Busoni: Transcriptions After J.S. Bach, Vol. 1 – Major Works Sandro Ivo Bartoli

• Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750): Prelude & Fugue in D Major, BWV 532
• 1 Prelude 06:23
• 2 Fugue 09:08
• Prelude & Fugue in E-Flat Major, BWV 552 'St. Anne'
• 3 Prelude 12:59
• 4 Fugue 08:41
• Toccata, Adagio & Fugue in C Major, BWV 564
• 5 Toccata 06:59
• 6 Adagio 06:34
• 7 Fugue 06:44
• Toccata & Fugue in D Minor, BWV 565
• 8 Toccata 03:11
• 9 Fugue 07:47
• Total Runtime 01:08:26

Info for Busoni: Transcriptions After J.S. Bach, Vol. 1 – Major Works

Ferruccio Busoni was a Italian pianist who revolutionised piano transcription, truly bringing it into the modern era. At a time when transcriptions of organ music for piano clung tightly to the Romantic tradition, Busoni had the courage to take an interpretative, emancipatory approach, bringing out all of the unique qualities of the piano in his work, while remaining faithful to the core of Bachís compositions. The comparable virtues of rhythmic precision [and] greater impetuosity which he attributed to the piano are very much audible in this extraordinary album, from the delightful Prelude and Fugue in D major to the grandiose and virtuosic Two Toccatas, which Busoni placed at the very top of his ascending scale of difficulty for the transcriptions. The moods in this set range from soaring, majestic pieces that seem to aim straight at the heavens to poignant moments of the most sublime intimacy. At the time, Busoniís transcriptions were popular and controversial in equal parts, but his enduring success is manifest in the fact that today, his name has become inextricably linked with Bach. Perhaps most crucial to this achievement was, as album artist Sandro Ivo Bartoli puts it, his lifelong, esoteric flirtation with achieving the impossible.

The HighRes version of this recording has been remastered in a more spatial and warm sound.

Sandro Ivo Bartoli, piano

Sandro Ivo Bartoli
Heralded by the German press as «one of the most important musicians to have come out of Italy in the last three decades», Sandro Ivo Bartoli is a virtuoso pianist whose sumptuous playing has captivated audiences all over the world. A graduate of the Florence State Conservatory and the Royal Academy of Music in London, he collaborated privately with Russian piano legend Shura Cherkassky, who was instrumental in the beginning of his international career. In the early 1990s, with Cherkassky’s encouragement, Mr Bartoli began to rediscover the Italian piano literature of the early twentieth century, soon establishing a trend and becoming its leading interpreter world-wide. In addition to the concertos of Casella, Malipiero, Pizzetti and Petrassi, in 1995 he gave the first modern performance in the United States of Respighi’s Toccata for piano and orchestra in an historic concert that was broadcast by PBS in the series ‘Great Performances’. In Europe, he toured extensively with orchestras such as The Philharmonia, the Hallé, the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the stockholm String ensembles and the Max- Bruch Philharmonie, working with conductors such as Peter Stangel, Nicolae Moldoveanu, Michele Carulli, Simon Wright, Vladimir Lande and Gianluigi Zampieri among others.

Mr Bartoli’s playing has been praised for the kaleidoscopic range of its tone colour and its breath-taking virtuosity, attributes that he brings also to the better known repertoire of the classical and romantic eras such as the concertos of Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, Franck, Rachmaninov, Shostakovitch and Tchajkovskij. Notable solo appearances include concerts at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, at the Gasteig in Munich (where he performed alongside such giants as Martha Argerich and Rodion Shchedrin), and at the Festival d’Avignon, Brighton Festival, Grieg Festival in Bergen, and the GAMO Festival of contemporary music in Florence.

Recent engagements have included Rachmaninov’s Second Concerto in Dresden, Liszt’s Malédiction concerto in Munich, Chopin’s Second Concerto in Grosseto, Mozart’s ‘Jeunehomme’ Concerto in Milan, as well as appearances on Radio Nacional Clàsica Argentina, Radio Nacional Española, the Icelandic Radio, and Radio Muzical Romania in a huge active repertoire that has seen Mr Bartoli perform no less than ten piano concertos and over seven hours of solo music in the 2012-2013 season alone. His discography comprises the complete concertos of Gian Francesco Malipiero with the Radio Orchestra of Saarbrücken (CPO, winner of the Diapason d’Or 2008), works for piano and orchestra of Ottorino Respighi with the State Orchestra of Saxony (Brilliant Classics, 2011), the First Piano Concerto of Erik Lotichius with the Academic Symphony Orchestra of St. Petersburg (Navona, 2013), and solo albums devoted to the music of Alfredo Casella, Gian Francesco Malipiero, Percy Grainger, Frédéryk Chopin, Ferruccio Busoni, and ‘The Frescobaldi Legacy’ (Brilliant Classics, 5 de Diapason, 2013). In 2014, Brilliant Classics will release Mr Bartoli’s complete recording of the Bach-Busoni transcriptions. Mr Bartoli is the protagonist of two documentary films, ‘Mood Indigo’ (Nu Films, Amsterdam, 2013) and ‘Pianiste-Interpréte’ (Salto Films, Paris, 2014). For his outstanding work in the Arts, the City of Turin has awarded him the Gina Rosso Prize. He lives in his native Tuscany.

This album contains no booklet.