Ferruccio Busoni - Elegie for clarinet and piano in E-flat major (BV 286)

Dante Michelangelo Benvenuto Ferruccio Busoni was born in Empoli in 1866 from a family of musicians (his mother was a pianist and his father a clarinetist). He grew up in Trieste, where he made his debut as a pianist at the age of seven. A few years later he was working as composer and improviser in Vienna and at the age of twelve, in 1878, he composed a concerto for piano and strings. In the 1880&he went to Graz, Leipzig and Helsinky, where, among his piano students, there was Sibelius. At the end of the century he performed and taught in Moscow, Boston and Berlin, where he settled in 1894. At the beginning of the WWI he was director of the conservatory of Bologna, but he moved to Zürich due to some disagreements with the insitution. In 1920, after some hesitations, he returned to Berlin, where he died four years later. He is considered one of the best Italian pianists, as well as a fine composer and arranger and a pioneer in electronic music and the use of weight in piano playing. Performers: Davide Bandieri (clarinet) Alessandra Gentile (piano)