Just as Johannes Brahms went down in the annals of music history (for good or ill) as the arch conservative opposite of the progressive Wagner, Ferruccio Busoni's idea of "junge Klassizität" was at the very least a more circumspect aesthetic approach than the sense of angst and crisis that informed so many other musical movements in the early twentieth century. Certainly, Busoni's student years and subsequent career overlapped with Brahms' later works enough to suggest a lineage of influence. Likewise, Brahms is said to have had a hand in Busoni's receiving the Rubinstein Composition Prize in 1890. The artistic connection between the two composers can perhaps be most fully sensed in Busoni's interpretation of Brahms as seen in his arrangement for piano of six chorale preludes for organ from Brahms' Op. 122. In these pieces, as in Busoni's numerous transcriptions and arrangements of older works, there is a concern not so much for historical authenticity as artistic authenticity—that is, Busoni seems to attempt to make the pieces sound like Brahms had conceived them for piano. Historicism, in fact, is a minor issue here, as Brahms completed the chorale preludes near the end of his life in 1897, and Busoni completed his arrangements shortly thereafter and apparently in time for Brahms to see them and grant his approval. Busoni alters Brahms' realizations to varying degrees, using new textures and gestures to create similar expressive modes where the sonority of the piano precludes re-creating the sounds themselves. The first piece, "Herzlich tut mich erfreuen," (My Inmost Heart Rejoiced), suspends a contrapuntal continuum from pillars of sturdy bass-line motions, juxtaposing passages in high and low ranges. The second, "Schmücke dich, o liebe" (Dress Thyself, O My Soul), emphasizes a clear, lucid melody over a subtle contrapuntal undercurrent. As suggested by its title, "Es ist ein Ros entsprungen" (A Rose Breaks Into Bloom), slowly emerges from simple beginnings in chromatic untwining. Brahms and Busoni offer two versions of "Herzlich tut mich verlangen" (My Inmost Heart Yearns), one turbulent and full (here Busoni's piano comes nearest to the sound of Brahms' organ), the other slow and pensive. The last piece, "O Welt, ich muss dich lassen" (O World, I Now Must Leave Thee), underscores its simple melody with chordal exclamations and chromatically ascending counterpoint that conveys a bold benedictory tone presaging Brahms' death shortly after the work—and Busoni's arrangements—were completed.

© Jeremy Grimshaw, All Music Guide