Busoni's Sonatina 1910 inaugurated a series of six very different works forming a stylistic index to his last manner, whose trajectory culminates in the opera Doktor Faust. The Sonatina seconda is the most radical of them, the most overtly Faustian. As with a number of other works of Busoni's last creative decade, it was conceived as a "study" for Doktor Faust even before the libretto was written or the subject definitely chosen. Between the completion of the Edizione definitiva of the Fantasia Contrappuntistica and the first Sonatina in the summer of 1910, Busoni had been preoccupied with the orchestration of Die Brautwahl—a comic opera "with dimensions," as his friend, Bernard van Dieren, noted, "on the scale of ‘Robert le diable' and ‘Götterdämmerung'…"—which precluded composition. When Busoni returned to creative work over June and July 1912 the Sonatina seconda poured forth in a spontaneous rush—most of its material, its "language of terror," became part of the opening scene of Doktor Faust in which three students from Cracow appear to the weird march, heard after the Sonatina's initial volatile flourishes, to present Faust with the magic book from which he will conjure devils. The Con fuoco, energicissimo episode to which the march leads reappears in Doktor Faust when the students disappear as an alchemical operation bubbles over on the hearth. Even the opening phrase, containing the intervallic raw material of the Sonatina, reappears (in truncated form) in Doktor Faust as Faust bids the students stay. Busoni's biographer, E. J. Dent—who knew him well—remarks, "… the tiny touch of the courtesy and hospitality offered… at once reminds one of Busoni himself; in the opera it is so small a thing that one wonders why it should be there at all unless it was a subconscious expression of his own personality." Marked Andante tranquillo—dolce, senza accenti, an icily abstract canon insinuates cerebral aloofness, though it soon dovetails with a chromatically slipping theme suggesting the haunted aura suffusing Faust's atelier. The Sonatina ends with the students' march ebbing into nothingness. The performing direction standing at the head of the score—Il tutto vivace, fantastico, con energia, capriccio e sentimento—provides the best brief description of this enigmatic work which, in typical Busoni fashion, bears a title suggesting a children's piece. It is dedicated to pianist Mark Hambourg. Busoni gave the premiere in a recital of his own works at the Verdi Conservatory, Milan, December 5, 1913, provoking a riot.

© Adrian Corleonis, All Music Guide