FERRUCCIO BUSONI

OPERE PER PIANOFORTE E ORCHESTRA

CARLO GRANTE
pianoforte

I Pomeriggi musicali

Marco Zuccarini
____________________________________________________________________________________







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Concerto per pianoforte
ed accompagnamento di quartetto d'archi


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Conzertstück
für Pianoforte mit Orchester


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VEDI ANCHE - MORE INFO

Indianische Fantasie für Pianoforte
und Orchester, op. 44, KiV 264

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VEDI ANCHE - MORE INFO

 


Carlo Grante uno dei pianisti più attivi ed apprezzati della discografia contemporanea. I suoi oltre 30 dischi incisi comprendono le Sonate di Platti, Clementi, Prokofíev, opere di Liszt, Busoni (fra cui opere per pianoforte e orchestra); sono tuttora in corso le integrali delle Sonate di Scarlatti (di cui sono usciti i primi 7 CD) e delle opere pianistiche di Godowsky (di cui sono usciti i 53 Studi sugli Studi di Chopin e trascrizioni di Schubert e Bach).

Grante ha tenuto concerti in importanti centri musicali italiani ed esteri: Londra, New York, Chicago, Hong Kong, Zagabria, Festival di Husum, Festival di Newport, Festival di Vienna, Festival di Istanbul, Lima, Rio de Janeiro, Roma (Accademia di S. Cecilia), Milano (Società dei Concerti), Festival di Ravello, Autunno Musicale Como, ecc. Nel 1995 ha presentato in prima mondiale al Festival di Newport i 53 Studi sugli Studi Chopin di Godowsky. Nel 1996, in occasione di due recitals alla Wigmore Hall di Londra, la rivista Musical Opinion ha scritto: «i dischi di Grante avevano mostrato qualità sbalorditive... in seguito alle sue esecuzioni al vivo, ha poi dimostrato di essere il pianista di primíordine che i suoi dischi suggerivano».

Nel 1997 Grante ha tenuto un'acclamatissima serie di 6 recitals a New York, di cui il New York Times ha scritto: «le sue prodezze vanno ben oltre velocità e abilità esecutive, non vi è solo colore attraente ma colore con un fine, differenziazione timbrica che chiarisce il tessuto sonoro. I passaggi difficili sono resi da non sembrar tali». In un recente articolo Harold Schonberg ha scritto di Grante: «vero pianismo da virtuoso di classe, retto da una sonorità splendida [...] neancbe Bolet lo avrebbe sorpassato».

Carlo Grante si è diplomato a Roma al Conservatorio di S. Cecilia con Sergio Perticaroli, ha studiato poi con Rudolf Firkusny alla Juilliard School di New York e con Alice Kezeradze-Pogorelich a Londra.


I POMERIGGI MUSICALI




Direzione
MARCO ZUCCARINI

Nato a Milano, Marco Zuccarini è stato fino al 1982 Professore di Musica da Camera al Conservatorio di Venezia. ha diretto numerose orchestre e registrato la prima esecuzione in tempi moderni dell'opera di Galuppi «Le Nozze».


Concerto per pianoforte
e accompagnamento di quartetto ad arco
op. 17
[Versione per orchestra d'archi]


Breve presentazione
[in italiano]

Doriana Attili
[dal booklet del CD]

Larry Sitsky


Il Concerto per pianoforte e archi fu composto nel 1878, quando Busoni aveva solo 12 anni. Esso costituisce il primo tentatlvo di unire il suo strumento preferito ad un complesso polifonico qual è il quartetto d'archi. Non può essere considerato come un quintetto con pianoforte per il fatto che quest'ultimo presenta caratteristiche solistiche e una densità di scrittura che evoca quella brahmsiana, a cui Busoni fu sensibile soprattutto nel primo periodo della sua attività creativa. La struttura è, «sinfonicamente» in quattro movimenti con uno Scherzo e un Allegro vivace finale con una vera e propria cadenza in stile chiaramente concertistlco. Questo «Concerto» può essere considerato una premessa al «Konzertstück» op. 31a [cfr. infra].


The mood of the «Concerto per pianoforte accompagnamente [sic] di quartetto ad arco», Op. 17, in D minor, which Busoni apparently composed when he was twelve, recalls Field, Hummel, and, in the third movement, Beethoven, but the work also shows the influence of Mozart. (Busoni loved the melodic heauty, clarity, and formal purity of Mozart's music, and later paid him homage in an original collection of epithets.) The concerto is divided into four movements, and adheres closely to Classical form. The rhythm is generally very clear and concise, and the pianistic texture, though a long way from the originality of the later works, is already frequently noteworthy, somewhat in a Biedermeier style, often Mendelssohnian in the solo passages. The score is often devoid of expression markings, and this gives the concerto a certain sense of incompleteness. There are some indications in the orchestral part, but they often result in contradictions, as is the case, for example, with some discrepancies in dynamics.
In the first movement (Allegro), the tonal plan and the distribution of the two principal themes create a conventional sonata form, though, as in Mozart's A-major concerto, K. 488, there is also a similarity to the concerto grosso: the orchestra almost always reiterates the first theme, even if it is modified, a little like a ritornello, in dialogue with the piano, which is entrusted with the «development» of all the thematic material; the resulting structure is clean, orderly, and by nature imitative. The second movement (Adagio) is perhaps the most interesting of the whole concerto - lyrical and powerfully moving, to a degree surprising in a composer so young. It is terse, linear, somewhat dry, avoiding showy, superficial brilliance, and as a result is more Baroque in character than the rest of the concerto, hinting at Busoni's later compositional style. The third movement (Scherzo) is simple and light in character, in a playful 3/4 time. The fourth (Allegro vivace) is the most complex pianistically, with some extremely fast and rhythmical passages, recalling the articulated and technically audacious style of Mendelssohn. Throughout, the maturity of this concerto is evident in the total absence of technical display for its own sake, in the complete integration of piano and string parts, and in the young composer's perfect command of traditional concerto form.

[© 1999 Doriana Attili, dal booklet del CD]


Unlike most of Busoni's other manuscripts, this concerto presents a somewhat unfinished appearance. The score is almost totally devoid of any expression marks. The string parts have some indications, but many of them are contradictory: there are discrepancies in the dynamics, some note values do not correspond with other parts or the score where they should correspond, for example, in chords; the phrases or slurs in the string parts are not necessarily bowing marks, but rather marks inserted by a young - albeit extremely precocious - pianist-composer. There is also the question of whether the work is a chamber work or an orchestral piece. Unquestionably, some of the texture and style of both the piano and the strings suggests chamber music. On the other hand, there are tutti and divisi indications in the music, which suggest the opposite. I would personally propose a small string orchestra as the ideal solution; as well, as was common in those days, I would double the cello parts with the string bass.
The sound world of this composition reminds us of Field, Hummel, early Chopin and - in the third movement - Beethoven. The dotted rhythms of the first movement and some of the piano figurations tell us that the young composer had also studied Bach.
The first movement features a dotted figure with a four-square rhythm. Scalar sequential figures form a large part of the piano figuration; the texture is clean and uncluttered, imitative by nature. The piano at times provicles a decorative background for the dotted patterns via scale runs. In the second movement, a ground bass foundation of chords is laid at the very start, somewhat like the middle movement of Bach's d minor piano concerto. The piano phrases are built around this ground bass. The third movement, a Beethoven-like scherzo, is in a joyous 3/4. The fourth opens with a Mendelssohnian flourish. [...]
This is a most unusual piece for a child prodigy to want to write; there is a general lack of bravura, the piano writing is well integrated with the strings, and the primary concern of the composer seems to have been a tight formal structuring rather than a display of pianistic technique. I find this concerto no less amazing than works at the same age by composers such as Mendelssohn. A performing edition of this work should be contemplated for more than just curiosity value.

[LARRY SITSKY, «Busoni and the piano. The Work, the Writings, and the Recordings», New York, Greenwood Press, 1986, pp. 28-30]


Conzertstück für Pianoforte
mit Orchester op. 31a, KiV 236



Nel 1890 [...] Busoni vinse a Pietroburgo il premio di composizione al primo concorso Rubinstein. Le nuove opere che gli valsero un'affermazione così prestigiosa furono la «Prima Sonata in do maggiore per violino e pianoforte op. 29 [...], due pezzi per pianoforte [«Kontrapunktisches Tanzstück» e «Kleine III Ballettszene»] [...] e soprattutto il «Konzertstück» per pianoforte e orchestra, scritto a Helsinki nel 1890 e pubblicato da Breitkopf & Härtel nel 1892 (op. 31a) con la dedica al padrino del concorso, Anton Rubinstein. Va detto subito che cercheremmo invano in queste opere il segno distintivo del capolavoro, o almeno del lavoro personale e completo: nemmeno il Konzertstück lo è. Il dubbio, avvalorato dalle note vicende del concorso, che il premio sia stato assegnato a Busoni come compenso del mancato conferimento di quello per l'esecuzione pianistica (questo davvero scandaloso), è legittimo; senza contare che tra i partecipanti al concorso di composizione, riservato ai giovani dai venti ai ventisei anni, non figuravano né nomi né opere di grande spicco.
Inoltre Rubinstein proteggeva Busoni e Busoni, che lo ammirava sinceramente anche come compositore, gli aveva composto un pezzo su misura, il Konzertstück appunto, scintillante di un virtuosismo trascendentale e gonfio di un'epica monumentalità che tocca l'apice nella cadenza dell'Allegro, in un fugato di ardimentose proporzioni. L'Allegro è preceduto da una Introduzione lenta, pagina disuguale ma riscattata qua e là da pregevoli intuizioni armoniche e timbriche, specialmente nella scrittura pianistica. Com'era sua abitudine con le composizioni giovanili più promettenti, Busoni riprese in età matura questo lavoro e aggiunse al dittico originario «Introduzione e Allegro» una seconda parte intitolata «Romanza e Scherzoso» (op.54, 1921), dedicata ad Alfredo Casella. La prima versione e la posteriore aggiunta, pubblicate nel 1922 col nuovo titolo di «Concertino», costituiscono globalmente un'opera più equilibrata e compiuta, anche se stilisticamente eterogenea.

[SABLICH, pp.151-152]


Busoni gave the premiere of his «Concertstück für Pianoforte rnit Orchester», Op. 31 a, in 1890; the work won him the first Rubinstein Prize for composition that year, and with it the offer of a position at the Moscow Conservatory. The «Concertstück» is an independent piece, but years later Busoni decided that it could be performed along with the «Romanza e scherzoso», Op. 54, to form a new composite work, to which he gave the title «Concertino fur Pianoforte und Orchester». The «Concertstück» reveals very clearly the influence of Brahms particularly Brahms's «Piano Concerto» No. I in D Minor, Op. 15, composed 1854-8. Similarities are apparent in the succession of themes, and, in some spots, the orchestration, though the various orchestral combinations that Busoni was experimenting with did not always lend themselves to the lushness of Brahms's orchestral writing. |
One finds traces, too, of the influence of Bach, as in the fugato section at the beginning of the long piano solo, and in the passacaglia-like section (Largamente) that marks the entrance of the piano. While the solo part lacks the explosive virtuosity of Liszt, it is by no means lacking in brilliance. The style of the Concertstück seems rather familiar at first, but the novel, innovative aspects of the work are definitely there, if not necessarily evident at first glance. It begins with an orchestral introduction that exposes all four principal themes: the first, an ascending theme in a dotted rhythm; the second, a slower, descending theme, also in a dotted rhythm; the third, very cantabile and ornamented; and the fourth, chromatic, finishing in a distinctly Brahmsian style. Though it opens in D minor, and features passages unstable in harmony and ambiguous in key, the «Concertstück» centers around the key of D major. The use of sonata form is evident in the recapitulation section that follows the cadenza, which is written in the style of Schumann. Given the heightened, individualized way in which Busoni treats Classical form here, the «Concertstück» succeeds in realizing his convictions about the renewal of traditional musical practices.

[© 1999 Doriana Attili, dal booklet del CD]

This piece, dedicated to Anton Rubinstein, won the first Rubinstein prize for composition in 1890. It was widely recognized that Busoni should also have won the piano prize at the competition, but Rubinstein himself felt that, at least during the first awards, one prize should go to a Russian.
The «Concertstück» is often dismissed in writings on Busoni as an early work and therefore as too derivative and immature. Much has been made of the Brahms influence in particular. This seems to me overemphasized. [...] the passage [...] inspired by similar passages in the Brahms d minor Concerto, [...] is an isolated instance, not a typical one; and even when the solo part feels and sounds like Brahms, the combination with orchestra has none of the Brahmsian opulence, but is already finely etched even at this early stage, and contrapuntally rather than harmonically conceived. [...]
The «Concertstück», although firmly rooted in D major (the opening is in d minor), is nevertheless harmonically unstable in parts (see the first solo entry and the later cadenza), either modulating rapidly, or else using the semitone makeup of theme IV to create tonally ambiguous passages. It alters time signatures rather more frequently than would have been common at the time. Finally, the writing of long cadenza stretches for the piano, the tenuous scoring, and avoidance of piano and orchestra in combination merely to whip up a frenzy are all indicative of Busoni's next work for this combination: the Indian Fantasy.

[LARRY SITSKY, «Busoni and the piano. The Work, the Writings, and the Recordings», New York, Greenwood Press, 1986, pp. 28-30]


Indianische Fantasie
für Pianoforte und Orchester, op. 44, KiV 264



Nel corso delle sue numerose tournées negli Stati Uniti, Busoni era venuto a contatto con la musica popolare degli indios: di lì nacque nel 1911 l'idea di una fantasia (inizialmente Busoni pensava però a una «rapsodia») che utilizzasse temi e ritmi di quel folclore. Anche se il compositore confessò piú tardi dhe «i motivi indiani non rendono né fruttano molto», portò ugualmente a termine il pezzo, in cui effettivamente si trova la citazione letterale di alcuni motivi degli indios. L'elaborazione sinfonica è naturalmente assai ampia, e il materiale foldorico viene calato in una sensibilità tutta occidentale e se vogliamo neoromantica: è una partitura ricca di vigorosi svolgimenti contrappuntistici, curata nella parte orchestrale e assai virtuosistica in quella del solista. La «Fantasia indiana» conserva tuttavia nel suo insieme una certa tinta esotica, ed è ancor oggi uno dei pezzi prediletti dai concertisti di pianoforte.

[Giacomo MANZONI, «Guida all'ascolto della musica sinfonica», Feltrinelli, Milano, p. 104]


Fantasia (Andante con moto, quasi Marcia) - Canzone (Andante quasi lento) - Finale (Più vivamente). - Organico: pianoforte solista - 2 flauti; 2 oboi; 2 fagotti; 3 corni; 2 trombe; tipani; glockspeil; triangolo; tam-tam; tamburo militare; grancassa; piatti; arpa; archi.
Durante le sue tournées americane Busoni conobbe un buon numero di melodie originali della musica dei pellirosse e le utilizzò compositivamente dando vita a una breve ed intensa serie di lavori ispirati a quella musica, fra i quali più impegnativo e ambizioso fu la «Fantasia indiana per pianoforte e orchestra», del 1913. Di fatto le melodie indiane rappresentano soltanto il punto di partenza per un arricchimento degli elementi costitutivi della costruzione musicale. Il concatenarsi delle idee e degli episodi con i relativi contrasti, le riprese e l'uso magistrale della variazione, seguono uno sviluppo ininterrotto, senza cesure nelle tre parti in cui il lavoro è suddiviso. Vi abbondano, nella profonda elaborazione del materiale folclorico originale, procedimenti tipici dello stile busoniano: colori accesi, vigorosi intrecci contrappuntistici, sonorità ora massicce ora trasfigurate; oltre, naturalmente, a un virtuosismo pianistico trascendentale, che l'orchestra riflette come in uno specchio insieme magico e deformante.

[«Repertorio di musica sinfonica», a cura di Piero SANTI, Giunti-Ricordi, Milano, 1989, p. 159]


The first evidence of Busoni's interest in American Indians is found in a letter to his wife dated March 22, 1910, in which he mentions one of his former American pupils, the New York-born ethnomusicologist Natalie Curtis, who had compiled a standard anthology of Indian music, «The Indian's, Book». Busoni, for his part, referred to American Indians as «the only cultured people who will have nothing to do with money, and who dress the most everyday things in beautiful words.» His first completed compositions on this subject were the two books of the «Indianisches Tagebuch» [Indian Diary] - the first a set of four studies for piano, the second a study for small orchestra titled «Gesang vom Reigen der Geister» [Song of the Spirits' Dance]. Both books were composed in 1915 and published the following year.
Drawing on Indian melodies taken directly from Curtis's book, Busoni began the «Indianische Fantasie fur Klavier mit Orchester» in the summer of 1913, but did not complete it until 1915; he gave the first performance himself, in Zurich, in 1916, and achieved greater success with it in London, in 1920. He had difficulties developing the themes and organizing the structure of this work, difficulties reflected in his indecision about naming it: he first chose the title «Concerto Secondo - (Fantasia, Canzone e Finale su dei motivi delle Pelli-Rosse) - per Pianoforte con Orchestra», then considered the title «Indianische Suite», and even the English title Indian Rhapsody, before making up his mind.
The «Indianische Fantasie» marks a significant stylistic departure from the «Piano Concerto», Op. 39, or the «Concertstück». Though Busoni was preparing his edition of Book II of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier when he composed it, he rejected a highly contrapuntal style, and instead searched for a form in which harmony and rhythm were subservient to melody, as in his «Berceuse élégiaque» for orchestra, Op. 42 (1909) and his «octurne symphonique». In 19I2, at a time when many musicians favored Expressionistic as opposed to melodic writing, Busoni wrote that he was concentrating on the role of «pure melody, a sequence of ascending and descending intervals that are organized and move rhythmically. The sequence has harmony latent within itself, and reflects a kind of feeling. And all this can exist without expressive guidelines drawn from a text, and without vocal accompaniment... The melody, at first independent, eventually unites with the accompanying harmony and later becomes inseparably linked with it. Recently the aim of polyphonic music (which is always in progress) has been to free itself from this unity. In contradiction to deep-rooted convictions, melody, within polyphony, should be permitted to continuously expand, to grow in size and capacity of expression, and so become the most powerful element in the composition.»
In the «Indianische Fantasie», dance rhythms alternate with slow laments, grandiose themes with barbaric passages. The orchestral instruments are often treated sectionally, thus avoiding the mixing and merging of individual timbres. Busoni introduces several themes in succession, with highly original, polytonal harmonies, then elaborates them while conserving their original character. The piano part is almost symphonic in character, with cadenzas used as the structural means for introducing new musical material. Busoni wrote in 1913 that «I have arrived at a critical moment in my work, where many ideas have need of form»; in the case of the «Indianische Fantasie», that form divides into three principal sections that are linked by piano cadenzas:
(I) The introduction (Andante con moto, quasi marcia) is built up from a twobar fragment in a march style, characterized by a pedal-point. The fantasy proper begins with the entrance of the piano, with a syncopated and clearly articulated theme. An Adagio fantastico section, with a new four-note theme supported by heavy chords, is followed by a contrasting Allegretto affettuoso section, then a Più mosso, with a bellicose seven-bar theme accompanied by hammered-out octaves in the piano. The end of this theme is transformed into a lyrical fragment for the orchestra, leading to the cadenza, which develops the material of the Allegretto affettuoso.
(II) The middle section of the «Indianische Fantasie» is the most conventional. The piano soloist presents a song in G major (Andante, quasi lento), alternating with the orchestra. The Allegro sostenuto serves as a bridge to the Andantino maestoso, which is built on an orchestral theme enriched by arpeggios in the piano part.
(III) In the Vivamente, a barbaric dance rhythm, used as an ostinato, is blared out by the horns, then taken up by the winds, while the piano plays full chords. In the Animato section, the various themes intermingle, in a savage rhythm, leading to the conclusion in C major.

«Busoni the composer admits of no pigeon-holing,
classification, or labeling, except as - Busoni, and it is rare,
rare that is except in creative genius of the first order,
to find his written work so completely self-expressive,
so compact of everything that goes to the making
of the artist's psychology as the later and fully developed
works of Busoni.» -
K. S. Sorabji

[© 1999 Doriana Attili, dal booklet del CD]

Busoni indicated that the «Red Indian Fantasy» was an experiment 'to obtain a balance between the sound of the two elements used, in an atmosphere of weird, exotic harmonies, without losing sight of the cultivation of the subtlest soloistic virtuosity'. The indecisive role of the soloist in the work hence comes as a disappointment. In comparison with the «Piano Concerto», the writing is now more streamlined, textures are clearer and leaner, but the soloist too often plays the self-effacing role of musing commentator and decorator. There is too great a preoccupation with the geometrical problems of piano playing, the outcome of which is a lack of contour and character. This could have been compensated for by the contribution of the orchestra, but, compared with the «Nocturne symphonique», this is for the most part unadventurous and earthbound. The roles of soloist and orchestra are insufficiently defined; the dramatic possibilities of the medium are underexploited.

[Antony BEAUMONT, «Busoni the Composer», London-Boston, Faber and Faber, 1985, p. 198.]

The unity of the piece remains in question. By force of circumstance, Busoni had to write a major work using many motives, thus having to find other unifying principles than his usually very strict thematic ones. Did he succeed in his expedient of using the outward mold of a concerto form by apparently selecting motives so as to provide both contrast, where necessary, and cohesion, where the themes are similar in intervallic content? Is it reasonable to say that, just as one can arrive at non-tonal content by constant and quickly successive modulation, one can arrive at non-thematic content via a profusion of themes? If the latter, could it have been one of the paths that Busoni was exploring? I suggest below (see «Concertino for piano and orchestra» Op. 54) that this may have been the case, as the piano became for Busoni more and more a vehicle for pure fantasy.
The «Indian Fantasy» is an unaccountably neglected piece. It is easy to listen to and of very moderate length. Those who find the Concerto Op. XXXIX oppressive - and many do, for many reasons - may be interested in discovering the «new music» in this «Fantasy», a blood brother to the early «Concertstück» and to the later «Concertino» Op. 54.

[LARRY SITSKY, «Busoni and the piano. The Work, the Writings, and the Recordings», New York, Greenwood Press, 1986, pp. 28-32]