Ferruccio Benvenuto Busoni, Music: History, Composers, And Performers, Biographies

Related Category: Music: History, Composers, And Performers, Biographies

Ferruccio Benvenuto Busoni[fAr-rOOt´chO bAnvAnOO´tO bOOzO´nE] Pronunciation Key, 1866–1924, Italian pianist and composer. A child prodigy, he gave a concert in Trieste at the age of eight, which was followed by many appearances conducting and performing his own compositions. His style of piano playing was similar to that of Liszt, whom he greatly admired. He later taught at the conservatories in Helsinki and Moscow and from 1891 to 1894 at the New England Conservatory of Music, Boston. He transcribed for piano many of the organ works of J. S. Bach and edited his Well-tempered Clavier. Busoni's own compositions include piano pieces, a piano concerto, a violin concerto, and operas. His writings on musical and aesthetic subjects include his Sketch of a New Esthetic (tr. 1911).

See his letters to his wife (tr. 1938); biography by H. H. Stuckenschmidt (tr. 1971).