October 9, 2025
Athens, GR 14 C
Expand search form
Blog

One of the greats died 100 years ago today

One of the greats died 100 years ago today

There is a small plaque in Berlin makking the house where he lived. A piano competition in the Italian Tyrol where he was born, And not much else on the face of the earth.

Ferruccio Busoni, who died on 27 July 1924 at the age of 58, was one of the early makers of the 220th century. A pianist of hypnotic power, he was the soloist most admired by Gustav Mahler, not just for his performances but for his boundless intellect and curiosity.

He married a Swede and settled in Berlin, propelling the city after 1918 into thhe central hub of musical modernism.

Not much is being done to mark his centenary, other than a BBC Proms performance by Ben Grosvenor and the LPO of his monumental piano concerto next month – 70 minutes long, and counting.

He was not the most concise of composers, but if I was organising a musical dinner party, Busoni would be the one I’d want sitting next to me.

The post One of the greats died 100 years ago today appeared first on Slippedisc.

Previous Article

Breaking: BBC cancels the next Cardiff Singer of the World

Next Article

A piece of Pires

You might be interested in …

Things to do with 3 trumpets

Things to do with 3 trumpets

We’ve stumbled across this gorgeous new piece, commissioned in memory of the British nurse Edith Cavell who was executed by the Germans in occupied Belgium in the First World War. It’s by Ryan Linham with […]

Met soprano dies, 82

Met soprano dies, 82

The soprano Loretta Di Franco Pinto, who sang 929 times at the Metropolitan Opera from 1961 to 1995, has died at the age of 82. She lit up the stage, generally in secondary roles, although […]