"a formidable pianist" -Chicago Sun-Times
• Busoni: Seven Elegies for Piano
• Bach: Chaconne in D minor (arr. for piano by Busoni) MUSICUS 1001
"What an astonishingly varied set of pieces...and what a challenge it sets for the pianist...A fine disk of, possibly, Busoni’s most approachable piano work in the modern style, in performances worthy of the music." -Bob Briggs in MusicWeb International (February 2008)
"David Rubinstein is an outstanding pianist with a big sound, a muscular technique, and a powerful attack. Better than that, he has a keen mind that appreciates the austere but revolutionary genius of Busoni's music and above all the death defying intensity of the Chaconne transcription." - James Leonard in All Music Guide" (June 2008)
Busoni wrote that his mystic Elegies were a milestone in his development. Busoni's source of inspiration were the Elegies of Goethe. They refute the common meaning of elegy as a song of lamentation and instead point to the richer sense in which Goethe used it. Busoni's Elegies are mystical, visionary, arcane, esoteric, and traditional - all at the same time. Audiences familiar with the music of Liszt, Debussy and Schoenberg will find much to admire in these rarely heard piano works. The Elegies actually occupy a middle ground between the late-Romantic tendencies of Busoni's first decades as a composer and the modernistic sound-world of his mature compositions. The seventh Elegy (Berceuse) was actually added in 1909. In many respects it is similar to the Berceuse Heroique for orchestra, but it is not a transcription of the Berceuse Heroique, as many commentators have stated erroneously.
Final chord of Elegy #6
SAMPLE PROGRAM
Bach: Partita I in B flat
Bach: Italian Concerto
Bach-Busoni: Chaconne in D minor
Busoni: Elegies
