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Elegies, Berceuse, Toccata
Wolf Harden Naxos Busoni Piano Music – 4 8.570543 A most desirable release in an important and valuable series. Busoni is, I find time and again on re-acquaintance with his insufficiently known music, one of my favourite composers, and this selection, containing the Elegies, is a good place to start. In his excellent notes for Naxos, Richard Whitehouse emphasises Busoni's harmonic and tonal innovations, which are the essence of what I respond to, the unpredictability of his juxtapositions of textures and movement an endless joy. The Elegies are delectable pieces, nicely characterised in Music Web's review of an earlier recording - "- - a hint of nostalgia in the embodiment, in five of these strange pieces, of earlier material from previous important compositions - - They contain 'the essence of myself' which he himself saw as the consummation ,at that point, of those musical ideas and thoughts to which he gave shape in the New Aesthetic". Music to play again and again, until it works its way into your heart and memory. Peter Grahame Woolf Wolf Harden Concert Fantasy on motifs from the opera Merlin by Goldmark. Fantasy on motifs from the comic opera Der Barbier von Bagdad by Peter Cornelius. Variation-Study after Mozart No.1: Canzonetta from Don Giovanni. Funeral March from Gotterdammerung (Wagner arr. Busoni). Sonatina No.3: 'Ad usum infantis Madeline M Americanae'. Sonatina No.6: Chamber Fantasy on Bizet's Carmen. Five Short Pieces for the Cultivation of Polyphonic Playing. Perhaps nearing the end of Wolf Harden's series, No 7 has virtuosic operatic transcriptions, two of the "sonatinas" and five off-puttingly titled "pieces for cultivation of Polyphonic Playing". The sonatina Sonatina No.3: 'Ad usum infantis Madeline M Americanae' is a favourite which I have long enjoyed playing, intimate and possible for amateurs. There are more brilliant versions of the well known Carmen Fantasy to be found. The big surprise though is those didactic pieces at the end, with Busoni's thinking "at its most developed and elusive" (Richard Whitehouse). With two Mozart transcriptions, the Canzonetta earlier in the listing, and the Armed Men from Die Zauberflote to finish, this disc is well worth acquiring as, I guess, is the whole set. PGW
Indian Diary – Trois Morceaux – Two Dance Pieces – Ballet Scenes Wolf Harden Naxos Busoni Piano Music – 3 8.570249
A thoroughly modern offering from Naxos , part of the kind of project for which they have a well-deserved reputation for excellence. Busoni (who was prophetically named Dante Michelangeli as well as Ferruccio) was famously ambitious in his music, both technically and philosophically; since he saw all music as at some level a transcription of transcendental ideas, he ranged freely within different styles and forms, as does this disc.
Wolf Harden is much recorded, not least for Bach and more modern composers on Naxos ; he is equally well known as the pianist of the Trio Fontenay. He is completely at ease with Busoni's Protean characteristics and the composer's individual blend of tradition and innovation. Whether in the Dvorak-like evocation of Native American life, or the ingenious writing within the virtuosic dances, Harden is easily equal to the technical challenges and the need to portray a wide range of character. It is unlikely Busoni would have claimed that any of these short pieces was great music; you should not buy the disc expecting to find that transcendence to which the composer himself ultimately aspired.
The legendary Bach transcription with which the disc begins is a disappointment; the opening of the Toccata is perfunctory, the rest routine and efficient; for some reason, the notes and blurb refer to it as the D minor BWV565, although it is correctly the C major 564 in the track listings. Busoni's attitude to ‘direct' transcription was to convey texture, not parrot the notes for a different instrument; it is this sense of grandeur that Harden's performance lacks. In general, however, this disc will not disappoint artistically or technically and is highly recommended.
Ying Chang
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