings of Busoni’s Violin ConcertoFootnote ⁵³

Analysis of Recordings by David Lively (piano) and Francesca Dego (violin)

In comparison to most recordings made in the early to mid-twentieth century, Lively’s recording is gentler and more lyrical. If Ogdon’s rendition is massive and monumental, and the Ohlsson versions are grand, the Lively interpretation features more finger clarity and dexterity than athletic bombast. Gielen, the nephew of Edward Steuermann, a Busoni pupil, also makes sure the orchestra brings out the themes with clarity with the South-West German Radio Symphony Orchestra Baden-Baden, but without some of the strength in the Ogdon–Revenaugh recording.Footnote ⁵⁴ The winds and brass are restrained, and the tempo relaxed. The dynamics are not extreme, providing a pleasant listening experience, but one that minimizes the contrasts in Busoni’s score. The overall sound is relatively calm, rather than overpowering or unsettling. This orchestral and pianistic clarity is best suited to the cheerful and virtuosic Italianate second and fourth movements, where agile finger work is required, but less effective in the weighty Germanic movements (1, 3, and 5) that require power and the use of full body strength. Lively’s pianism is accurate and mesmerizing, but not diabolical, as in the Gerstein or Ogdon recordings. Lively’s performance is not overwhelming, nor jarring, even as changes in texture, touch, or density of sound in Busoni’s composition are typically introduced gradually in the Lively recording. But this smoothness and finesse is perhaps farther from Busoni’s own compositional aesthetic characterized by the juxtaposition of starkly contrasting styles and affects. In the Ogdon and Revenaugh recording, there is more contrast between the accented chords, the lyrical melodies and the triumphant brass, the Italianate and the Germanic, the contrasting orchestral colours, and the late Romantic grandeur and subdued mysticism. The Lively and Gielen version smooths out the contrasts in Busoni’s score by avoiding extremes of dynamics, accents, tempo changes, and by minimizing the textural shifts. There is instead, more refined detail and clarity in the presentation of themes such that it is possible to get lost in the beauty of the moment, rather than the sweep of the structure and line or the large-scale dramatic contrasts.

This overall subtlety and polish in the Lively recording is also evident in the treatment of the chorus in the final movement. The low voice chorus, sung in the Lively recording by the Herrenchor des Frieberger Vokalensemble, emerges in the fifth movement atop ascending scalar passages in the low strings. In a clever play with dynamics, the voices are initially dominated by the strings as they merge into the texture before swelling into prominence dynamically. Throughout the movement, the chorus weaves in and out of the orchestral ensemble, and it varies in audibility in the Lively recording in response to multiple swell marks in the score. Entrances are often gentle and not generally pronounced, as the orchestra blends into the overall timbral textures and colours. This subtle approach contrasts with other recordings, such as the Gerstein recording with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, in which the chorus is treated as more distinct from the instruments. Rather than blending in, it begins with power and more consistently overpowers the instruments, thereby drawing attention to the text and to the rumbling timbre of the deep voices. At times, the Tanglewood Festival Chorus also begins phrases with dramatic accents, and attacks beginnings of words, while the instruments play a more ancillary role. In the Ogdon recording, the John Alldis chorus similarly emerges without subtlety and dominates the instruments in terms of volume. In this respect, the somewhat understated use of the choir in the Lively recording adds to the overall subtlety of the recording in general and is consistent with an overall attempt to smooth out the contrasts in Busoni’s score.

Dego’s interpretive approach is similarly well suited to the fluid virtuosity of the piece, and her figural passagework is filled with clarity. Dalia Stasevska does an admirable job bringing out themes with the BBC Symphony Orchestra when in duet or chamber ensemble with the violin parts. Even so, the Dego recording, like the Lively recording, lacks some of the power and timbral contrasts of interpretations by many historical performers. The historic rendition by Busch, for instance displays more variety in tonal colour, from powerful rumbling low notes to sweet and piercing notes in the highest registers. Busch also lingers just long enough in transitional sections and double stops to better highlight structural divisions. Dego’s lines, by contrast, are lyrical, but not driven. The figural passagework is pleasant, but not pressing. The tempos are more consistent, and feature less lingering and rushing. The result is a more predictable, accurate, and pleasant interpretive approach, but one that does not have the same drive or shape as the Busch or Szigeti recordings. For instance, in the cadenza in movement one, Dego’s passagework is clear and accurate, and Dego lingers at the beginning, but the lines speed up in a more gradual and predictable manner. They sound less improvised and more rehearsed. In addition, some of the notes in the figural work are louder than others, disrupting lines slightly. The effect is in line with the unassuming and pleasant sound of the concerto in general. By contrast, the Busch and Szigeti cadenzas both rush forward breathlessly, speeding up in figural passagework to the end of lines. If some of the speed results in blurred figurations, the overall line produces forward movement and structural shape. Szigeti remembers, Busoni urged those in rehearsals, to ‘play with character’, and his interpretation, while not flawless, nevertheless is full of spirit.Footnote ⁵⁵ In the Szigeti interpretation, the slow and stately march and the slow lyricism of the second movement contrast dramatically with the playfulness of the carnivalesque finale or the demonic virtuosity of the first movement. It is an interpretation characterized by extremes, which showcases the plurality of Busoni’s style. By contrast, Dego’s interpretation features less abrupt changes or tempo or character; it is soothing and pleasant, bringing out the unassuming side of the piece that Busoni commented on.

Both recent recordings by Lively and Dego thus reveal Busoni’s music in new ways. Positioning Busoni’s violin concerto next to the Brahms concerto on the Dego recording (including with Busoni’s own cadenza for the Brahms concerto) also reveals the thematic and timbral complementarity of the two pieces even despite the lighter character of Busoni’s composition.Footnote ⁵⁶ Some of the connections are distinctly audible, including similar oboe solos in both slow movements and a shared use of developing variation throughout. Other striking similarities include the opening soloist entrances, which both rise over dominant pedals. But Brahms’s composition has become canonical and is symphonic in scope, scale, and texture. It is not only about double the length of Busoni’s piece, but it also is more stylistically consistent and more powerful than Busoni’s playful work. No doubt the long lyrical solo lines have contributed to its popularity, as has the brilliant orchestral writing, but the violin writing is less consistently idiomatic than in Busoni’s concerto. As in the Busoni concerto, Dego brings a lightness and delicacy, rather than expansiveness, depth, and profundity that is often associated with a Brahms concerto recording. Moreover, her initial entrance is subtle and without drama. The tempi are full of restraint, and Dego prefers to pull the tempo back rather than push it forward. The violinist brings sweetness of tone even to the double stops, and the orchestra at no point overwhelms.

If Busoni’s compositional style was characterized by stark and audible juxtapositions and contrasts, Dego and Lively aimed for a smoother, more elegant, and more contemporary interpretation of the concertos, with clean figural work and crisp articulations. These interpretive styles might not have been how Busoni would have played or conducted or imagined the pieces – they temper the contrasts, and they reduce the bold monumentality, instead bringing out fine details in the music. These two centennial recordings together thus present new contemporary readings of Busoni’s concertos for ears less accustomed to the sweep, grandeur, and excesses of late Romantic extravagances encapsulated in Busoni’s concerti.

Conclusion

Busoni’s concertos are both neglected masterpieces. While one is unassuming and the other monumental, both revealed new and different solutions to the problem of how to compose a concerto around the turn of the century when perceptions of virtuosity were changing. They also draw upon tradition even while challenging the boundaries of the genre. They were as indebted to historic traditions as they are iconoclastic. If turns of phrases, timbres, and compositional techniques in the violin concerto recall Brahms’ violin concerto, and the opening orchestral tutti in the piano concerto harken to forms in earlier historical periods, the pluralistic stylistic juxtapositions point towards modernist eclecticism. If both pieces draw upon New German ideals in relation to form, Busoni’s solutions were new genre mixtures. Busoni’s monumental piano concerto, written for himself, an uncannily powerful and accurate pianist, simultaneously conveys late Romantic bombast and twentieth century mysticism. Although both pieces could be called symphonic concerti, thus belonging to late Romantic movement away from soloistic centred concerti, they also represent Busoni’s personal and unique solutions; these reflected his own transnational background as well as his attempts to write pieces that were poetically profound, even while utilizing the full potential of the solo instruments. And if Busoni arrived at two seemingly diametrically opposing solutions, a quasi-chamber concerto and a one-of-a-kind mixture of concerto, symphony/autobiographical tone poem, and dramatic chorus, these diverse approaches reflect his artistic creed to avoid routine and to seek out new solutions every time.

Exactly why performers are once again starting to notice and perform these two pieces with more frequency in the twenty-first century is still unclear, but just perhaps the eclecticism in the pieces has recaptured imaginations in an increasingly eclectic cultural environment. At the very least, these two recordings released in the Busoni centennial year reveal new aspects of Busoni’s multivalent and complicated pieces. Lively shows that Busoni’s mammoth concerto also has a delicate side, and Dego brings smoothness and polish to pieces historically characterized by drama and contrast. Positioned against historic recordings, these two, reveal diverse ways that interpreters can hear and play the music of Busoni today, about 100 years after his death.