Busoni: Piano Concerto, Op. 39

Ferruccio Busoni began his career as a child prodigy, studying piano and composition at the Vienna Conservatory at the age of 9. As a composer, he initially dedicated himself to the tradition of Schumann, Chopin and Mendelssohn, but soon also created works with extended tonality and sometimes bitonal approach. Busoni regarded his monumental piano concerto neither in the style of the brilliant virtuoso concertos nor in that of the symphonic concertos by Beethoven and Brahms. He rather aimed at a subtle intertwining of piano and orchestra, which manifests itself in the fact that the piano hardly ever presents a theme in it's original form, but mostly decorates and transforms the material introduced by the orchestra.

The French-American pianist David Lively is familiar with technically daunting symphonic concertos, that due to their monumentality are hardly ever performed. His innate virtuosity makes him a champion of New Music and he identifies particularly with twentieth-century American music. He was assisted in this recording by conductor Michael Gielen, a lifelong advocate of Busoni's work and also a specialist of modern music. The SWR Symphony Orchestra has recorded over 600 works spanning three centuries, many of which have won awards such as the German Record Critics' Award (Ehrenpreis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik), the Special Achievement Award of the International Classical Music Awards and a Grammy nomination.