Once a towering inspirational figure in the musical life of Berlin, later a crucial influence on musicians as diverse as Sibelius, Varèse, Schoenberg and Weill, Ferruccio Busoni is now being rediscovered by a new generation of performers and listeners. Kurt Weill wrote: “Ferruccio Busoni has been called the last Renaissance man. It is strange enough that such a phenomenon appeared in our time. We are bound to think of Leonardo. In him also we find that comprehensive spirituality which strives to open up all attainable spheres. Such individuals are immortal not only through their work but through the radiation of their personality, through the gradual influence of their humanity.” Busoni’s sui generis five-movement Piano Concerto is a work that bears comparison to Liszt’s Faust Symphony and Mahler’s Eighth. This revelatory new recording by pianist Kirill Gerstein with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the men of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus conducted by Sakari Oramo is a landmark in the wider acclamation of a singular genius who mapped a sublime 20th century alternative to the modernist revolt of Stravinsky and Schoenberg.

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REVIEW:

The performance is so well thought-through and so expertly performed, as well as so perfectly recorded, that this must now surely qualify as one of the top choices for this work. Hopefully it will encourage many others to take the plunge and explore this multi-faceted behemoth. Like any cliff-face, it’s intimidating at first, but renders many rewards when you work at it, and in this company those rewards are all the richer. I’d be very surprised if this isn’t one of my discs of 2019.

– MusicWeb International (Simon Thompson)