BUSONI : Piano Music • 11 — Ten Chorale Preludes · Sonatina brevis Nº.5 · Preludio al Corale e Fuga (Edizione minore) Prelude, Fugue and Allegro (Wolf Harden) (2019) FLAC (tracks), lossless

Transcriptions occupied Ferruccio Busoni from early in his career, but his famously Romantic version of the Chaconne in D minor (Naxos 8.555699) contrasts with the later and more austere Sonatina brevis based on Bach’s Fantasy and Fugue in D minor, BWV 905. Music from Bach’s The Art of Fugue is invoked in the rarely heard Edizione minore version of the Fantasia contrappuntistica, and the Ten Chorale Preludes include the glorious Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme. Sir Edward Elgar considered Busoni ‘the greatest musical mind of his time’, and Wolf Harden’s playing of Busoni has been described as ‘the clear current benchmark’ (BBC Music Magazine on Volume 2, 8.555699). naxos

Ferruccio Busoni (1899-1924)
1.    Sonata Brevis (No. 5) 'In Signo Joannis Sebatiani Magni', BV.280 (1919) 5:11
2-6.    Preludio Et Corale E Fuga Sopra Un Frammento Di Bach (Edizione Minore Della Fantasia Contrappuntistica), BV. 256a (1912) 18:57
7.    Prelude, Fugue And Allegro In E Flat Major, BWV 998, BV B.36 (1915) 8:36
J.S. Bach / Ferruccio Busoni - Arranger
8-17.    Ten Chorale Preludes, BV B. 27 (1898)
J.S. Bach / Transcription By – Ferruccio Busoni
Wolf Harden - Piano