Busoni: Piano Concerto: Recorded live at Symphony Hall, Boston, MA, March 10-11, 2017

Listen on Presto Music. Free thirty day trial. Find out more.

Gerstein and Oramo are impressive in their focus throughout the work’s opening movement, and the whirl forwards towards its close has a tremendous power to it…As [the slow movement] progresses,... — Gramophone Magazine, March 2019 More…

Release Date: 22nd Feb 2019
Catalogue No: MYR024
Label: Myrios
Length: 71 minutes

Gramophone Awards

2019

Finalist - Concerto
Presto Recordings of the Year

Finalist 2019
Limelight Magazine Recordings of the Year

2019

Nominated - Orchestral
BBC Music Magazine Awards

2020

Finalist - Concerto
International Classical Music Awards

2020

Winner - Concerto

In stock

Usually despatched within 1 working day

Busoni: Piano Concerto in C Major, Op. 39, BV 247

Work length1:11:25

Album only

Kirill Gerstein (piano)
Boston Symphony Orchestra, Tanglewood Festival Chorus
Sakari Oramo

I. Prologo e Introito. Allegro, dolce e solenne (Live)

Track length15:24

$4.00

$5.15

$7.00

II. Pezzo giocoso. Vivacemente, ma senza fretta (Live)

Track length9:13

$2.00

$2.60

$3.50

III. Pezzo serioso. Introductio - Prima pars - Altera pars - Ultima pars (Live)

Track length22:59

Album only

IV. All'Italiana, Tarantella. Vivace, in un tempo (Live)

Track length12:01

$3.00

$3.85

$5.25

V. Cantico. Largamente (Live)

Track length11:48

$3.00

$3.85

$5.25

About
Reviews
Explore

About

Interview, Kirill Gerstein on Busoni

20th February 2019

The pianist talks to Katherine about his recording of the Italian composer’s gargantuan Piano Concerto of 1904, released this week on Myrios with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Sakari Oramo.

“This performance of Busoni’s Piano Concerto is as superhuman as it is meant to be.” – Alfred Brendel

Once a towering inspirational figure in the musical life of Berlin, later a crucial influence on musicians as diverse as Sibelius, Varèse, Schoenberg and Weill, Ferruccio Busoni is now being rediscovered by a new generation of performers and listeners.

Kurt Weill wrote: “Ferruccio Busoni has been called the last Renaissance man. It is strange enough that such a phenomenon appeared in our time. We are bound to think of Leonardo. In him also we find that comprehensive spirituality which strives to open up all attainable spheres. Such individuals are immortal not only through their work but through the radiation of their personality, through the gradual influence of their humanity.”

Busoni’s sui generis five-movement Piano Concerto is a work that bears comparison to Liszt’s Faust Symphony and Mahler’s Eighth. This revelatory new recording by pianist Kirill Gerstein with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the men of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus conducted by Sakari Oramo is a landmark in the wider acclamation of a singular genius who mapped a sublime 20th century alternative to the modernist revolt of Stravinsky and Schoenberg.

The album includes a deluxe 88 page booklet containing rarely published photographs and documents from the Busoni archive at the Staatsbibliothek Berlin. In-depth English and German essays by renowned Busoni scholars Albrecht Riethmüller and Larry Sitsky discuss Busoni’s creativity and the piano concerto.

Reviews

March 2019

Gerstein and Oramo are impressive in their focus throughout the work’s opening movement, and the whirl forwards towards its close has a tremendous power to it…As [the slow movement] progresses, Oramo reveals subtleties in Busoni’s scoring that I’d never heard before…The moment where the men’s voices creep in…has the sense of arrival, coupled with sublime beauty that is crucial…Anyone who loves the Busoni Concerto will want to add this to their shelves.

June 2019

The sprawling score gets a virtuosic and gripping account from Gerstein, Oramo and the Bostonians. Gerstein manifestly has the measure of the solo part and his partnership with Oramo and the orchestra is palpable throughout. In a superbly clear recording, Oramo and the engineers bring out all the subtle touches and nuances of Busoni’s excellent orchestration. Conductor and soloist shape the transitions and structure perfectly.

8th March 2019

He rides the work’s sometimes preposterous waves with subtlety and unflagging stamina, strongly accompanied by an electrically charged Boston Symphony Orchestra...the genuine spark of a live recording is here. So is enthusiastic applause from an audience clearly happy to bask in Busoni’s endearing monster, exquisitely poised between the ridiculous and the sublime.

25th May 2019

Gerstein’s new live version is pretty exceptional, largely because he's so well partnered with Sakari Oramo's responsive Boston Symphony players. Trombones and tuba have plenty of impact, and the softer, slower moments are impressive...Documentation is exemplary: an outstanding recording of an entertaining, mind-bending work.

Busoni: Piano Concerto

CD

Downloads

Contents

Interview, Kirill Gerstein on Busoni

Download queue