Description

Ferruccio Busoni’s Elegies (1908) and An die Jugend (1909) are experimental pieces that explore new pathways in the composer’s harmonic language and artistic evolution. Elegiesis an aesthetic manifesto, a wish for a turning point in the composer s creative evolution, but also, more ambitiously, in all future music. Ferruccio Busoni believed that music should be, as he commented to the critic and composer Hans Pfitzner, well-meant and full of peace, but this did not preclude the provocative gesture of the Elegies exceptional harmonic variety, brought about by new chordal progressions and juxtapositions and giving an impression of a potentially inexhaustible tonality. An die Jugend is a collection of four pieces written in 1909 and published as four separate books in the same year. These pieces share some stylistic features with Busoni’s first Elegy, while showing even further experimentation on the composer’s part.

Carlo Grante performs these works on a Bösendorfer Imperial Grand Piano.

“Ever challenging and knotty, the often academic figures in Busoni retain their experimental vigor in Grante’s powerful realization.”
—Gary Lemco, Audiophile Audition, April 21, 2018

Read the entire review here:

http://www.audaud.com/busoni-elegies-an-die-jugend-carlo-grante-piano-musicarts/