Ferruccio Busoni
VIOLIN CONCERTO OP 35a & VIOLIN SONATA NO.2 OP 36a

THE REVIEW

BETWEEN GERMANY AND ITALY: the new classicism of Ferruccio Busoni

The cover photo and the evident graphics of the album title give prominence to the good Frank Peter Zimmermann, almost relegating the composer's name to the background. That would be Ferruccio Busoni, an eminent concert artist as well as a theorist of a new musical aesthetic between the 19th and 20th centuries. It's not a big deal, even though it's precisely the music, the "substance" of this album, that prompted me to purchase it. Thanks to a competition, I was aware of Busoni's fame as a virtuoso pianist, but I was completely unaware of his qualities as a composer. My curiosity was well rewarded by these two youthful works (he was thirty years old) that feature the violin as the protagonist: namely, the Concerto op.35a with the RAI National Symphony Orchestra and the Second Sonata op. 36a for violin and piano, first performed between 1896 and 1898. Both are fascinating, and it's easy to find a vast literature online to accompany the listening, should the notes (quite clear but trilingual and typically absent in Italian) in the booklet not be enough. Instinctively, my preferences go to the final movement of the Concerto, the Allegro impetuoso (an easy choice, let's say), while for the Sonata, I would choose the first movement (Langsam) and the sixth variation (Allegro deciso, un poco maestoso) of the third movement. Zimmermann deserves credit for an excellent performance worthy of his Stradivari, and I also found the contribution of Enrico Pace's vigorous and solemn piano performance excellent, for which the publisher Sony-BMG would have done well to find space for at least a photo in the booklet. I also find this intersection of performers between Italy and Germany interesting, totally coherent with Busoni's transnational personality, born in Trieste, highly active in the Central European and Scandinavian region, and buried in Berlin, who would also have deserved an iconographic recognition in this album, which is excellent and highly recommended nonetheless.