Of the six works recorded here, two are essential for anyone interested in Busoni: the Berceuseélégiaque and the Sarabande und Cortège. Samuel Wong, music director of the Hong Kong Philharmonic, is on this reading a very interesting artist. He takes the Berceuse élégiaque, for example, at a very slow tempo and indeed its pace suggests mournful sighing rather than the rocking of a cradle. The extraordinary end of the piece, string chords with the dark glow of gong strokes, is quite magical, partly because it's so sombrely slow. In the Cortège, also a touch slow, he misses something of Busoni's mercurial quality but imparts a lovely nobility to its string counter-subject.
Every one of the Turandot suite's movements is entertaining, two are Busoni at his most imaginative (the strikingly malign fourth and the sinister seventh) and they're all brilliantly and characterfully played. Wong's intriguing musicality and Naxos's bargain price make this a worthwhile issue.