Word: busoni
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Moneymaking Prodigy. He is a figure largely forgotten. On the 100th anniversary of his birth-now being celebrated through the efforts of the vigorous new Busoni Society-Italy's Ferruccio Dante Michelangelo Benvenuto Busoni is remembered by the music public as a mere arranger: the man who transcribed Bach's organ music for the pianoforte. In fact, says Pianist Artur Rubinstein, Busoni was "the greatest pianist of his time." Many musicians consider him a titanic technician and volcanically creative interpreter; all agree that his radical re-examination of the instrument and its literature struck a body blow...
VLADIMIR HOROWITZ (2 LPs; Columbia) gave his first recital in a dozen years last May 9 at Carnegie Hall; this is a recording of that long-awaited performance. The program, which ranges from a Bach- Busoni toccata (Horowitz's good luck piece because it was the first selection on his debut program) through Chopin to Scriabin, shows a variety of technique and mood from lyric tranquillity to bravura virtuosity. The pianist is master of them all. Perhaps most beautiful is the inspired Schumann Fantasy in C Major; the final notes of the second movement float out as if played...
...were dimmed, and Vorsetzer, the 700-Ib. pianist, stood at the keyboard of the Steinway concert grand, all 88 fingers poised over the keys. Then the mechanical wizard began to play - first a spirited Josef Hofmann performance of Mendelssohn's Rondo Capriccioso, then further seances with Leschetizky, Paderewski, Busoni, Mahler, Saint-Saens, Debussy, Ravel. Guided by electric impulses from a collection of unique piano rolls, Vorsetzer's sensitive fingers produced all the notes with ghostly perfection, just as the turn-of-the-century masters had played them 50 years be fore. But this time, tape recorders took...
...that, students of the history of piano-playing may now find answers to many of the questions that nag their conversation (But how good was Busoni?), for the sweep of genius from those halcyon days is very nearly complete. The old pianists seem far more individual and whimsical than today's players. Saint-Saens had a touch like Sonny Liston; Olga Samaroff, born Lucie Hicken-looper in Texas and once married to Stokowski, had all the percussive power of a butterfly...
...When the widow of Italian Virtuoso Ferruccio Busoni heard one of his Welte rolls being played some months after his death, the effect was so intense that she ran from the music salon screaming "Ferruccio! Ferruccio...