This brief and evocative score was written while the Italian composer was in the United States, avoiding World War I. Though he only stopped there briefly before relocating to Zurich, he wrote this piece quickly in 1915, and it is a fine example of his attempt to reinterpret the classical aesthetic of Mozart on his own terms. Busoni's desire to return to a classical aesthetic without being regressive was a difficult idea to realize, but works such as this one are rewarding for their compelling grace and artistic fluidity. The composer obviously has an impressive command of the craft of composition, but where his progress fits into the general categories of music can be puzzling. In the Op. 47—its title translates to "Song from the spirit of the round"—the melodies and orchestration feature the effervescence of the late eighteenth century but with chromatic touches that might suit the tone poems of Richard Strauss. The musical language seems to be tonality, but there are no tensions of dissonance and consonance. With this point pinned down, listeners will realize that the language of the work is succeeding without the tonality's most important component. This score lives concurrently in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries; Mozart and Debussy seem to hold sway over the nature of the material, but neither composer. Eventually, this strange graft of approach is recognizable as something more than an interesting synthesis; Busoni's Op. 47 is a work with a life of its own, original and lovely. It is radical in its style while refusing to sound radical. That sort of challenge does not suit the composer's gifts. It is a style that is easy to overlook, but audiences are rewarded by becoming acquainted with this material.

© All Music Guide

Portions of Content Provided by All Music Guide.
© 2008 All Media Guide, LLC. All Music Guide is a registered trademark of All Media Guide, LLC.