The content of this particular disc takes us to the years in which Busoni, moving from Trieste to Graz (via Vienna), completed his training as a composer. The Vienna chapter of Busoni’s career is shown in the Concerto for Piano and Strings in D minor, ultimately completed in Vienna on March 21, 1878. Ten days later, Busoni turned only twelve years old. The work gives the impression of someone already accustomed with a personal understanding of the Mozart tradition. In the String Quartet, op.19, composed between 1880 and 1882, the score reveals unequivocally the weight of Brahms’s lessons. With the Finnish Folk Songs, op.27, we finally enter a new phase of the early work of Ferruccio Busoni, the phase linked to his first experiences with teachers of piano at prestigious music training institutions. In the year 1889 Busoni finally published the Folk Songs, arranged for four hand piano. It was reprinted in 1953 in the format we present here for string orchestra, and the composer from Trieste, Marco Sofianopulo (1952-2014), transcribed it in 2006 and dedicated it to the Busoni Orchestra directed by Massimo Belli.

Busoni and Trieste - the city to which the pianist and composer, native of Empoli and adopted by Berlin, is chromosomally linked - is celebrated here in concert and brought to life on this disc. The concert took place on 1 April 2016, on the occasion of the 150th birthday of Busoni, with the Trieste Chamber Orchestra and Chloe Mun, the young winner of the Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition in 2015, at the piano.