大象传媒

At the turn of the 20th Century, the name of Ferruccio Busoni was on the lips of music-lovers across Europe. Concert-goers would have known his performances - either at the piano or from the conductor鈥檚 podium. Pianists flocked to his masterclasses, and other composers set their compass for Berlin, the city Busoni made his home. But 150 years after Busoni鈥檚 birth, contemporary concert goers barely know who he is.

To uncover the art and philosophy of this indispensable figure of world culture in the 1900s, Tom Service visits the German capital with conductor and musicologist Antony Beaumont, who wrote a biography of Busoni, and made a completion of his magnum opus, the opera Doktor Faust.

Having made the role of Faust his own, US baritone Thomas Hampson unpacks the sound world of Busoni鈥檚 opera, while Beaumont describes the melting pot neighbourhoods the composer was drawn to, and the way in which he collected the best of what he found in his favourite haunts.

Busoni鈥檚 father introduced him to the music of J S Bach. Erinn Knyt of University of Massachusettes Amherst outlines how Busoni鈥檚 boyhood compositions featured fugues and inventions imitating the Baroque master, and the lasting imprint they left on his compositional vocabulary.

Working to an ideal of no composition ever being quite finished, Busoni would happily alter notes in other composers鈥� works 鈥� something he was criticised for in his lifetime, along with piano playing that some rejected as too cold or objective. But Knyt argues that Busoni鈥檚 astounding technique and cerebral approach foreshadowed the piano style of the later 20th century.

Dr Thomas Ertelt of the State Institute of Music Research in Berlin, and Dr Michael Lailach of the Berlin State Museum鈥檚 Arts Library introduce images of Busoni with some of the pupils who looked to him for fresh inspiration after the horrors of WW1.

And they offer an insight into the composer鈥檚 concept of a new 鈥榝ree鈥� music 鈥� which included a third-tone scale to be played on a specially commissioned reed organ.

Busoni never composed for the instrument, but Dr Ertelt has reproduced the sound of the third-tone scale, which provided inspiration in the world of electronic music.

Pianist Peter Donohoe explains why some conductors are so reluctant to take on Busoni鈥檚 monumental concerto 鈥� a piece he hails as 鈥渙ne of the world鈥檚 great undiscovered masterpieces鈥� - and the joy of playing 鈥榮ublime鈥� passages he describes as among the greatest in the concerto repertoire.

And Svetlana Belsky of the University of Chicago discusses the love and reverence with which Busoni approached his many piano transcriptions of J S Bach鈥檚 compositions.