The opinion on Busoni's compositions are very varied, but on his skill as a pianist, all critics back then where unanimous, he was one of the few world famous pianists whose musicianship allowed him to be classed with Rubinstein, Liszt.
His interpretations of the classics still brought sharp criticisms, and he wrote to one of his critics defending himself;
"You start from false premises in thinking that it is my intention to modernize the works. On the contrary, by cleaning them of the dust of tradition I try to restore their youth, to present them as they sounded to people at the moment when they first sprang from the head and the pen of the composer."
"The Pathetique was an almost revolutionary sonata in its own day, and ought to sound revolutionary. One could never put enough passion into the Appassionata, which was the culmination of the passionate expression of its epoch. When I play Beethoven, I try to approach the liberte, nervosite and humanite which are the signature of his compositions, in contrast to those of his predeccessors. Recalling the character of the man Beethoven a what is related of his own playing, I have built up for myself an ideal which has been wrongly called 'modern' and which is really no more than 'live'. I do the same with Liszt, and oddly enough people approve in this case, though the condemn me in the other."
Busoni was ruthless when he interpreted Chopin, shocking all who has become accustomed to the delicate, tender and dreamy style that most pianists used for most of the works. Many of Chopin's compositions however Busoni never touched like the Mazurkas, but he was very fond of the Preludes. His intellectual approach to his art, which rigorously excluded popular sentimentality, accounted for his failure to please many of his listeners.
Eccentricities in his interpretation of the works of old masters often offended and even horrified a great number of those who attened his concerts, but not many people could resist to be impressed by his fantastic technique, amazing agility and infinite variety of tone-colour. Professor Dent says in his biography of Busoni:
"He played the first prelude of the Bach Fourty Eight and it became a wash of shifting colours, a rainbow over the fountains of the Villa d'Este; he played the fugue, and each voice sang out above the rest like the entries of an Italian chorus, until the last stretto, the subject entered like the trumpets of the Dona nobis in the Mass in B-minor, though in the middle of the keyboard, across a haze of pedal-held sound that was not confusion but blinding clearness."
His Liszt was a great joy to hear, but the majority of Chopin's compositions he murdered, very impressively, with a blunt instrument. Somebody once said that he played the Trio of the Funeral March like a cornet solo; a statement to which another horrified listeners added "outside a pub." Busoni use to say "If you honestly believe that the melody is beautiful, you must sing it with all the fullness of your voice."
Topic: Busoni the pianist