This publication is dedicated to the centenary of the death of Ferruccio Busoni (1866–1924). The letters constitute a large and significant part of the literary heritage of this
musician-thinker. The purpose of the publication is to introduce the domestic reader to examples of his epistolary creativity and to attract the attention of Russian researchers to it. The article contains commented translations into Russian of 21 letters from Busoni to his wife Gerda Sjöstrand. The introductory section offers a brief overview of the history of the scientific community’s study of Busoni’s epistolary, most of which is still not available to the Russian-speaking audience. A generalized description of the content and stylistic features of this collection of documents gives grounds to assert that they go far beyond the scope of private correspondence and are of great importance for understanding the processes that took place in the musical art of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. The published letters refer to the first three months of 1910, during which the pianist made a concert tour of the United States. These are not only travel notes about nature, cities and people of the American continent, but reflections on various aspects of culture and art, initiated by external impressions. Busoni’s literary style is characterized by self-citing, and fragments of letters were often incorporated
into articles. An example of this is the short essay “The Kingdom of Music” in our collection, which in poetic form expresses Busoni’s idea of the unity of musical art—it is defined by the author as an afterword to his programmatic aesthetic treatise—“Sketch for a New Aesthetics of Musical Art.”
1. Borodin, Boris B. 2021. “Iz epistolyarnogo naslediya Ferruchcho Buzoni. Predvaritel’nye zamechaniya, perevod i kommentarii [From the Epistolary Heritage of Ferruccio Busoni. Preliminary Remarks, Translation and Comments].” Piano-forum [Piano-forum], no. 4 (48), 82–96. (In Russian).
2. Beaumont, Antony. 1985. Busoni the Composer. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press.
3. Busoni, Ferruccio. 1976. Briefe an Edith Andreae. Edited by Andres Briner. Zurich: Hug.
4. Busoni, Ferruccio. 1999. Briefe an Henri, Katharina und Egon Petri. Wilhelmshaven: Florian Noetzel.
5. Busoni, Ferruccio. 2021. Briefe an seine Frau, 1889–1923. Gesamtausgabe, vol. 1: Briefe. Edited by Martina Weindel. Hamburg: Tredition.
6. Busoni, Ferruccio. 2021. Briefe an seine Frau, 1889–1923. Gesamtausgabe, vol. 2: Kommentar, Verzeichnisse und Register. Edited by Martina Weindel. Hamburg: Tredition.
7. Busoni, Ferruccio. 1935. Briefe an seine Frau. Edited by Friedrich Schnapp. Erlenbach; Zürich; Leipzig: Rotapfel.
8. Busoni, Ferruccio. 1939. Briefe Busonis an Hans Huber. Edited by Edgar Refardt. Zurich: Hug.
9. Busoni, Ferruccio. 1999. Briefwechsel mit Gottfried Galston. Edited by von Martina Weindel. Wilhelmshafen: Florian Noetzel.
10. Busoni, Ferruccio. 2004. Briefwechsel mit José Vianna da Motta 1898–1921. Edited by Christiane Wassermann-Beirăo. Wilhelmshaven: Florian Noetzel.
11. Busoni, Ferruccio. 2012. Briefwechsel mit seinem Verlag Breitkopf und Härtel, in 2 vols. Edited by Eva Hanau. Wiesbaden: Breitkopf und Härtel.
12. Busoni, Ferruccio. 1994. Der Briefwechsel zwischen Ferruccio Busoni und Volkmar Andreae, 1907–1923. Edited by Joseph Willimann. Hundertachtundsiebzigstes Neujahrsblatt der Allgemeinen Musikgesellschaft Zürich. Zürich: Kommissionsverlag Hug.
13. Busoni, Ferruccio. 1916. Entwurf einer neuen Ästhetik der Tonkunst. Leipzig: Insel.
14. Busoni, Ferruccio. 1937. Fünfundzwanzig Busoni-Briefe. Edited by Gisella Selden-Goth. Wien; Liepzig; Zürich: Herbert Reichner.
15. Weindel, Martina, ed. 2002. Busoni, gli ultimi mesi di vita. Diario di Gottfried Galston. Roma: Ismez.
16. Busoni, Ferruccio. 2005. Lettere a Isidor Philipp. «Toute supériorité est un exil». Edited by Laureto Rodoni. Roma: Ismez.
17. Busoni, Ferruccio. 2004. Lettere al genitori. Edited by Martina Weindel. Roma: Ismez.
18. Busoni, Ferruccio. 1988. Lettere: con il carteggio Busoni-Schönberg. Compiled and commented by Antony Beaumont. Translated by Laura Dallapiccola. Milano: Ricordi.
19. Busoni, Ferruccio. 1938. Letters to His Wife. Translated by Rosamond Ley. London: E. Arnold.
20. Busoni, Ferruccio. 1987. Selected Letters. New York: Columbia University Press.
21. Busoni, Ferruccio. 1925. Versuch einer organischen Klavier-Noten-Schrift: praktisch erprobt an Joh. Seb. Bachs Chromatischer Phantasie in D moll. Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel.
22. Busoni, Ferruccio. 1922. Von der Einheit der Musik: von Dritteltönen und junger Klassizität, von Bühnen und Bauten und anschliessenden Bezirken. Berlin: M. Hesse.
23. Busoni, Gerda. 1958. Erinnerungen an Ferruccio Busoni. Edited by Friedrich Schnapp. Berlin: Afas-Musik.
24. Dent, Edward J. 1974. Ferruccio Busoni: A Biography. London: Eulenburg Books.
25. Galston, Gottfried. 2000. Kalendarnotizen über Ferruccio Busoni. Edited by Martina Weindel. Taschenbücher zur Musikwissenschaft 144. Wilhelmshaven: Florian Noetzel.
26. Galston, Gottfried. 1910. Studienbuch: Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, Brahms [nach] Zyklus von 5 Klavier-Abenden, 1907/1908 in London, Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin und Wien. Berlin: Cassirer.
27. Knyt, Erinn E. 2017. Ferruccio Busoni and His Legacy. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press.
28. Martner, Knud. 2010. Mahler’s Concerts. New York: Kaplan Foundation and Overlook Press.
29. Rosenfeld, Paul. 1939. “Current Chronicle: Busoni in His ‘Letters’”. The Musical Quarterly 25, no. 2 (April): 226–31. https://doi.org/10.1093/mq/XXV.2.226.
30. Selden-Goth, Gisella. 1922. Ferruccio Busoni. Der Versuch eines Porträts. Leipzig: E. P. Tal.
31. Sitsky, Larry. 1986. Busoni and the Piano: The Works, the Writings, and the Recordings. New York: Greenwood Press.
32. Stuckenschmidt, Hans Heinz. 1972. Ferruccio Busoni: Chronicle of a European. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
33. Weindel, Martina. 1996. Ferruccio Busonis Ästhetik in seinen Briefen und Schriften. Veröffentlichungen zur Musikforschung 18. Wilhelmshaven: Florian Noetzel.