Honours End of Year Recital

Verbrugghen Hall
Sydney Conservatorium of Music
9 November 2012, 4:10pm.

Nicholas Young, Piano

Ferruccio BUSONI Sechs Klavierstcke (Six Piano Pieces), Op. 33b (1896)
(1866-1924) I. Schwermut (Melancholy)
II. Frohsinn (Gaiety)
III. Scherzino
IV. Fantasia in modo antico
V. Finnische Ballade (Finnish Ballad)
VI. Exeunt omnes


Berceuse, BV252 (from Elegien BV249) (1909)

Toccata (Preludio, Fantasia, Ciaccona), BV287
(1921)

Zehn Variationen ber ein Prludium von Chopin
(Ten Variations on a Prelude of Chopin), BV213a
(1922)


2

Critical Notes

It is impossible that [Busoni] should compose: there is not
room enough in a single life for more than one supreme
excellence.
1

The author-critic George Bernard Shaw, who became personally acquainted with the
celebrated pianist Ferruccio Busoni, was astounded to discover that Busoni was a
serious composer. For pianists and audiences today who know the legendary figure
only by name and through his transcriptions of Bach, the fact that he wrote seriously
on aesthetics and favoured composition over performance as his truest form of self-
expression can still be a surprise.
2
A man of lofty intellect and broad reading,
3

Busoni strived to create music which venerated traditions of the past but also
embraced the increasingly chromatic harmonic language of his day. Italian by birth
but having spent most of his life in Germany, Busonis free combination of cultural
influences from both national traditions, along with his political ambivalence, were a
constant source of criticism, and this significantly affected the distribution of his work
during his lifetime and the few decades that followed.
4

My current research investigates Busonis stylistic evolution between 1900-09
as revealed in his essay Sketch of a New Aesthetic, the Piano Concerto Op.39 and

1
George Bernard Shaw, quoted in Ferruccio Busoni, Letters to his Wife, trans. Rosamond Ley (New
York: Da Capo Press, 1975), 289.
2
Edward J. Dent, Ferruccio Busoni: A Biography (London: Eulenburg Books, 1974), 17.
3
A select list of authors and titles from Busonis library can be found in Judith Michelle Crispin, The
Esoteric Musical Tradition of Ferruccio Busoni and its Reinvigoration in the music of Larry Sitsky: The
Operas Doktor Faust and The Golem. (Lewiston, New York: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2007), 187-
243.
4
Tamara Levitz, Teaching New Classicality: Ferruccio Busoni's Master Class in Composition
(Frankfurt am Main; New York: P. Lang, 1996), 19-21. See also Martina Weindel, Ferruccio Busoni
und der Nationalismus, in Italian Music during the Fascist Period, ed. Roberto Illiano (Turnhout:
Brepols, 2004), 283-99.
3

Elegien BV249/252. However, this recital considers a wider temporal spectrum and
explores works written before, during and after this transition period. The early Six
Piano Pieces, Op. 33b (1896) show the origins of Busonis compositional technique.
The Berceuse (1909) represents the stylistic pivot that bridges between this early
period of late Romantic influence and his later, more individual Modernist style found
in the Toccata: Preludio, Fantasia, Ciaccona (1921) and Ten Variations on a Prelude
of Chopin (1922). The recital is therefore a cross-section of Busonis compositional
career, a vast output which vindicates the remarks of Alfred Einstein that if one only
knows Busoni as a musician, one does not know him.
5

Sechs Klavierstcke (Six Piano Pieces), Op. 33b (1896)
I. Schwermuth (Melancholy)
II. Frohsinn (Gaiety)
III. Scherzino
IV. Fantasia in modo antico
V. Finnische Ballade (Finnish Ballad)
VI. Exeunt Omnes

I have great successes as a pianist, [...] the composer I conceal
for the present. It was not that he had lost faith in himself as a
composer, but ... realized inwardly that he must go through a
new period of study and self-development...
6

Thus writes Edward Dent regarding the year 1896, when the Six Piano Pieces were
composed. This set of short works may be considered a representative of Busonis
early style, demonstrating a mastery of compositional technique, yet still lacking a

5
Antony Beaumont, Busoni the Composer (London: Faber, 1985), 17.
6
Dent, Ferruccio Busoni: A Biography, 100.
4

convincing sense of originality. Nevertheless, as both Sitsky and Waterhouse have
remarked, they anticipate in brief prophetic glimpses the change that was to come.
7

Vividly reflecting Busonis dual Italian-German personality, the first three
pieces of the set suggest Italian traits, while the last three draw on Germanic
influences.
8
(The titles of the pieces, given variously in German and Italian, do not
correspond to the prevailing cultural idiom of each individual work.) Although there
is no unifying principle behind the set as a whole, one can draw distinct relationships
between pieces which allow for a symmetrical interpretation of the cycle (Figure 1).

Italian German
I II III IV V VI
Dance-like Contrapuntal

The first of the set, Schwermut, is an Italianate work in spite of its German
title, with textures highly reminiscent of Liszts Un Sospiro (Example 1a & 1b).
Signifiers such as the use of modal inflections and the doubling of the melody in thirds
confirm the pieces Italian identity.
9
The following two dance pieces, Frohsinn and
Scherzino, are in the salon style, their oscillating scalic flourishes and moto perpetuo

7
John C. G. Waterhouse, Busoni: Visionary or Pasticheur?, Proceedings of the Royal Musical
Association, 92nd Sess. (1965-66): 79-93; Larry Sitsky, Busoni and the Piano: The Works, the Writings,
and the Recordings (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1986), 52.
8
This double personality is further discussed by Edward J. Dent in The Italian Busoni, trans.
Richard Capell, Monthly Musical Record 41:729 (1 September 1931): 257-60, cited in Marc-Andr
Roberge, Ferruccio Busoni: A Bio-bibliography (New York: Greenwood Press, 1991), 258.
9
The doubling of melodies in thirds is often associated with Italian music, such as in Mendelssohns
Italian Symphony and Chopins Barcarolle. See, for example, R. Larry Todds commentary in
Mendelssohn: A Life in Music, 277.
Figure 1. Symmetrical Scheme of Six Piano Pieces.
Prologue Epilogue
5

triplets evoking a navet and mellifluous charm which Busoni was to renounce in his
later works.




In the two pieces which follow, Busonis Germanic passion for the
counterpoint of Bach is revealed. As Sitsky has identified, the Fantasia in modo
antico appears to be based on the structures of Bachs Fantasy and Fugue in A
minor.
10
A declamatory chordal opening (correlating with the Fantasy) is followed by
two fugatos (the Fugue), the second of which features a descending chromatic figure
akin to Bachs fugal countersubjects. The folk-like tones of the Finnische Ballade
(Finnish Ballad) may be inspired by Busonis stay in the picturesque Finnish region of
Helsingfors during the late 1880s.
11
However, even here the exotic makes way for
Bach. Like in the Fantasia in modo antico, a second theme is announced and
superimposed onto the first in counterpoint, revealing Busonis formidable polyphonic
technique. The comparatively brief Exeunt Omnes (All leave), which Sitsky
considers to be a Schumann-like march,
12
concludes the cycle in positive spirits,

10
Sitsky, Busoni and the Piano: The Works, the Writings, and the Recordings, 52.
11
Dent, Ferruccio Busoni: A Biography, 74.
12
Sitsky, Busoni and the Piano: The Works, the Writings, and the Recordings, 53.
Example 1a. Liszt, Un Sospiro, mm. 3-4.
Example 1b. Busoni, Sechs Klavierstcke, I, mm. 2-3.
6

although a brief moment of harmonic tension near its conclusion conveys a
characteristically Busonian uneasiness. The similarity between these dotted rhythms
and those from Schwermut, the first work, create a strong feeling of cyclicity and
symmetry in the set as a whole.
The Six Piano Pieces show crucial markers for the future direction of Busonis
music. His interest in ethnographical elements, revealed in the Finnische Ballade, is
extended in later years towards the Native American culture, in the form of works such
as the Indian Fantasy.
13
The unusual scales which he derives from these exotic
influences, featuring here only as isolated phenomena such as in the Scherzino, later
become a central component of his pitch collections known as Busoni scales, which
are often characterised by augmented second leaps.
14
Even from an early age Busoni
shows a predilection for the lower register of the piano and the use of unusual chord
spacings to create a darker timbre, such as in Schwermut and Frohsinn. This is an
idiosyncrasy which is further intensified in the solo piano compositions to come.
Berceuse(1909)
The Berceuse was first conceived as a stand-alone work. Soon after, it was appended
as the seventh piece to the important set of Elegien (Elegies), and later still, reworked
as the orchestral Berceuse lgiaque.
15
Although the piece is quite coarsely divided
into distinct fragments, it is unified by the recurring motive of a rising third which
evokes the swings of a lullaby (motive a in Table 1). In the context of Busonis
compositional career, and in this particular recital, the Berceuse is a crucial turning

13
Busonis interest in the Native Americans, inspired by his pupil Natalie Curtis, is documented in his
letter to Gerda in 22 March 2010, in Busoni, Letters to his Wife, 163.
14
Busoni first formally proposes 113 synthetic scales in the Sketch, 92-93. See also Robert M.
Mason, Enumeration of Synthetic Musical Scales by Matrix Algebra and a Catalogue of Busoni
Scales, Journal of Music Theory 14:1 (Spring 1970): 92-126.
15
Beaumont, Busoni the Composer, 115.
7

point between the early and late styles. Busoni experiments with what Leichtentritt
calls polyphonic harmony
16
by superimposing third-related triads, such as F major
and A minor (Busoni instructs that the sustaining pedal should be held), creating an
ethereal sonority that clearly belongs to the twentieth century and not to late
Romanticism (Example 2). Semitonal voice-leading brings about new harmonies
based on fourths (Example 3), highly reminiscent to those of early Schoenberg and
late Scriabin.
17


Measure No. Theme/Motif
1-13 a (rising third motive)
14-19 b
20-35 Interlude
36-47 a
1
(variation)
48-55 b
1
(variation)
56-58 Interlude
59-66 b
2

67-81 a
3
(Coda)






16
Hugo Leichtentritt, Ferruccio Busoni as a Composer, The Musical Quarterly 3:1 (Jan. 1917): 69-
97. This article discusses the concept in relation to the Berceuse lgiaque, which stretches the
alternation of third-related chords over a longer time period.
17
See, for example, Schoenbergs Chamber Symphony No. 1 and Scriabins Prometheus: The Poem
of Fire.
Example 2. Busoni, Berceuse, mm. 20-21.
Table 1. Thematic structure in Berceuse.
8



Departing from the Romantic exuberance and charms of the Klavierstcke, the
Berceuse avoids blatant emotional display, instructing parenthetically (as if with some
hesitation) to play (quasi appassionata) rather than simply appassionata.
18
While
it is still lyrical, its ambivalent oscillations between tonic major and minor effected
by the mere touch of a brush, as Busoni describes in the Sketch of a New Esthetic of
Music
19
do not allow for the establishment of a definitively positive or negative
Affekt, remaining hauntingly serene. Busoni considered the Berceuse to be one of
[his] most successful piano pieces,
20
and this work indeed stands as proof of his
creative capabilities, a refutation of the widespread criticism concerning Busonis
supposed lack of originality.

18
Ferruccio Busoni, Elegien: Sieben Neue Klavierstcke (Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Hrtel, [1985?]),
52.
19
Ferruccio Busoni, Sketch of a New Esthetic of Music, trans. Theodor Baker, in Three Classics in
the Aesthetic of Music (New York: Dover, 1962), 91.
20
Busoni, quoted from Beaumont, Busoni the Composer, 115.
Example 3. Busoni, Berceuse, mm. 36-43.
9

Toccata: Preludio, Fantasia, Ciaccona, BV287 (1921)
The composition of the Toccata coincided with Busonis return to Berlin in 1920,
having departed five years earlier with the onset of war. The anguish and unstable
emotions brought about by new international political tensions and the prospects of a
changed Berlin (with lowered artistic standards) appears to have directly transferred
into this work.
21
Yet despite its nervous energy and neuroticism, the Toccata is a
prime model for an aesthetic concept which Busoni termed junge Klassizitt.
22
The
movement, a return to civilisation following the barbarism
23
of World War I, has as
its ideal a return to melody again as the ruler of all voices and all emotions ... as the
bearer of the idea and the begetter of harmony. This return to melody would result in
a renewed emphasis on polyphony over homophony, which Busoni saw as a necessary
measure for casting off of what is sensuous and facilitating the renunciation of
subjectivity in music (namely, the techniques of Wagner.) Junge Klassizitt is not to
be confused with Neo-Classicism. As Busoni clarified, it does not entail a turning
back to Classicism, but is rather an art which is old and new at the same time,

combining structural forms of the past with the advanced chromatic language of the
present to create an absolute, distilled music.
24

Like the great toccatas of the great Baroque and Renaissance, Busonis
Toccata consists of numerous sections contrasting in character and form, and Winfield

21
Busoni in a letter to Philipp Janarch, quoted from ibid., 286.
22
The term is roughly translated as young classicism, as in Ferruccio Busoni, The Essence of Music,
and other Papers, trans. Rosamond Ley (New York: Dover, 1957), 20-21. See also Della Couling,
Ferruccio Busoni: A Musical Ishmael (Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2005), 350, which offers the
alternative translation young classicity. Due to the problems of both translations, I retain the use of
the original German term.
23
Antony Beaumont, Busoni, Ferruccio. Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online.
http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/04438 (Accessed 5 March 2012).
24
Busoni, The Essence of Music, and other Papers, 20-23.
10

suggests that it most closely resembles the models developed by Frescobaldi.
25
The
homage to this tradition can be observed on the score through his tongue-in-cheek
(mis)quotation of Frescobaldi: Non senza difficolt che si arriva al fine. (Not
without difficulty does one arrive at the end.)
26
The work commences with a highly
virtuosic Preludio which combines staccato passages with a bass rhythmic fanfare
drawn from Busonis opera Die Brautwahl.
27
The core section that follows, the
Fantasia, develops rhythmic characteristics of the Preludio in a highly improvisatory
manner over numerous fragmentary episodes. Polyphony becomes the central focus of
this section, with linear voice-leading being the source of the unusual harmonic
movements (Example 4).


A bridge passage outlining the whole-tone scale initiates the transition from the
Fantasia into the dramatic Ciaccona, which bears the same rhythm as Bachs D minor
Chaconne for Solo Violin ( | ) and features a recurring melodic theme.
28
It
returns to the marcato style of the Preludio, and ideas from the preceding two
movements are recombined with the principal Ciaccona theme. This coda in virtuosic

25
George Alexander Winfield, Jr., Ferruccio Busoni's Compositional Art: A Study of Selected
Works for Piano Solo Composed Between 1907 and 1923. (PhD diss., Indiana University, 1982), 124-
25.
26
Ferruccio Busoni, Toccata: Preludio Fantasia Ciaccona: Busoni-Verz 287. (Wiesbaden:
Breitkopf & Hrtel, 19--?), 2. The original Frescobaldi quote is Non senza fatiga si giunge al fine
(Not without effort does one reach the end), inscribed at the end of Toccata IX from Secondo libro di
toccata ([S.I.]: Harvard University Press, 1950), 21.
27
Beaumont, Busoni the Composer, 282. Specifically, the fanfare is taken from the Ballad of
Lippold the Jew-Coiner.
28
Winfield, 136-37. As Winfield notes, Busonis chaconne is strictly speaking a passacaglia, but
nevertheless justifiably named since the two were interchangeable. See Alexander Silbiger,
Chaconne. Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online (accessed October 1, 2012).
Example 4. Busoni, Toccata, mm. 100-103.
11

octaves leads to a final restatement of the opening rhythmic fanfare on D major, but
any hopes of a glorious conclusion are dispelled through repetition of the motto
rhythm in A minor (the most distantly related key, which also happens to be the
opening key). Thus, the work ends with the same tension which has prevailed from
the very beginning the beauty of Latinate form triumphs over fashionable German
transformation.
Zehn Variationen ber ein Prludium von Chopin (Ten Variations on a Prelude by
Chopin), BV213a (1922)
As Busonis aesthetic outlook radically transformed over time, the composer felt
compelled to create new versions of earlier works to reflect his changing views. The
Ten Variations from the fifth set of Klavierbung (Piano Practice, possibly an
allusion to J.S. Bachs collection by the same name) is a particularly revealing
example of this procedure in action. While published later than the Toccata, its
material is far older. It is in fact a revision of Busonis youthful work Variationen und
Fuge in freier Form (Variations and Fugue in Free Form), Op. 22, an extensive set of
eighteen variations and fugue composed in 1884 inspired by Brahmss similarly
substantial Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, which also ends with a
fugue.
29
When Busoni reviewed his original work thirty-eight years later, his reaction
was congenial There isnt much to patch up in them yet in the days following,
it appears that he gradually realised weaknesses in its form, and weaknesses of the
theme-and-variations genre itself: an alternation of fast and slow, minor and major, is

29
Dent notes that this is the only composition which shows the direct influence of Brahms. See
Dent, 54.
12

not yet form and even less a plan, an idea.
30
The new version is thus an intriguing
patchwork of the old and new. While some elements and motives have been retained
from their 1884 form, others have been re-worked, sometimes drastically. Besides the
theme which is essentially presented verbatim, a more cohesive and unified structure
is implemented, whereby the eighteen variations of the original version are cut to ten,
re-ordered (Table 2), and their musical material condensed. This also allows ideas to
develop in an organic fashion more closely aligned to Busonis new ideals.


30
Busoni in a letter to Frau Kwasthodapp on 20 April 1922, quoted in Beaumont, Busoni the
Composer, 297.


Variations and Fugue in Free Form, BV213


Ten Variations on a Prelude of Chopin, BV213a
Theme Theme (new introduction appended)
Variation 1 Variation 1 (altered tempo from Grave to Alla breve)
Variation 2 Variation 2 (some changes in figuration)
Variation 3 *Variation 3 (new material)
Variation 4 Variation 4 (identical)
Variation 5 Variation 5 (chordal passages altered)
Variation 6 Variation 6 (registrations widened, 2
nd
half new material)
Variation 7 Variation 7 (different key; new Busoni scale passages)
Variation 8 Variation 8 (Fugato, in compound quadruple time)
Variation 9 *Variation 9 (Hommage Chopin) (new material)
Variation 10 Variation 10 (rhythms and texture altered, new coda)
Variation 11
Variation 12
Variation 13
Variation 14
Variation 15
Variation 16
Variation 17
Variation 18
Fugue (in common time)
Table 2. Reordering of variations in the original and revised versions of Busonis Chopin Variations.
13

As a result of the old-new synthesis, the harmonic language of the work is
somewhat inconsistent. Polyphony, where present, plays a similar role as in the
Toccata in effecting unusual harmonic shifts, but its use is more intermittent. Busoni
was working on his last major composition, the opera Doktor Faust, during this time,
31

and its influence can be observed in the newly-composed introduction. Preceding the
theme proper, this four-bar passage is written in three-part canon. A Faustian
32

quality is evoked through the use of free tonality, whereby the vertical harmonies that
result from the canon, though heavily chromatic, still allude to tonal centres. While the
technique of modal mixture is carried over from the 1884 original, Busoni also freely
superimposes pitch collections and utilises false relations to produce highly novel
washes of harmonic colour, such as in the seventh variation (Example 5), anticipating
the polymodal chromaticism of Bartk.
33



The rather four-square fugue of the 1884 version, derived from Brahmsian
models, is replaced by a lighter scherzo fugato (the eighth variation), which Sitsky
considers to be a burlesque of the fugal form.
34
At the conclusion of the fugato, the
Hommage Chopin delightfully embroiders the theme in the rhythms of the waltz,
possibly with reference to the famous Minute Waltz in D (compare Example 6a &

31
Roberge, Ferruccio Busoni: A Bio-bibliography, 44.
32
Beaumont, Busoni the Composer, 298.
33
The term and concept polymodal chromaticism is introduced in Bla Bartk, Harvard Lectures,
in Bla Bartk Essays (London: Faber & Faber, 1976): 354-92.
34
Sitsky, Busoni and the Piano: The Works, the Writings, and the Recordings, 59.
Example 5. Busoni, Zehn Variationen ber ein Prludium von Chopin, m. 202.
14

6b).
35
The parody highlights the complex relationship between Busoni and Chopins
music, for while Busoni revered the visionary nature of Chopins Preludes and the
large-scale structures of the Ballades, he held the conventionally popular works such
as the waltzes in far lower esteem.
36
The intent, nevertheless, is humorous rather than
malicious, perhaps even a mischievous flexing of proverbial compositional muscles.




Whereas the Six Piano Pieces display Busonis beginnings as a master of
technique, the Ten Variations present Busonis endings as a champion of aesthetic
self-conviction. Adding an extra dimension to the mystical serenity first explored in
the Berceuse, in these variations Busoni reveals the additional ironic detachment and

35
My thanks to Daniel Herscovitch for this observation.
36
Dent, Ferruccio Busoni: A Biography, 260. For a detailed commentary on Busonis use of parody
see Levitz, Teaching New Classicality: Ferruccio Busoni's Master Class in Composition, 152-157.
Example 6a. Chopin, Waltz Op.64 No.1, mm. 1-8.
Example 6b. Busoni, Zehn Variationen ber ein Prludium von Chopin, mm. 250-60.
(upward unbeamed quaver stems added to denote theme)
15

playfulness which characterises his late style, reflected by the greater prominence of
dance-like triplet rhythms and triple meter.
37
In accordance with his Lisztian self-
revisionist aesthetic, even the Ten Variations was not Busonis final say on Chopin.
The piece was again reworked in the second edition of the Klavierbung in 1925 with
the seventh variation (a brooding Fantasia, in tempo libero) cut, and Beaumont
considers this to be the definitive edition.
38
However, in my opinion, this section is
not of such unsound quality to warrant exclusion on the contrary, it provides a
welcome contrast before the scherzo-fugato, Chopinesque waltz and tarantella
variations bring the work to an extrovert and thrilling (one might say
Mephistophelean) conclusion.


37
Beaumont, Busoni the Composer, 298-99.
38
ibid.
16

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Hrtel, [1985?].
. Ferruccio Busoni: Selected Letters. Translated by Antony Beaumont.
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. Letters to His Wife. Translated by Rosamond Ley. New York: Da Capo Press,
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17

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283-99.
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