Piano Forum

Piano Street Magazine:
Watch the Chopin Competition 2025 with us!

Great news for anyone who loves Chopin’s music! Piano Street’s Chopin Competition tool now includes all 1,848 recorded performances from the Preliminary Round to Stage 3. Dive in and listen now! Read more

Pages: [1] Go Down

Topic: Busoni (Read 1708 times)

ahinton

PS Silver Member
Sr. Member
Posts: 12149

Busoni

on: December 03, 2016, 06:00:22 PM

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b084cpk8#play

It's only taken BBC just over 8 months to get itself around to commemorating the composer's 150th anniversary but at least it's done so now.

Some good things indeed but the musical examples were almost embarrassingly brief.

But the Piano Concerto at 80 minutes? Most performances and recordings are around the 70 minute mark! There was one recording that distended it to almost 90, about which the less said the better...

Any thoughts?

Best,

Alistair

Logged

Alistair Hinton
Curator / Director
The Sorabji Archive

roncesvalles

PS Silver Member
Full Member
Posts: 123

Re: Busoni

Reply #1 on: December 19, 2016, 01:07:54 PM

That's definitely not faster than the thoughts of man. Busoni probably would have abhorred such a significantly sluggish performance. Was the entire concerto slow, or were any sections privileged?

I'm glad they tried Busoni, at least, even if a plodding performance of a monumental work might ward off some. Busoni is for me one of the most rewarding (and re-rewarding) composers of the 20th century.