Wolf Harden returns to Busoni for Naxos in this, his fifth volume of Busoni's piano music for the label, and Harden seems to be more on his game here than in the fourth volume. While flanked by Busoni's familiar transcription of J.S. Bach's "St. Anne" prelude and his extraordinary 1922 rewrite of his much earlier Variations on Chopin's C minor Prelude, the real jewels in this crown are a couple of obscure suites, the Six Etudes, Op. 16 (1883), and the Six Pieces, Op. 33b (1895-1896). The first set is a wild and wooly series ...
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Wolf Harden returns to Busoni for Naxos in this, his fifth volume of Busoni's piano music for the label, and Harden seems to be more on his game here than in the fourth volume. While flanked by Busoni's familiar transcription of J.S. Bach's "St. Anne" prelude and his extraordinary 1922 rewrite of his much earlier Variations on Chopin's C minor Prelude, the real jewels in this crown are a couple of obscure suites, the Six Etudes, Op. 16 (1883), and the Six Pieces, Op. 33b (1895-1896). The first set is a wild and wooly series of etudes Busoni composed when he was only 17 years of age, and it contains so many seeds of his mature style that certain pieces -- such as the fifth etude "Fuga" -- could nearly be mistaken for the Busoni of 30 or so years later. The Six Pieces date from just before the Violin Concerto and Violin Sonata No. 2, Op. 36a, which Busoni cited as representing a stylistic breakthrough for him. The virtuoso textures he achieves in these pieces -- "Frohsion" utilizes a sweeping figure...
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