Ferruccio Busoni
Toccata d minor for Organ BWV 565 (Johann Sebastian Bach)
Bach/Busoni - a pairing that makes pianists’ hearts beat faster. This is because Busoni succeeded in making piano transcriptions of works that Bach had originally tailor-made for another instrument in such a way that one can still sense the original sound world while the grand piano is able to show off its full potential.
Together with the C-major Toccata, BWV 564, his transcription of the Organ Toccata in D minor, BWV 565 (now, after some interim uncertainty, once more considered a work by Bach), was to round off his reworkings of Bach for Breitkopf & Härtel in 1900. In Busoni’s view a worthy culmination because the toccatas were indeed - as he informed his publisher - “obviously the best among my achievements of this kind and I am confident in expecting they will make a strong impact”.
G. Henle Publishers agrees with this assessment and presents the famous D-minor Toccata and Fugue in an attractive Urtext edition that has consulted all of the sources and offers fingerings by the exceptional pianist Marc-André Hamelin.
Content/Details
About the Authors
Marc-André Hamelin (Fingering)
Una ventata di freschezza per un pezzo fra i più noti del repertorio pianistico.
Suonare News, 2021Die vorliegende Neu-Edition bietet dem Interpreten alles, was er dazu braucht: vor allem einen sehr lesefreundlichen Notentext (kraftvoller Notenstich), zu dem kein Geringerer als Marc-André Hamelin die Fingersätze beigesteuert hat. Außerdem enthält die Edition ein flüssig geschriebenes Vorwort, und natürlich darf bei einer Urtext-Ausgabe wie dieser der kritische Bericht nicht fehlen. Damit lässt es sich arbeiten.
Piano News, 2021Christian Schaper et Ullrich Scheideler ont publié un urtext chez Henle qui permet d’apprécier le chemin parcouru par Busoni entre le premier état (1899) et les deux versions éditées, la seconde restant la référence que proposait également Breitkopf.
La Lettre du Musicien, 2022