Wolf Harden Busoni

The essence of Ferruccio Busoni’s music lies in its synthesis of emotion and intellect, rooted in his Italian and German ancestry. His Sonatinas typify the stylistic range of his maturity, with the First Sonatina unfolding with the spontaneity of an improvisation. Veering between darting angularity and ominous expectancy, the Second Sonatina is one of his most radical musical statements, while the poise of the Fourth Sonatina marks Busoni’s closest approach to Impressionism. The Drei Albumblätter represent Busoni at his most austere and profound, reflecting the mystical character of his late music.

Busoni embodied an essentially recreative approach to the music of the past. His Bach transcriptions reveal an absolute command of intricate polyphony and a limpid clarity. Mozart stood as an aesthetic and technical exemplar while Cramer’s little-known Etudes are adapted for modern piano technique. Busoni preserved the Lutheran austerity of Brahms’s Chorale Preludes for Organ, Op. 122 whereas in the Mephisto Waltz No. 1 he augments Liszt’s heady writing with a super-virtuosity of his own. Wolf Harden I one of the most versatile pianists of his generation. He has enjoyed great success in the Trio Fontenay, an ensemble that he founded in 1980 and with which he has toured to all the world’s major music centres. Harden devotes himself not only to chamber music but, with the same success, to the solo piano repertoire.