Word: busoni
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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...
...Busoni was born in Tuscany...
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...
...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...