Haunted and Haunting Orchestral Suites by Feruccio Busoni from the Early 20th Century

For the first quarter of the 20th century, Dante Michelangelo Benvenuto Feruccio Busoni (1866-1924). Busoni was a highly regarded music theorist, teacher and a superstar piano virtuoso. I gather that his transcriptions for piano of Bach organ works were once ubiquitous (pianist Paul Jacobs made a bravura recording of them during the late 1970s that is now available on DVD).

Although the CD era has included a revival of interest in and availability of Busoni music, my own introduction to Busoni's music was a performance of his epic (five-movement) concerto for piano and male chorus (1903-04), which I would categorize as a "great mad piece" (not angry but extremely unusual) and others denigrate at "glitzy." Most definitely, it makes great demands on the stamina and reach of the pianist and has some very flamboyant triumphant arpeggios. (Garrick Ohlsson rises to the challenges on a fine recording of the concerto with the Cleveland Orchestra.)

Busoni was very serious about writing operas. The only one that is performed at all nowadays is his last one, "Doktor Faustus," the suite from which sometimes appears on symphony programs, as does John Adams's orchestration of the "Berceuse élégaique" (1909) that Busoni wrote after the death of his mother, and the orchestral suite Busoni carved from his 1917 opera "Turandot" (considerably less popular than Puccini's Turandot").

Busoni had completed two other, shorter operas, "Die "Brautwahl" (The Bridal Choice, based on "The Tales of the Serapian Borthers" also known as "The Three Caskets," a story by E.T.A. Hoffman, premiered in 1912) and "Arlecchino" (Harlequin,, 1917). I have a recording of these two operas that moves me not at allm but I like the orchestral suite from "Die "Brautwahl."

The "Brautwahl" suite begins with what is now stereotypical frittering downward "ghost music". The first movement then builds to Tusman's mad dance (under a spell). The contested-for bride, Albertine's theme for solo viola and French horns is followed by the love duet.'

The third movement includes a slow waltz and exhortation to Tusman not to be discouraged in his quest for Albertine. The "Hebrew Music" is vaguely menacing, and brooding. The final third breaks into manic or even demonic agitation. The "Joyous Music" accompanies magic tricks and recycles some music from the ghostly first movement.

Busoni wrote the Geharnischte (Armored) Suite in Helsinki between 1895 and 1903. It is dedicated to friends of his Newfoundland terrier, Lesko, including Jean Sibelius. The introduction has some of the ghostly texture of tales by Hoffman, and a prematurely neo-classical brass fanfare. What follows is dramatic in ways that suggest Sibelius to me (though perhaps I was primed to find such resonances by knowing of the dedication.) Whatevefr influenced it, I find it interesting and engaging.

The warrior dance underwhelms and nearly annoys me. The last part of it sounds quite industrial and not at all dance-like. The funeral monument movement is, indeed, monumental and somber. It and the following "Assasult" movement sound to me to be influenced by Richard Strauss's and Jean Sibelius's tone poems of the late-19th century (especially "Burleske" and "Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche" in "The Assault"), though somewhat more chromatic without leaving tonality behind.

I'd never heard of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Timisoara or of its conductor in this recording, Jean-Francois Antonioli, and also have not heard any other interpretations of the suites. In that the recording makes a case for the music from the opera ("Die "Brautwahl") that I have heard, I think they do a good job. The sound engineering is definitely good, vivid and variegated.