Busoni On Composition

"How I Compose": Ferruccio Busoni's Views about Invention, Quotation, and the Compositional
Process
Author(s): Erinn E. Knyt
Source: The Journal of Musicology, Vol. 27, No. 2 (Spring 2010), pp. 224-264
Published by: University of California Press
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How I Compose:
Ferruccio Busonis
Views about Invention,
Quotation, and the
Compositional Process
E rinn E . K nyt
224
n anecdote circulating among pupils of Egon

Petri (18811962), a protg of Ferruccio Busoni (18661924), was the
story Petri told of how on more than one occasion Busonis wife was mistakenly introduced as Mrs. Bach-Busoni.1 Whether fact or fiction, this social
faux pas illustrates how closely Busonis name has been associated with the
names of composers whose works he arranged. Despite his prolific compositional career, he is remembered more as a transcriber and arranger than
as a composer of original works. His practice of arranging others works
also affected his own compositions, which frequently contained borrowed
material. Busonis creative art thus blurred conventional boundaries between what are traditionally considered to be primary original works and
subsidiary transcriptions or arrangements.
Busoni was by no means the only early twentieth-century composer who borrowed material from other composers work. As Linda
I would like to thank Stephen Hinton, Karol Berger, Heather
Hadlock, Tom Grey, and my anonymous reviewers for their
valuable comments and suggestions.
1 Oral communication by Herbert Myers, lecturer at Stanford University and a
former student of Egon Petri. See also Larry Sitsky, Busoni and the Piano: The Works, the
Writings and the Recordings, Contributions to the Study of Music and Dance 7 (New York:
Greenwood Press, 1986), 177.
The Journal of Musicology, Vol. 27, Issue 2, pp. 224264, ISSN 0277-9269, electronic ISSN 1533-8347.
2010 by the Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests
for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Presss
Rights and Permissions website, http://www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintInfo.asp. DOI: 10.1525/
jm.2010.27.2.224.
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Hutcheon, J. Peter Burkholder, Christopher Reynolds, and David
Metzer have already documented, nineteenth- and twentieth-century
compositions were filled with allusions and the mixing of the old and
the new.2 Nor was Busoni the only keyboard composer to update, retouch, transcribe, and revise the music of his predecessors. As Franz
Liszts numerous transcriptions demonstrate, transcriptions and arrangements were part and parcel of a piano virtuosos repertory in the
nineteenth century.
But what was an accepted compositional practice in the nineteenth
century became aesthetically questionable in the early twentieth century, a time period when compositional originalitynovelty of ideas
and musical materialwas highly prized. As a letter to his wife attests,
Busoni encountered opposition to the programming of transcriptions
in Milan as early as 1895:
The Board of the society for which I am playing is very highly esteemed. The Directors are very conscientious (so they say), and permit
no transcriptions in their programme. I was obliged, therefore, to
withdraw the Tannhuser Overture. But when I said that the Bach organ fugue was also a transcription they said it would be better not to
mention that in the programme...3
225
Busoni himself considered the distinction between original composition

and transcription less strict. Not only did his transcriptions include substantial recompositions, but his original compositions often relied on
borrowed materials that he juxtaposed and contrasted with his own music. As I demonstrate below by analyzing his compositional practice in the
context of his aesthetic writings, Busoni valued arrangements no less than
new compositions. In fact, one can argue that this creative mixture of
borrowed and new materials expressed best his compositional ideals.
Background
In a brief essay entitled The Value of the Arrangement (Wert der
Bearbeitung, 1910), Busoni illustrates just how vague the boundaries
2 See Linda Hutcheon, A Theory of Parody: The Teachings of Twentieth-Century Art Forms
(London: Methuen, 1985); J. Peter Burkholder, All Made of Tunes: Charles Ives and the Uses
of Musical Borrowing (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996); Christopher Reynolds, Motives for Allusion: Context and Content in Nineteenth-Century Music (London: Harvard University Press, 2003); David Metzer, Quotation and Cultural Meaning in Twentieth-Century Music,
New Perspectives in Music History and Criticism 12 (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2003).
3 Busonis letter to Gerda Busoni, 5 Dec. 1895, in Ferruccio Busoni, Letters to His
Wife, trans. Rosamund Ley, Da Capo Music Reprint Series (New York: Da Capo Press,
1975), 12.
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t he jo u rn al o f m u sic o l ogy
between arrangement and composition were for him. In the essay he
defended his rescoring of Liszts Spanish Rhapsody (Rhapsodie espagnole
[Folies dEspagne et jota aragonesa], composed 1858/published 1867) for
piano and orchestra (1894):
Vivaldis concertos, Schuberts lieder, Webers Invitation to the Dance
can each be heard in their respective transformations by Bachs organ,
Liszts piano, and Berliozs orchestra. But where does arrangement begin? Of this Spanish Rhapsody there exists a second version by Liszt that
bears the title: Grand Fantasy on Spanish Melodies. It is a different piece
with some of the same motives. Which of them is the arrangement?
The one that was written later? Or is the first not already an arrangement of Spanish folk songs? The former Spanish Fantasy begins with a
motive that is identical to that in the dance in Mozarts Figaro. And,
Mozart himself had already borrowed the motive; it is not by him, but
it is arranged. Furthermore, the same motive appears in Glucks ballet
Don Juan....We have been able to link convincingly the motivic material of both Spanish fantasies by Liszt with the names of Mozart, Gluck,
Corelli, Glinka, and Mahler. My humble name now joins them. Man
cannot create so much as merely use what exists on earth. And for the musician what exists are tones and rhythms.
226
(Vivaldis Konzerte, Schuberts Lieder, Webers Aufforderung zum Tanz

erklingen je in der Umlautung von Bachs Orgel, Liszts Klavier, Berlioz
Orchester. Aber wo beginnt die Bearbeitung? Von dieser spanischen
Rhapsodie existiert eine zweite Lisztsche Fassung, welche den Titel hat:
Grosse Fantasie ber spanische Weisen. Es ist ein anderes Stck, es sind
zum Teil dieselben Motive. Welche von beiden ist die Bearbeitung? Die,
die spter geschrieben wurde? Oder ist nicht schon die erste eine Bearbeitung spanischer Volkslieder? Jene spanische Fantasie beginnt mit einem
Motiv, welches mit dem Tanz in Mozarts Figaro gleichlautend ist. Und
Mozart hat das Motiv auch bereits bernommen, es ist nicht von ihm, es
ist bearbeitet. berdies erschientimmer dasselbe Motiv noch in Glucks
Ballet Don Juan...Das Motivmaterial der beiden spanischen Fantasien von Liszt haben wir nachweisbar mit den Namen Mozart, Gluck,
Corelli, Glinka, Mahler in Verbindung bringen knnen. Nun tritt noch
mein geringer Name hinzu. Der Mensch kann eben nicht schaffen, er
kann nur verarbeiten, was sich auf der Erde vorfindet. Und fr den Musiker
sind es Tne und Rhythmen).4
4 Ferruccio Busoni, Wert der Bearbeitung, in Von der Einheit der Musik: von Dritteltnen und Junger Klassizitt, von Bhnen und Bauten, und anschliessenden Bezirken, Verstreute
Aufzeichnungen, ed. Martina Weindel, Quellenkataloge zur Musikgeschichte, 36, ed. Richard Schaal (Wilhelmshaven: Florian Noetzel Verlag, 2006), 5556. This essay originally
appeared in a concert program in Berlin, in November 1910. Unless otherwise indicated,
all translations are my own. For a somewhat different English translation see Busoni, The
Essence of Music and Other Papers, trans. Rosamund Ley (New York: Philosophical Library,
1957), 8789. In her translation Ley does not distinguish between transcription and
arrangement. She erroneously translates the title of the essay as Value of the Transcription instead of the Value of the Arrangement.
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Convinced that the boundaries between the borrowed and the truly
new are difficult to establish, Busoni questioned contemporaneous assessments of arrangements as being inferior to original compositions.
By linking composers who used similar motives in their own pieces, he
suggested that not just arrangements but also original compositions are
often based upon borrowed material. Vivaldis concertos, for instance,
became the basis for some original works by Bach. Busoni found similarities between the musical material used by such stylistically diverse
composers as Liszt, Gluck, Mozart, and himself.
Important to Busonis reasoning and compositional practice was
his belief that man cannot invent anything new because all music exists
already in some form. He maintained that the tones and rhythms that
composers use emanated from an inaudible heavenly source of music
in the form of sound waves. Busoni did not simply revise ancient theories about the harmony of the spheres, but drew specific links between
the art of music (Tonkunst) and this inaudible source that, according to
him, contained all possible motives, styles, and forms:
...electricity was there from the beginning also before we discovered it;
just as everything undiscovered was in being from the beginning, and is
therefore also now in being; so, too, the cosmic atmosphere teems with all
forms, motives, and combinations of past and future music.5
227
For Busoni, composers were prophets and ambassadors rather than

creators. They were people who divined music already in existence, and
sought to capture it in their compositions. Although they could not invent anything new themselves, they could discover new or better ways of
representing heavenly music in tangible form:
At times, and in rare cases, a mortal is by listening made aware of
something immortal in the essence of music that melts in the hands as
one tries to grasp it, is frozen as soon as one wishes to transplant it to
earth, is extinguished as soon as it is drawn through the darkness of
our mentality. Yet enough still remains recognizable of its heavenly origin and of all that is high, noble and translucent in what surrounds us
and we are able to discern; it appears to us the highest, noblest and
most translucent.
Music is not, as the poet says, an ambassador of heaven, but the
ambassadors of heaven are the chosen ones on whom the high charge
is laid to bring us single rays of the original light through immeasurable space. Hail to the prophets!6
5 Busoni, The Essence of Music: A Paving of the Way to an Understanding of the
Everlasting Calendar [1924], in The Essence of Music and Other Papers, 197.
6 Ibid., 200.
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228
If composers could not invent anything new, distinctions and hierarchies between original compositions and arrangements based on
the novelty of material or conception were obviously superfluous. For
Busoni, the value of a composition resided not in originality, but in how
fully it mirrored its heavenly model.
Busoni had few qualms about altering someone elses piece of music,
especially if he felt he was making the piece better (i.e., truer to its heavenly model). This approach characterized his relationship not only to the
music of older composers, but also to the music of his contemporaries.
A heated exchange of letters in 19091910 between Arnold Schoenberg
and Busoni over Busonis arrangement of Schoenbergs Klavierstck,
op. 11, no. 2 illustrates this compositional practice (see fig. 1).
Schoenberg sent his piano piece to Busoni to ask his opinion about
it. Instead of commenting on the piece, Busoni arranged the composition and sent the revised version back to Schoenberg with the following note: To complete my confession, let me tell you that I have (with
total lack of modesty) rescored your piece. Although this remains my
own business, I shall not fail to inform you, even at the risk of your being annoyed with me.7 He asserted that he had enhanced the composition in several ways, but especially in terms of the piano writing:
Your means of expression are new, but not your piano textures, which
are simply poorer. I believe you have a far greater command of, say,
the orchestra.8 Busoni believed that by extending or adding measures,
changing registers and dynamics, and making figures more idiomatic
for the piano, he had not only improved the piano writing and the
form, but also came closer to realizing Schoenbergs intentions than
Schoenberg himself. (I have penetrated so deeply and closely to your
thoughts that I myself was irresistibly urged to translate your intentions
into sound.)9
Schoenberg disagreed and took offence at Busonis retouching of
his music. Regardless of whether it improved the piece or not, Busonis
arrangement challenged his authorship, and for Schoenberg authorship was more important than any abstract concept of perfection:
I fear that a transcription, on the other hand, would either introduce
what I avoid, either fundamentally or according to my preferences;
add what I myselfwithin the limits of my personalitywould never
have devised, thus what is foreign or unattainable to me; omit what I
7 Busonis letter to Schoenberg, 2 August 1909, in Ferruccio Busoni, Selected Letters,
trans. and ed. Antony Beaumont (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987), 386.
8 Busonis letter to Schoenberg, 16 July 1910, ibid., 407.
9 Busonis letter to Schoenberg, 2 August, 1909, ibid., 386.
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knyt
figure 1.Busonis arrangement of Schoenberg, Klavierstck, op. 11, no. 2,
mm. 114 (Berlin Staatsbibliothek, Busoni-Nachlass, 243)
229
would find necessary, or improve where I am and must remain imperfect. Thus a transcription would be bound to do me violence: whether
it helps or hinders my work.
He doubted that anyone but himself could improve his ideas and
claimed that Busonis alterations to form, register, harmonies and pitches
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touched the aspects of the composition that were the most original and
hence, the most important for him:
I can see exactly that wherever things misfire, something highly original was intended and I lack the courage to replace an interesting idea,
which has not been quite successfully carried out with a reliable sonority. And with a true work of art, the imagination of an outsider can
achieve no more than this!10
From Schoenbergs perspective, alterations were seen as an affront to

the musical work:
I hope we shall reach an agreement. I hope you can see that I cannot
condone alterations to the form without damning that aspect of my
work. It seems to me like correcting the crooked lines in a picture of
van Goghs and replacing them with correct straight ones...I am sure:
he who knows how I write will realize this is not the spirit of my work.11
230
Schoenberg did not oppose arranging pieces of past historical

periods in order to modernize them and to take advantage of newer
instrumental possibilities; he supported Mahlers reorchestration of
Beethovens symphonies and orchestrated Bachs Organ Prelude and
Fugue in E Major, BWV 552.12 But accepting alterations to his own music was a different matter. Busonis blurred boundaries between compositional intent and the arrangers license touched a sensitive nerve
and showed how unconventional Busonis approach had become by the
early 1910s.
Busonis Compositional Process

Busonis views about composition and arrangement, so vividly illustrated by his exchange with Schoenberg, can be observed in his own
compositional practice. From the beginning of his career, his works
included a mixture of the borrowed, the reworked, and the new. He
often appropriated other composers ideas and freely borrowed themes
and even complete sections from other pieces.
Clues to why Busoni composed the way he did can be found in his
aesthetic writings, in which he described the compositional process from
initial spark to tangible manifestation. Each composition, he believed,
began with an Idee (idea) in the composers mind. He considered such
Ideen abstract, idealistic and non-musical entities taken from human
10
11
12
Schoenbergs letter to Busoni, 24 August 1909, ibid., 39395.

Schoenbergs letter to Busoni, 3 July 1910, ibid., 403.
Schoenbergs letter to Busoni, 24 August 1909, ibid., 394.
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experience. These ideas need not be entirely new, personal, or even
musical; they can be drawn from other realms such as literature, architecture, or even from everyday events. Originally unrelated to music, these abstract thoughts become abstract musical conceptions (Einflle) that are then transcribed into musical realizations and arranged into
larger structures.13
Busoni was not the only composer at the time who considered the
Idee to be a key factor in the construction of a musical masterpiece.
Schoenberg wrote extensively about the concept, and his views can
serve as a basis of comparison with Busonis ideas. Unlike Busoni,
Schoenberg viewed the Idee in strictly musical terms and required that
it originate with the composer. For Schoenberg, composing began with
the novel conception of a personal, concrete, and new musical idea.
The Idee was either a composers overall musical conception for an entire piece, or the reasoning behind the musical unfolding of the composition; as Schoenberg put it, it was thinking in tones and rhythms.14
This is how Schoenberg described the Idee in his essay New Music, Outmoded Music, Style and Idea:
In its most common meaning, the term idea is used as a synonym for
theme, melody, phrase, or motive. I myself consider the totality of a
piece the idea: the idea that the creator wanted to present. But because
of the lack of better terms I am forced to define the term idea in the
following manner:
Every tone which is added to a beginning tone makes the meaning of that tone doubtful. If, for instance, G follows after C, the ear
may not be sure whether this expresses C major or G major, or even F
major or E minor; and the addition of other tones may not clarify this
problem. In this manner there is produced a state of unrest, of imbalance which grows throughout most of the piece, and is enforced by
similar functions of the rhythm. The method by which balance is restored seems to me to be the real idea of the composition.15
231
13 Busonis poietics bear some resemblance to eighteenth-century compositional

aesthetics that were informed by rhetorical models. In the eighteenth century, as Laurence Dreyfus has noted in relation to Bachs compositional process, the notion of invention, rather than inspiration based on creative personal imagination, was important
during the compositional process. The invention of an idea or subject for a speech or a
composition could be drawn from a wealth of pre-existing themes or topoi or the work of
other authors. Once a proper idea had been decided upon, it was arranged or elaborated
upon and executed. Laurence Dreyfus, Bach and the Patterns of Invention (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1996), 3.
14 Arnold Schoenberg, The Musical Idea and the Logic, Technique and Art of its Presentation, ed., and trans. and with a commentary by Patricia Carpenter and Severine Neff
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), 15.
15 Arnold Schoenberg, Style and Idea: Selected Writings of Arnold Schoenberg, ed. Leonard Stein, trans. Leo Black (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press,
1984), 12223.
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In addition to the Idee, Schoenberg also used the term Gedanke to
refer to the main germinal musical component of a piece, which he
believed should also be novel and distinctive and originate with the
composer. In his incomplete treatise on the musical idea, he argued
that musical themes relate intimately to a pieces textural, formal, and
stylistic unfolding:
The contrapuntal idea [Gedanke] is distinguished from the homophonic idea [Gedanke] by its predisposition toward a different kind of image production. In homophonic (main- or upper-voiced) music images arise through developing variation....The contrapuntal idea
[Gedanke] produces images that must differ greatly from one another
in the total sound....For a contrapuntal idea [Gedanke] has an initial formulation that permits shifting the position of the various constituents (themes, gestalten, voices) in a kaleidoscope manner...16
232
In contrast, Busonis concept of the Idee is abstract and not specifically musical. Moreover, different sections of a composition can be
based on different Ideen. Busonis Idee is not necessarily an overarching
vision for a complete composition. Virginia Allen Englund suggests
that Busoni was using the term in a Platonic sense to denote a universal absolute independent of the phenomenal world.17 Although she
is correct to note that Busoni thought that the Idee transcended any
tangible musical work, she ignores the fact that Busonis essays also imply a less abstract interpretation. Unlike Plato, Busoni did not believe
that the Idee is an ideal metaphysical type that the phenomenal object merely represents. Neither was it related to specific compositions,
musical tones, or rhythms. In Busonis aesthetics the Idee is a tangible
image formed in the psyche of the composer as a result of his interactions with the world.
To designate a strictly musical idea Busoni used the term Einfall. The
Einfall is not consistently distinguished in English translations from the
more general Idee, and for this reason it has received little scholarly attention. For Busoni, Einfall was an abstract musical concept intimately related
to the Idee. The Einfall, like the Idee, was abstract in that it originated in the
composers psyche and had no concrete audible manifestation or form.
It was not necessarily the overall conception of a piece, as Schoenbergs
Idee, nor was it a specific tangible musical theme like Schoenbergs
Gedanke. The Idee of Gothic architecture, for instance, could lead to an
111.
16
Schoenberg, The Musical Idea and the Logic, Technique and Art of its Presentation,
17 Virginia Allen Englund, Musical Idealism in Ferruccio Busonis Klavierbung

(DMA diss., University of Alabama, 1991), 34.
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Einfall consisting of related musical impressions, textures, styles, forms or
even remembrances of themes that could be combined or transformed;
counterpoint, ornamentation, fugues and fantasies might come to mind.
For Busoni, Einflle need not be restricted to any particular genre, form,
or piece; an Einfall could assume different forms, manifestations, dimensions, and could be placed in various genres, just as a human could engage in different occupations. An Einfall could be reused in multiple
pieces, and a single piece could contain more than one Einfall. The Einfall, like the Idee, need not be entirely novel or even ones own. It could
include the remembrance of a previously heard theme that the composer
quotes, revises and places in a new context.
In the essay How I Compose, Busoni described the formation of
the Idee and its related musical Einfall, demonstrating their difference
by using a section from his opera Die Brautwahl (1912). He claimed
that he borrowed the Idee for this section from E. T. A. Hoffmanns
literary description of an orthodox Jewish man. This Idee then became
an abstract musical concept, an Einfall, which Busoni based on music
already in existence, a Jewish melody. This Einfall needed to be transcribed into tangible tones, then arranged and expanded into a complete work:
233
How do people compose? I answer you willingly because it interests

me to investigate the psychic mechanism. It can be said in a few
words. First comes the idea [Idee], then the conception [Einfall], or
one seeks for it, then follows the execution. . . . In the opera I am
now working on, which is an opera and not a light opera, and it is
not called the Braut-Wacht nor the Braut-Nacht, but the Brautwahl, a
change of scene occurs with a drop curtain between.18 The scene following shows a half-dark Weinstube in which an ancient mysterious
Jew, Manasse, sits alone and silent. I used this intermission to paint
with the orchestra a kind of portrait of this Hebrew. Old and surly,
ghostlike and gruesome, rather than a big, imposing person and
above all, called an Orthodox. He seems to have come back from
a time long past, says E. T. A. Hoffmann, from whom I have borrowed the subject.
Do you see that now I have the idea [Idee]? From this there is a
hint that an extremely old Jewish melody could be used as a musical
motiveit will certainly be familiar to you from synagogue ritual. Thus
the interval of time between idea [Idee] and conception [Einfall] was
considerably shortened for me.19
18 The words Brautwahl, Brautwacht, and Brautnacht refer to different stages of marriage: the initial selection of the bride, the brides waiting for the groom, and the wedding night. The choice of Brautwahl for the operas title seems the most apt, however,
given the plots emphasis on the quest for the brides hand in marriage.
19 Busoni, How I Compose, in The Essence of Music and other Papers, 5051.
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234
Other parts of the opera were based on different Ideen and Einflle.
Busoni indicates, for instance, that the second part was based on a poem
by Fouqu.20
Busoni often based his instrumental works on abstract Ideen drawn
from literature, architecture, or human experience. Gothic architecture served as an inspiration for the Fantasia Contrappuntistica (1910);
Busoni drew a rough sketch illustrating the architectural Idee behind the
1910 Grosse Fuge that eventually formed the basis for the conclusion of
the Fantasia Contrappuntistica, a fugue based on music borrowed from J.
S. Bachs Art of Fugue. Busoni included a refined architectural diagram
in the published version of the two-piano version explaining his vision
behind the piece (see fig. 2). The Einflle, themes from Bachs Art of
Fugue, aspects of Beethovens Grosse Fuge, contrapuntal textures, vastness of scope, improvisatory passages, and ornamental figures contributed to this Gothic architectural style. Busoni exclaimed that though he
had used anothers theme, he had turned it into something new: That
Bach did not even exhaust all the possibilities with his 16 fugues on the
same motif is proved by my Grosse Fuge which, when you compare it,
introduces something like 20 pages of new combinations.21 The death
of his father provided the abstract Idee for the Fantasia nach J. S. Bach
(1909). The musical realization of this Idee was a musical fantasy in F
minor based on the interweaving of three chorale melodies and related
organ pieces by J. S. Bach, along with newly composed material by
Busoni, to be played with a dolente affect.22
Because of the abstract nature of music in general, Busoni did not
think that music should imitate specific emotions or objects, but he
believed a composition could evoke general human emotions, or reactions to universally experienced human events, like death. It could also
reflect human approaches to organization and structure, to the way the
human mind planned great and intricate buildings, and to the way an
author imagined the internal characteristics of literary characters. But
music was not to imitate specific buildings or create the likenesses of
people. The musical artwork, Busoni believed, was related to abstract
thoughts that passed through the composers mind.
For Busoni, the next step in the compositional process was to realize the Einfall in music. He described this step most clearly in his Sketch
of a New Aesthetic of Music. Although the process Busoni outlineshow
20
Busonis letter to Hugo Leichtentritt, 25 Feb. 1914, in Selected Letters, 176.

Busonis letter to Egon Petri, 12 July 1910, ibid., 109.
22 Busonis theories about representation in music are too complex to explore in
detail in this article. For further explanation, see chapter five in my forthcoming dissertation, Ferruccio Busoni and the Ontology of the Musical Work: Permutations and Possibilities (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 2010).
21
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figure 2.Diagram of the formal structure of the two-piano version of
Busonis Fantasia Contrappuntistica fr zwei Klaviere: Choralvariationen ber Ehre sei Gott in der Hohe gefolgt von einer
Quadrupelfuge ber ein Bachsches Fragment
235
an abstract musical concept is recorded on paperis not unusual,

Busonis choice of terminology is unexpected. He specifically deemphasizes novelty of invention through his choice of the terms Transkription
and Arrangement:
Notation [Skription] (writing down) brings up the subject of transcription [Transkription], nowadays a much misunderstood, almost disreputable concept [schimpflicher Begriff ]. The frequent antagonism,
which I have excited with transcriptions, and the opposition to
which an oftimes irrational criticism has provoked me, caused me to
seek a clear understanding of this point. My final conclusion concerning it is this: Every notation is, in itself, the transcription [Transkription] of an abstract musical concept [Einfall ]. The instant the pen
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seizes it, the thought [Gedanke] loses its original form. The very intention to write down the musical concept [Einfall ] compels a choice of
measure and key. The form, and the sound means [Klangmittel ], which
the composer must decide upon, still more closely define the way and
the limits. It is much the same with man himself. Born naked and yet
without definite aspirations, he decides, or at a given moment is made
to decide, upon a career. From the moment of decision, although
much that is original and imperishable in the musical concept [Einfall ] may live on, it is pressed [herabgedrckt] into the type of a genre
[Klasse]. The musical concept [Einfall ] becomes a sonata or a concerto; the man a soldier or a priest. That is an arrangement [Arrangement] of the original. From the first transcription to the second step is
comparatively short and unimportant. And yet it is only the second, in
general, of which any notice is taken; overlooking the fact that a transcription [Transkription] does not destroy the archetype, which is therefore not lost through transcription.23
236
In the above-quoted passage Busoni specifically uses the term Transkription to refer to the translation of Einflle into concrete musical
themes, melodies, or motives. When composers capture their Einflle
in more tangible manners by notating them and setting them into keys
and meters, they transcribe them in a manner similar to the transcription of folk melodies. Rather than the creation of a novel original, the
process thus involves the musical realization of an abstract conception.
Because performance is also the translation of the written medium into
sound, Busoni views it as a type of transcription; the performers job is
to perceive and revive the Einfall from its static notated state.
In his writings and compositions, Busoni uses the term Transkription not only in a more traditional manner to refer to the transferring
of a piece from one instrumental medium to another (which he also
calls bertragung), but also to refer to the transferring of an Einfall into
notation during composition, or from notation into aural sound during
performance.24 The above-quoted passage suggests that Busoni saw a
23 Busoni, Sketch of a New Aesthetic of Music, [1911]. My revised translation is based
on that by Theodor Baker in Three Classics in the Aesthetic of Music (New York: Dover Publications, 1962), 8485. I replaced the word idea in the English translation with the
phrase musical concept to better reflect Busonis use of the German term Einfall. I also
corrected a few errors in the translation.
24 In a literary sense the term bertragung means translation (the translation from
one language to another). Translation in this sense includes a degree of interpretation,
since literal word-for-word translations rarely convey the originally intended meaning.
When Busoni uses bertragung with regard to music, there is no exact English equivalent
of the term. The transfer from organ to piano, for instance, does not involve a change of
language, only of medium. Nevertheless, this musical act also involves a degree of interpretive translation, since the new musical medium often requires a non-literal transfer of
musical thoughts.
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parallel between the two. He argued that a transcription in the traditional sense of the word is similar to the writing down of a melody,
theme, or other compositional aspect of ones own Einfall. Both require
translation, the one from one instrument to another, the other from the
abstract idea to concrete realization. By drawing parallels between the
translating of anothers composition into a piece for a new instrument
and the translating of ones own Einfall into a tangible notated form, he
conceptually related the process of composition and transcription.
The final step in the compositional process for Busoni was the elaboration and expansion of the transcribed Einfall into a complete form
or structure. His use of the term Arrangement to describe this process
shows just how blurred the boundaries were for him between the creation of new pieces and the creativity involved in the arrangement of
sections of pieces already in existence. Although in popular usage the
English term arrangement has been viewed fairly synonymously with
the term transcription in reference to pieces arranged for other instruments, in Busonis practice arrangement refers to the organizing
of pitches, the developing of the transcribed Einfall, and to the working
out of the transcribed musical conception into a composition.25 It also
includes the choosing of the specific configuration and combination
of notes and structures, the instrumentation and register, the phrasing
and form, and the large-scale development and structure. Although
there is probably some conceptual and practical overlap between the
Transkription and the Arrangement of the Einfall, it seems that the former
refers mainly to steps and decisions required for placing an abstract
musical conception into concrete written form, whereas the latter involves creative elaboration and choices about how to develop the Einfall
into the musical artwork. Busoni specifically mentioned the choice and
placement of a transcribed Einfall into a genre or form as an example
of Arrangement. For him even a composers choice to expand a motivic
idea into a sonata or concerto counted as an Arrangement. Busoni thus
considered any transformation of the Einfall, whether by the composer
or by another individual, to be an arrangement. This aspect of the compositional process greatly interested Busoni. The intricacy of the Arrangement, how well the musical material was organized, the uniqueness
of structure, and the relation of the Einfall to the chosen instrument in
terms of color and register, were no less important to him than the novelty of the conception.
237
25 See the definition of the term in The Harvard Dictionary of Music (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003): The adaptation of a composition for a medium
different from that for which it was originally composed. . . . The terms transcribe and
transcription are sometimes used interchangeably with arrange and arrangement. Often,
however, the former implies greater fidelity to the original.
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238
Since Busoni believed that composition was primarily the arrangement of notes, he thought that it was impossible to determine where an
arrangement (in the traditional sense of the word) ended and a new
composition began. The mixture of arrangement, transcription, and
original composition can be demonstrated in the fifth piece from his
Fnf kurze Stcke zur Pflege des polyphonen Spiels (1923) he composed after Mozart (nach Mozart). Whereas the first half of the piece is largely a
transcription of the chorale tune Ach Gott vom Himmel sieh darein,
taken from the Adagio of the two armored men in Mozarts The Magic
Flute (no. 21), the last page is an arrangement that conflates the chorale melody and the paired thirty-second-note accompanimental figures
from the operas trio (no. 16) for the three boys. Throughout the piece
Busoni interwove polyphonic figures and chromatic writing of his own
conception.26
The various designations of Busonis transcriptions differentiate
between the pieces according to the amount of borrowed material:
Transkription or bertragung indicate the reworking of a piece for a new
instrument, Bearbeitung refers to a more invasive reworking of a work
by another composer, and Nachdichtung means the quotation from and
reinterpretation of one or multiple excerpts from one or more compositions within the context of newly composed musical material.27 These
categories frequently overlap. Moreover, one finds reworked versions of
Busonis own pieces and explicit quotations or allusions to other composers works or to other musical styles even in those of his compositions that lack such designations.
For Busoni the difference between compositions and arrangements
was conceptual. Borrowing or reworking musical material was an essential part of his compositional process both in arrangements and in original compositions. The difference was that while a composer chooses
his own Ideen and Einflle, an arranger accesses and retouches anothers Einflle. Since the quality of the Arrangement was no less important
for him than the novelty of conception, he did not consider arrangements (Bearbeitungen) to be of lesser value than new compositions. He
pointed out the inconsistency of those who denigrated arrangements
but praised variations as original compositions:
Strangely enough, the variation-form is highly esteemed by the Worshippers of the Letter. That is singular; for the variation-form when
built upon a borrowed theme produces a whole series of arrangements which, besides, are least respectful when most ingenious. So
26
I am grateful to Stephen Hinton for suggesting the inclusion of this example.

Many Nachdichtungen are identified by the word nach in their title (see Fantasia
nach J. S. Bach).
27
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the arrangement is not good, because it varies the original; and the
variation is good, although it arranges the original.28
Compositional Practice
The compositional process Busoni explained in his writings was more
complicated in practice than in theory. A glimpse at Busonis sketches
reveals that the compositional steps described above frequently overlapped. On some occasions Busoni was still choosing meters and keys
for themes (a phase that in theory he considered part of the Transkription of Einflle) while already working on the phrasing, development,
and overall structure (a phase he designated as the Arrangement). Yet
it appears that the basic procedures Busoni described, and that originated in his interest in the multiple ways notes could be arranged, did
indeed inform how he composed.
Five sketches for the Nocturne Symphonique (1913), a piece that
Busoni originally envisioned as a piano sonatina, reveal Busonis attempts to first transcribe his abstract musical conceptions into themes.
The initial sketch includes only rudimentary pitches for theme two,
suggestions for the key, and contours for other themes. Squiggly lines
indicate the direction and shape of themes that Busoni transcribes into
actual pitches only later. In further sketches the first theme appears initially, it seems, as a counter melody to theme three. Later sketches include more detail and the combination of themes into longer phrases,
as well as harmonizations or contrapuntal treatment of themes. Busoni
explores multiple ways the themes can be combined before eventually
portraying the final ordering and configuration. Textural suggestions
in prose in the initial sketch, Imitat. Bass u. Mitt (Imitation in the
bass and middle voices) only become realities in later stages as Busoni
begins arranging his themes. In the final two sketches Busoni reworks
the material for specific instruments and adds nuanced interpretation
markings while weaving the themes into a longer and more complete
form.
Although Busoni does not explicitly indicate his Idee for the piece,
the date of the composition implies a biographical context. Busoni
wrote it during a time period when he was fascinated with magic and
occultism, and was working on the score of Doktor Faust (191624). It
is likely that these fascinations informed his Idee for the Nocturne Symphonique and its related Einfall. Such hypothesis could perhaps be supported by the title word nocturne, with its association of night and
darkness, as well as by the prevailing chromaticism, and by Busonis
plan to use a glass harmonica in the final section of the composition.
28
239
Busoni, Sketch of a New Aesthetic of Music, 19.
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According to Antony Beaumont, Busoni was inspired by a specific literary Ide:
Its literary inspiration undoubtedly comes from Mereshkovskys Leonardo romance; a scene from this book that particularly fired Busonis
imagination was a courtly entertainment provided by Leonardo for
Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan. The artist had devised a system of
crystal spheres from which music emanated.29
Nothing in Busonis writings appear to definitively substantiate this

claim. But it is provable that the Arrangement of the Einfall underwent a
transformation during the compositional process, in which the piano
sonatina (Busonis initial plan) turned into an orchestral piece. This is
how Busoni described the transformation:
The third sonatina seems to have the character of a butterfly (hoping
straight away for the best)at any rate it is undergoing a metamorphosis, has for the moment assumed the form of a caterpillar, is feeding on smuggled half-hours and crawling up the trunk of the orchestra
tree.30
240
The Nocturne Symphonique later mutated again when it provided material
for Doktor Faust. Themes and complete sections from it appear throughout the opera score; in the opening Symphonia from Doktor Faust, for
instance, nearly atonal music quoted from the Nocturne Symphonique interrupts the neo-modal opening suggestive of pealing bells.
This obscuring of boundaries between composition and arrangement characterize Busonis entire oeuvre, as seen in his numerous compositions published with hyphenated authorship designations such as
Bach-Busoni, Mozart-Busoni, Liszt-Paganini-Busoni, and Busoni-Schoenberg demonstrate. Some pieces, like the Fantasia nach J. S. Bach and the
Kammerfantasie ber Carmen (1920), acknowledge the borrowed material
in their titles. Others contain short quotations, fragments, and allusions
that are not acknowledged at all. Both in his original compositions
and in his reworkings of other composers works Busoni was interested
in refining, perfecting, and arranging the music, showing alternative
means of expression for his and others Einflle.
That Busonis practice was unusual at the time can be demonstrated by a brief comparison with another keyboard-composer, Leopold Godowsky (18701938), whom Busoni admired as a pianist. Both
29 Antony Beaumont, Busoni the Composer (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1985): 185.
30 Busonis letter to Egon Petri, 8 Oct. 1912, in Selected Letters, 156.
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Busoni and Godowsky were virtuoso pianists who were renowned for
their arrangements and dynamic performances, and were also active
as composers. But Godowsky, unlike Busoni, upheld clear distinctions
between the composed and the arranged.
Godowskys arrangements, which are witty, lyrical, virtuosic, and effective concert pieces, served mainly educational and virtuosic purposes.
His arrangements of Chopins piano etudes range from nearly identical
transcriptions for left hand only to freer arrangements. Godowsky often
transcribed Chopins works for the greatest visual affect. The spectacle
of watching a pianist playing Godowskys free left-hand arrangement of
Chopins Etude in C Major, op. 10, no.1 (transposed to D-flat major),
would have been sure to elicit surprise, wonderment, and adoration
from listeners. In Godowskys version Chopins etude becomes at once
an exercise for the left hand and a freakish display of sheer strength
and virtuosity. Similarly spectacular is Godowskys arrangement of The
Star-Spangled Banner that ends with a fff dynamic designation, lefthand tremolos, and octave runs that are reinforced by massive righthand block chords featuring four-six notes each. This surely was intended to elicit applause from American concert audiences.
Unlike Busoni, Godowsky followed the example of other contemporaneous performers by maintaining traditional hierarchies and distinctions between new compositions and arrangements or transcriptions. His own compositions are usually based on original themes. And
while he creatively arranged many pieces, he maintained reverence for
the originals. In the preface to his Chopin studies, he specifically condemned altering the slightest detail when performing the etudes in
their original form:
241
Being adverse to any alterations in the original texts of any master

works when played in their original form, the author would strongly
condemn any artist for tampering ever so little with such works as
those of Chopin. The original studies remain as intact now as they
were before any arrangements of them were published; in fact, the author claims that after assiduously studying the present versions, many
hidden beauties in the original studies will reveal themselves even to
the less observant student.31
Busoni had no such qualms about changing the original work. He

changed something in nearly everything he performed or studied, including major pieces by such canonical figures as Mozart.32 The range
31 Leopold Godowsky, Personal Remarks, Studies after Frederic Chopin (Berlin, Schlesinger, n.d. [19031914]), iv.
32 Busonis prowess at the piano doubtless colored how he arranged pieces, as well
as what pieces he altered. Yet although improvisations featured prominently in his early
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242
of Busonis alterations of his own and other composers works extends

from minor interpretive choices and fairly literal transcriptions of
pieces for different instruments, and the rearrangement of works for
the same instrument, to quotation or parody of other composers works
in his own compositions and the creation of multiple versions of pieces.
The scope and spectrum of practices falling somewhere between composition and arrangement in Busonis oeuvre is broad and can be illustrated using four examples: his edition of Bachs Well Tempered-Clavier
(book I 1894, book II 1916), of Liszts Grandes tude de Paganini, no. 6
(1914), of Mozarts Piano Concerto in G Major, K. 453 (undated), and
his Fantasia nach J. S. Bach.
As an editor Busoni wanted to present Bachs text as accurately as
possible. He studied autograph manuscripts and first editions whenever
he could, compared multiple contemporary editions, and cited variant
versions in footnotes. His edition of Bachs Well-Tempered Clavier thus
differed from other performance editions, such as Hans Bischoffs less
scholarly performance edition in 1883. Yet despite his scholarly intent,
he, like Bischoff, also added his own ideas to the text, making no distinction between Bachs text and his own editorial insertions. He also
included his own revised or recomposed versions of some preludes and
fugues, some of which he considered to be equal or even superior to
Bachs original text.
Busonis most extensive revisions occur in the second book, which
appeared in 1916. He revised Bachs text assuming that he could show
connections between the preludes and fugues better than Bach. His
revisions were intended to correct what he perceived as weaknesses in
Bachs Arrangement of the pieces, for he felt that he understood Bachs
intentionsor more precisely, his Einflle. In his introduction to the
score he acknowledged that his additions were unusual:
The relationship between the obligatory prelude to its fugue does not
seem to me to be established clearly enough. The preludes of the WellTempered Clavier obviously do not make it easy for one to become more
certain over this question. As editor I have devoted some diligence
to establishing a definite connection between prelude and fugue,
concert programs, they disappeared in his maturity. If he changed pieces more extensively for performance, he reworked the pieces first in writing and ironed out perceived
flaws; he notated extensive changes before the time of performance and considered such
to be acts of composition, however closely the revisions were linked to his performance
engagements and recitals. A letter to his wife shows that when altering pieces, such as a
sonata by Weber, he often studied and took into account multiple versions: I was obliged
to buy a copy of the Weber sonata and I took the Liszt edition just to see (as one says in
poker). Many of the things I have arranged and altered, which are almost self-evident, did
not occur to Liszt. On the other hand, we have done some things alike... Busonis letter
to Gerda Busoni, 20 November 1901, in Letters to his Wife, 52.
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occasionally showing this by means of example. In the later examples I
believe I have overstepped Bachs intentions.
All changes and additions, however, follow the educational intention of giving the learner an insight into the mechanism of the
composition.33
In his edition Busoni established thematic connections between preludes and fugues, rescored fugues on four staves, included analyses
of the compositional techniques employed, orchestrated sections, and
even inserted alternate versions of the pieces. In the commentary on
the fugue in F minor from book 2, for instance, he showed thematic
relationships between voices and between the prelude and fugue while
also providing examples that demonstrated further canonic and contrapuntal possibilities (see fig. 3). In examples 3 through 6 he illustrated
alternate ways of combining the voices. Example 3 portrays a canon
with voice entrances one measure apart at the subdominant. Example
4 shows a canon with entrances a half measure apart and with free intervallic relationships. Example 5 shows the opening of a canon at the
tenth, and example 6 is a canon at the octave.
Busonis interest in exploring multiple realizations of Einflle is
demonstrated even more vividly in his version of the sixth Grandes tude
de Paganini by Liszt. Although Busoni had previously edited the Grandes
tudes de Paganini with fidelity to the text, he also made his own arrangements that were thoughtful compromises between Liszts version,
Paganinis original, and Busonis own conception of the pieces.
For a performer like Busoni it was not unusual to arrange a virtuoso
etude. What was out of the ordinary was how he did it. Rather than
completing definitive versions of each and publishing only his revised
versions, Busoni included original and revised texts together and even
published multiple versions of some etudes.34 In the sixth etude he derived his own compositional ideas from both Liszts and Paganinis versions, selecting features that he liked from each version. Rather than
creating a new set of variations based on one original source, as Brahms
and Rachmaninov did when composing variations on the same theme,
he showed many possible realizations so that performers could compare
multiple versions and choose from various possibilities. Probably it is because of this fluidity of the published text that Busonis versionwhich
243
33 Busonis introduction to the Bach edition, in The Essence of Music and Other
Papers, 99.
34 In the earlier published versions, only variations 2, 3, 4 and 6 include the Lisztian
version in the score. Etudes 1 and 5 contain only Busonis arrangement. The autograph
manuscripts, however, include Busonis alterations indicated directly in his performance
scores. The final version (1925) of the etudes 1, 4, 5 and 6 also omit the Paganini and
Liszt versions.
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figure 3.Busonis commentary on Bachs Fugue in F-Sharp Minor, in
Das wohltemperierte Klavier II, vol. 3, ed. Busoni, Egon Petri and
Bruno Mugellini (Leipzig: Breitkopf and Hrtel, 1916), 11
3) At the interval of one measure and at the relationship of
the sub-dominant
4) At the interval of a half-measure, four voices, with freer
intervallic treatment of the beginning motive
5) Counterpoint at the tenth
6) Canon at the octave, combined over the first entry of the
theme in the second part of the fugue (mm. 2831); the
original three-voice phrase unchanged, the Soprano added
Below 6) Other canonic possibilities, such as that of
augmentation and inversion, neither of which happen in
the fugue, will be merely mentioned here, so that the
student maintains space for his own thoughts.
244
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figure 3. (continued)
was simultaneously an arrangement, a composition, and a transcriptionis

largely forgotten, whereas Brahmss and Rachmaninovs variations on the
same theme are considered masterpieces.
Both the published versions and autograph manuscripts (the latter
located in Staatsbibliothek Berlin) document Busonis alterations in his
arrangement. In his score multiple versions are positioned on top of
one another, thereby creating an either/or situation as Liszt had previously (but less systematically) done with his ossia passages in transcriptions, arrangements, and compositions. In his 1914 version of the sixth
etude, Busoni provided the original Paganini version from the Caprice
no. 24 in A Minor, Liszts 1838 and 1851 transcriptions/arrangements
of the work for piano, and his own new arrangement. By placing his
own arrangement neither in the highest nor in the lowest line, Busoni
acknowledged the equal validity of each version (see fig. 4). In the preface to the 1914 edition, he highlighted the novelty of his approach:
245
The editor has here for the first time placed both versions over one
another and also placed them beside the original Paganini text as a
clarifying guide. The variants of the editor attempt to show still further
possibilities of transcription; they present the form that he has made
for his own concert performance and the striving to more closely
approach the original.
(Der Herausgeber hat hier zum ersten Male die beiden Versionen ber
einander gestellt und ihnen dem Paganinischen Originaltext als erluternden Fhrer beigestellt. Die Varianten des Herasugebers wollen versuchen,
noch andere Mglichkeiten der Transkription zu zeigen; sie stellen die
Form dar, die er fr den eigenen Konzertvortrag sich zurechtgelegt hat,
und das Bestreben, dem Originale sich enger anzuschliessen).35
35 Busoni, Preface, Paganini-Liszt Etde No. 6: Thema mit Variationen, eine Transkriptionsstudie (New York: Breitkopf und Hrtel, 1914), i. Translation mine.
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figure 4.Busoni, Paganini-Liszt Etde No. 6: Thema mit Variationen, eine
Transkriptionsstudie, mm. 14, showing Liszts first and second versions, and Busonis own variant with Paganinis original (Staatsbibliothek Berlin, Busoni-Nachlass, 278), 1
246
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Busoni arranged the etudes for his own concert use. He etched alterations directly in his own performance score, crossed out measures,
and inserted loose leaf sheets of manuscript paper with his changes notated in corresponding locations.36 Additionally, Busoni intended the
sixth etude to be an instructional aid in transcription, as indicated by
the title page: Paganini-Liszt Thema mit Variationen: Eine Transkriptionstudie von Ferruccio Busoni (Paganini-Liszt Theme with Variations: A Transcription Study by Ferruccio Busoni). Presenting the various versions together documents the pieces genealogy and the many
ways Einflle could be recorded and realized.
Most significantly, Busonis method of notation showed the multiple attempts, including his own, to access both the composers Einfall,
and its origin in the treasury of motives found in the vibrating universe.
Busoni believed that as an arranger he had as much access to this original as the composer. He could therefore perfect Paganinis and Liszts
attempts to arrange the Einfall by adding his own.
Busonis arrangement showed his own perspective on the piece.
Throughout the score he selected aspects that he liked from previous versions and added some of his own ideas. In the opening four
measures of the theme, for instance, he retained the dramatic broken
chords of the two Liszt versions, but in the original register of the Paganini model. In the following measures he switched to the register of
both Lisztian versions, only to choose the register of Paganinis original again in measures 1314. In variation 1 he copied Liszts second
version, but changed the register in measures 58, placing pitches one
octave higher than written. He also inserted a repetition of the second
phrase and included his own ossia version in the second half. In variation 3 he used the staccato textures from the first Lisztian version and
the register of the second version while thinning bass textures and
eliminating repetitions of block chords. In variation 11 he copied
the texture and rhythm of the Paganini version in the first four measures and modeled his own version after the second Lisztian version
thereafter.
Throughout, he also chose lighter textures more closely associated
with the violin, but used the basic arrangement of pitches selected by
Liszt. The eighth variation is a varied rendition of the second Liszt version. Melody notes appear in a lighter broken (as opposed to block)
form (see fig. 5). In variation 6, Busoni likewise lightened the bass,
drawing attention to the treble line of the original Paganini version
247
36 The arrangements first appeared individually and then as a collection in the

second edition of Busonis Klavierbung in 1925. The autograph manuscript for the sixth
etude was dated 1913 and was first published in 1914. It appeared again in altered form
in 1921 and 1925.
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figure 5.The first four measures of the four versions of variation 8
in Busoni, Paganini-Liszt Etde No. 6 (Staatsbibliothek Berlin,
Busoni-Nachlass, 278), 37
248
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while changing the affective designation from Liszts con brio or con
strepito to con leggiero. At the conclusion of the variation he copied Paganinis version in the treble, eliminating Liszts virtuosic and thicker
right hand-octaves (see fig. 6). In the coda he featured brilliant singlenote arpeggios closer to the Paganini model.
Busoni also offered performers the option to switch back and forth
between versions. In one penciled comment inserted into the autograph of variation 3, he stated that the performer could switch from his
to the Lisztian version should he or she decide to include a repetition
(see fig. 7). He also included optional ossia passages to be used at the
performers discretion. For instance, in variation 1, measures 1114, he
notated a slightly altered rendition to be inserted upon repetition that
included extra dynamic markings and an alto voice. His version of variation 4 consists solely of an alternate ossia rendition of the right-hand
passage of the second Liszt version.
Busoni did not compose alternate versions of variations 2, 5, 7,
9, and 10. Because he still included Paganinis and Liszts versions of
each of the omitted variations, it is likely that he intended performers to choose one of the earlier versions by the other composers.
The more extensively revised 1925 version includes newly arranged
versions of several variations that were initially omitted in the 1914
version.37
Busonis tendency to retouch or revise works based on others
Einflle was not limited to virtuosic pieces, but extended to more revered classical masterworks. His Mozart arrangements in particular incited ire from some concert reviewers, such as the anonymous critic
quoted below:
249
Where shall we draw the historical line? How decide what music needs
the hand of the retoucher? What music can suffer such liberties? And
how far may the transcriber go in his arbitrariness, without offending
both style and taste? Much that the early masters wrote seems dull and
colorless to Busonis acutely developed tonal sense. . . . Personally, I
conceive such treatment applied to Mozart as an act of violence done
to the spirit and character of the music. For me, the transparency, the
moderation in tonal volume, is no lack, but an integral part of its
charm and characteristic quality; and I absolutely refuse to accept such
changes as Busoni has made to the Andante of Mozarts Ninth Piano
Concerto.38
37 In the 1925 edition Busoni included an ossia transcription of variation 5 and
added a second version of variation 6 as well. He also included an alternative version of
variation 9. The ending coda is also more brilliant and original in the 1925 edition.
38 Untitled concert review, The Musical Leader, 1914 (Berlin Staatsbibliothek, BusoniNachlass, F4, 81).
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figure 6.The end of variation 6 in Busoni, Paganini-Liszt Etde No. 6
(Staatsbibliothek Berlin, Busoni-Nachlass, 278), 32. Der
Herausgeber lsst, beim ffentlichen Vortrag, diese Variante
der Lisztschen Version derselben Variation vorangehen.
(The editor allows, in public performance, this [Busonis]
version of the variation to precede the one by Liszt.)
250
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figure 7.Variation 3 in Busoni, Paganini-Liszt Etde No. 6 (Staatsbibliothek Berlin, Busoni-Nachlass, 278). 20. (bei etwaiger Wiederholung des II. Theiles, benutze man die Lisztsche Version
[in the case of a repetition of the second part, use Liszts
version])
251
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252
According to Daniell Revenaugh, Busoni originally intended to arrange all of Mozarts piano concertos for use on the modern piano.
He also planned to create an edition of them.39 Little remains documented of this project.40 But in one of the few surviving scores Busoni
included his own version together with Mozarts. As with the Paganini
example, he appears to have wanted to document musical genealogy
and give performers a chance to choose between versions. Busonis
arrangement of the solo part in Mozarts Piano Concerto in G Major,
K. 453, survives only as an unfinished, unpublished, and undated manuscript in an unknown hand in the Staatsbibliothek Berlin. It contains
both the original and varied versions, with a piano reduction of the orchestral part by Egon Petri appearing in pencil below the solo parts.41
Unfortunately the copyist included only the complete Mozart solo part,
cadenzas by Busoni, and two fragments of Busonis arrangement of the
solo part (one in the first movement and one in the second).42 The title
page names Busoni as the arranger of the solo piano part and Petri as
the arranger of the orchestral parts for two piano.43
Although the motivation for this arrangement is not explicitly
stated, it was probably to modernize the piece for the concert grand
piano of Busonis time, to perfect any perceived compositional deficiencies, and to show an additional, better realization. Certainly compositional perfection was Busonis motivation to revise the rondo finale
of Mozarts Piano Concerto in E Major, K. 482, in 1919, which Busoni
believed Mozart had not had the time to perfect.44 He described the
process of adding transitions and varied returns to the finale in a letter
to the Polish musicologist Alicja Simon:
39
Oral communication by Petris student, Daniell Revenaugh, 25 October 2008.

Surviving Mozart Piano Concerto Arrangements by Busoni include: Concerto in
G Major, K. 453 (fragment), 1921?; Concerto in E Major, K. 482 (all lost, except finale),
1919; Duettino Concertante nach MozartTwo piano (four hand), adaptation based
loosely on the Concerto in F Major, K. 459, 1921; Concerto in E Major, K. 271 (only the
Andantino movement), 1914.
41 Although undated, the manuscript was likely created around 1921, since Busoni
first performed the concerto then. See Edward Dent, Ferruccio Busoni: A Biography [1933]
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), 327.
42 Daniell Revenaughs oral communication, 25 October 2008. Revenaugh contends that the handwriting on the clean but unfinished copy in the Berlin Staatsbibliothek
is neither Busonis nor Petris, and surmises that the copyist was likely working from a
now lost performance score.
43 Bearbeitung der Solostimme von Ferruccio Busoni. bertragung des Orchesters
von Egon Petri. Ausgabe fr zwei Klaviere (Berlin Staatsbibliothek, Busoni-Nachlass, 341).
44 Yesterday I revised the Rondo of that Mozart concerto, which I am going to
play in Zurich. It is so full of places which are not worked out, obviously written quickly,
easily and brilliantly. I believe it will be splendid now. That occupied me from early
morning until 5:30 p.m. Busonis letter to Gerda Busoni, 22 October 1919, in Letters to
his Wife, 277.
40
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I have completed a concert-edition (with some license) of the RondoFinale from Mozarts E concerto [K. 482]. As it now stands, it is a brilliant piece (little science and much pleasure).
This work gave me the rare pleasure of observing how a climax
was gradually built up from a piece which I had originally disparaged.
At first I considered it too light-weight a counterpart to the sublime
minor-key Adagio. But now I have come to admire the instinct with
which the listener is drawn back out of those depths. It had gaps in it
(evidently passages which had not been worked out); a cadenza was
called for; two transitions were completely missing; the piano writing
could bear a few (discreet) amendments; the theme returns six times
in exactly the same guise: I took the liberty of introducing three
variants.In this way I enjoyed 3 stimulating mornings.Now I am
thinking of other things again.45
In the remaining fragments of his version of Mozarts Concerto

in G major, Busoni mainly altered textures and registers. In the manuscript, which presents Busonis arrangement of the solo exposition of
the first movement, the left-hand Alberti bass figures are changed into
alternating left-hand thirds. Throughout the passage he changed textures and registers, added a second voice to single notes in the right
and the left hands, and created chords in the bass where block intervals
existed previously. In single-note right-hand passagework over sustained
whole-note bass chords, he presumably relied on the pedals sustaining
qualities so that the left hand could be free to harmonize the right a
tenth below (see fig. 8). Busonis arrangement of the six-measure fragment appearing in the Andante mainly features registral displacement.
He placed right-hand figural passagework one octave higher than indicated and replaced sustained notes with scales and arpeggios.
These modifications of the piano writing were not as structurally invasive as his revisions to the finale of the Concerto in E major, yet they
represented important aspects of composition. According to Busoni
how one scored a piece was an essential part of the Arrangement, not
just a necessary step for its performance. In a treatise on orchestration
he claimed that orchestration is composition, not instrumentation.46
Changing textures and registers was part of Busonis effort to reach
a more perfect representation of Mozarts Einflle. Unlike Mahlers
reorchestration of Beethovens symphonies, which served a practical
purpose, namely the introduction of modern instruments, Busonis arrangement had a conceptual aim, which was to show yet another compositional possibility for performers.
253
45
Busonis letter to Alicja Simon, 28 Oct. 1919, in Selected Letters, 296.

Busoni, from Einleitung in Aesthetik des Orchesters (Berlin Staatsbibliothek, BusoniNachlass, C1135).
46
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figure 8.Busonis arrangement of the solo part of Mozart, Piano Concerto in G Major, K. 453 written below Mozarts version
(Staatsbibliothek Berlin, Busoni-Nachlass, 341), 9
254
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In Busonis compositional practice it is just as difficult to distinguish between the new and the borrowed as in his arrangements. He
frequently derives the main motivic material from the works of others,
and often borrows entire sections. Sometimes he bases even the Einfall
on others music. This is characteristic especially of his Nachdichtungen,
pieces that hover somewhere between new compositions and arrangements as extensive quotations are interwoven with new material.
In both literature and music the term Nachdichtung refers to the
assimilation of a work in an older style into a newer and more modern
idiom. In music Nachdichtung means a free translation or arrangement,
as the word indicates, the writing of a poem after, or in the manner of
another poet.47 Nachdichtung designates musical works that are based
on themes, styles, or ideas of other composers, but represent at the
same time the composers own conception of those elements.
Although Busoni did not use the term systematically, he did apply it
to his Sonatina brevis, in signo Joannis Sebastiani Magni (1918), subtitled
In freier Nachdichtung von Bachs kleiner Fantasie und Fuge D Moll.48 The
fourth volume of his Bach edition is also labeled Kompositionen und
Nachdichtungen. This volume contains, among other pieces, his Fantasia
nach J. S. Bach and the Fantasia Contrappuntistica.
Busonis Nachdichtungen blur the boundaries between original composition and arrangement, transcription, and paraphrase by featuring
elements of each. They mix older compositions (either quoted exactly
or in varied form) with newly composed sections, in other words they
place the older music in new contexts. Ulrich Prinz has already demonstrated parallels between Nachdichtung technique and sixteenth-century
compositional techniques in which previously composed works were
reused and incorporated into new ones for dramatic or musical purposes.49 Both Busoni and sixteenth-century composers sometimes borrow
one or more voices from another piece; both might quote themes and
motives, copy fragments, or paraphrase works. Yet there are also some
important differences between Busonis practice and earlier practices.
Busonis technique includes juxtapositions of musics from different
time periods. He places tonal sections next to bitonal ones and mixes
old idioms with modern sounds. Sometimes Busoni also superimposes
borrowed music or diverse styles.
255
47 Marc-Andr Roberge has previously discussed the meaning of this term and its
relation to Busonis oeuvre. See The Busoni Network and the Art of Transcription,
Canadian University Music Review 11, no. 1 (1991): 7576.
48 The fantasy and fugue to which Busoni is referring is BWV 905.
49 Ulrich Prinz, Ferruccio Busoni als Klavierkomponist (Ph.D. diss., Heidelberg
University, 1970), 28.
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256
One such Nachdichtung was Busonis Fantasia nach J. S. Bach, which

he composed in memory of his father. The Einfall for this piece, inspired by the death of Busonis father, seems to have been a serious and
reverential setting characterized by counterpoint and the invocation
and quotation of several chorale melodies.
The Transkription process is difficult to trace, since the surviving autograph fragment contains only a few sketches. The choice of a minor
key supports the mournful Idee. The Arrangement that is, how Busoni
decided to organize the Einfall into a complete compositioncan be
deducted from the finished piece. Slightly altered renditions of quotations from three chorale compositions by Bachthe organ variations
Christ der du bist der helle Tag (BWV 766), the fughetta Gottes Sohn ist kommen (BWV 703), and the organ chorale prelude Lob sei dem allmchtigen
Gott (BWV 602)are juxtaposed with newly composed sections that also
borrow motivic material from the quotations. Busonis choice of these
three chorales had probably been influenced by the intervallic similarities between their melodies (all three melodies begin with either stepwise or skipping rising thirds) and their shared religious aura, which
Busoni, who rejected Christianity, evoked without any religious function.
The piece features a range of techniques falling somewhere between arrangement and composition: transcription from organ to piano, adaptation and quotation, and the creation of new material based
on borrowed motives. Busoni quotes variations 1, 2 and 7 from BWV
766; he uses the chordal chorale texture presented in variation 1 in
its original key and copies the melodic line and harmonies. He thickens the texture by doubling notes in order to create a more massive
and organ-like sonority on the piano. Variation 2 also appears in its
entirety with only minor changes in phrasing and expression markings. Variation 7 exhibits only minor changes before it dissolves into
free sequential adaptation of the material. Busoni maintains the overall
contrapuntal and imitative style of BWV 703; he copies the subject and
its answer on the dominant in the alto voice, but he elaborates upon
Bachs material, extending it from twenty-one to forty-two measures
while adding bass octaves and more complex harmonies (see fig. 9
and ex. 1). He quotes the chorale melody of BWV 602, but transposes
it into A major with free imitation of the sixteenth- and thirty-secondnote figures in the accompanying voices. He quotes the first six measures of the melody closely, using full four-voice chords in the right
hand and octaves in the left hand before breaking off just before the
melodic cadential figure of the chorale (see fig. 10 and ex. 2).
Busoni inserted newly composed sections between the quotations
and framed the piece with new material. Even these newly composed
sections derive from the chorale melodies. Busoni wrote the opening
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figure 9.Quotation of J. S. Bachs fughetta Gottes Sohn ist kommen
(BWV 703) in Busonis manuscript of his Fantasia nach J. S.
Bach (Staatsbibliothek Berlin, Busoni-Nachlass, 239), 5
257
thirteen measures in the neo-Baroque style of instrumental prelude or

fantasia, characterized by rising sequential figures. Rising stepwise motion outlining a third (F, G, A or A ) in constant sixteenth notes appears in the bass, along with a longer fragment of the chorale melody
that emerges in the upper voice in measure 3. Although the pedal in
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example 1.J. S. Bach, Gottes Sohn ist kommen, in Chorale Preludes V: Kirnberger Chorale Preludes, BWV 690713, Bach-Gesellschaft
Ausgabe, vol. 40, ed. Ernst Naumann (Leipzig: Breitkopf
and Hrtel, 1893), 21
3
4
3
4
258
11

14

17

20
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figure 10.Quotation of J. S. Bachs organ chorale prelude Lob sei dem
allmchtigen Gott (BWV 602) in Busoni, Fantasia nach J. S.
Bach (Staatsbibliothek Berlin, Busoni-Nachlass, 239), 7
259
the bass seems to establish F as the tonal center, there is no cadence in

F. The lack of cadence and the strange scale patterns obscure the tonality. In the following fifteen measures (mm. 1429) Busoni develops
sequentially the same three pitches, F, G and A b. This time the pattern
appears in retrograde over gentle left-hand arpeggios, which, together
with an added chromatic inflection on G, contribute to the mournful
(dolente) affect originating in the Idee. The material from the opening
returns at the end, the melody sounding now in bell-like octaves over
sixteenth notes. Peace (indicated by Busonis inscription of Pax in the
score) is achieved as the music slowly dies away.
This mixture of new and old material is present in other pieces by
Busoni. Die Brautwahl, for instance, contains material from the Hebrews
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example 2.J. S. Bach, Lob sei dem allmchtigen Gott, Chorale Preludes
(Orgelbchlein), BWV 599644, organ score, Bach-Gesellschaft Ausgabe, ed. Wilhelm Rust (Leipzig: Breitkopf and
Hrtel, 1878), 6
260
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March of Giacomo Rossinis Mos (1818), quotations from Carissimis
Jepthe (1648), German folksongs, and Gregorian chant, juxtaposed with
various exotic scales. Doktor Faust combines a fragment from the Gregorian Credo I, choral writing in the style of Palestrina, chorales, Baroque
counterpoint, and a dance suite and multiple quotations borrowed
from Busonis own oeuvre (like the nearly atonal passages from Nocturne
Symphonique).50 Arlecchino (191416) contains quotations from the music
of Mozart and imitates the styles of Gaetano Donizetti and Richard Wagner. In his Third Piano Elegy, Meine Seele bangt und hofft zu Dir (1907),
Busoni quotes fragments from a Lutheran chorale, Allein Gott in der
Hh sei her, derives motivic material from it, and places the borrowed
motives in a mixture of bitonal, modal, or tonal settings. The opening of
the piece presents only the initial ascending minor third of the melody,
which becomes a generative melodic and rhythmic cell for the entire
composition. The most complete (chromatically altered) seven-measure
statement of the melodic line begins in measure 20, but dissolves before
its completion into descending sequential reiterations of a two-note descending melodic pattern derived from the chorale.
261
Conclusion
We have seen repeatedly how composing original pieces and creating
arrangements were closely related in Busonis mind. For him novelty of
conception was not necessarily a prerequisite for a musical work. Neither
the Idee nor the Einfall had to originate with the composer; both could
be appropriated from another source. The composers role was not to
invent, but to form and develop the material. But even the working out
of the Einfall could involve the reuse of themes, motives, or even complete sections of pieces. According to Busoni Tonkunst was never entirely
new, yet it was eternally young and eternally classic, as it evolved from the
source of music and from one piece to the next throughout time. Where
the old left off and the new began was debatable.
This mixing of borrowed and original material was not unique
to Busonis aesthetics, especially not in the first decades of the twentieth century when neoclassicism was on the rise. But the degree to
which Busoni conflated practices of arrangement and composition
in his writings and compositions was unusual, as can be illustrated by
comparative examples. In 1909 Mahler combined and reorchestrated
two suites by Bach. Offering little in the way of newly composed material, the resulting orchestra suite can be considered as an arrangement of Bachs music. In 1933 Rachmaninov transcribed the prelude,
50 Antony Beaumont has already documented many of the quotations and allusions
in Doktor Faust. See Beaumont, Busoni the Composer.
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262
gavotte, and gigue from Bachs third Violin Partita for keyboard,
adding richer harmonies and contrapuntal textures. Like Mahler, he
added little new material. Between 1918 and 1922 Schoenberg and
his circle arranged pieces for the Society for the Private Performance of
Music. These arrangements served a practical purpose: they enabled
the Society to provide expert performances of contemporary music
in chamber settings. Perhaps a closer parallel to Busonis practice is
Schoenbergs transcription of Handels Concerto Grosso, op. 6, no.
7 as his Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra (1933). Not only
did Schoenberg modernize the instrumentation, but he also sought
to improve the thematic development and correct perceived compositional defects. The procedure, however, was not typical of Schoenbergs compositional practice and little of his modern style appears
in the piece. Stravinskys reuse of pieces by Pergolesi in his Pulcinella
Suite (192021) was closer to Busonis practice. Yet despite the borrowed material, Stravinsky saw Pulcinella primarily as his original composition, in which familiar music was defamiliarized through strident
harmonies and new instrumental colors. Moreover, Stravinsky never
appropriated or arranged revered classics, even though his neoclassicist period continued well into the later 1940s.
Many contemporaneous keyboard virtuosi created new arrangements for their own use, especially of Bachs music. A performer of
arrangements by Bach, Mozart, Liszt and others, Busoni was an heir
to this virtuoso tradition. One can argue that the boundaries between
original composition and arrangement or transcription had already
been blurred in nineteenth-century keyboard works, especially in Liszts
opera fantasies and in his transcriptions of orchestral works such as
Berliozs Symphonie fantastique.51 Busonis approach, which included juxtaposition of exact quotations with newly composed sections that derived from quoted material and featured contrasting tonal languages,
was nonetheless idiosyncratic. He alone published multiple versions of
the same piece in order to show diverse solutions for the realizations of
the Idee, thereby revealing musical genealogies and presenting the performer with alternatives.
From todays perspective, Busonis approach to composition seems
refreshingly liberating. As he liked to say, it was qualitygood versus
bad musicthat eventually mattered. In his time, when originality
was valued beyond quality, he could not achieve the exalted status of an
original composer and was denigrated to the underappreciated position
of the arranger. Yet by calling into question the musical hierarchies of
51 Jonathan Sanvi Kregor, Franz Liszt and the Vocabularies of Transcription,
18331865 (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 2007).
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his own era, he articulated an alternative view, which ultimately proved
him to be one of the most original thinkers of his day.
Stanford University
Abstract
An anecdote circulating among pupils of Egon Petri (18811962),
a protg of Ferruccio Busoni (18661924), was the story Petri told
of how on more than one occasion Busonis wife was mistakenly introduced as Mrs. Bach-Busoni. Whether fact or fiction, this social faux
pas illustrates how closely Busonis name has been associated with the
names of composers whose works he arranged. Despite his prolific compositional career, he is remembered more as a transcriber and arranger
than as a composer of original works. His practice of arranging others
works also affected his own compositions, which frequently contained
borrowed material. Busonis creative art thus blurred conventional
boundaries between what is traditionally considered to be primary
original works and subsidiary transcriptions or arrangements.
While Busonis tendency to blur boundaries between new pieces
and arrangements has been already noted, his compositional aesthetics has only been cursorily studied. Relying on the essay How I Compose, the section on notation from The Sketch of a New Aesthetic of Music (1907), and unpublished sketches from the Staatsbibliothek Berlin,
I examine Busonis idiosyncratic compositional ideology, explain the
meaning of his terms Idee, Einfall, Transkription and Bearbeitung in his
compositional process, and show that Busoni valued the creativity involved in transforming already existing musical material no less than
invention of the new. I illustrate Busonis compositional aesthetics
through analyses of his arrangements of Liszts sixth Paganini Etude,
Mozarts Piano Concerto, K. 453, and his Fantasia nach J. S. Bach.
263
Keywords: arrangement, J. S. Bach, Ferruccio Busoni, Fantasia nach J. S.

Bach, musical borrowing, transcription.
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Busoni On Composition

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"How I Compose": Ferruccio Busoni's Views about Invention, Quotation, and the Compositional

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n anecdote circulating among pupils of Egon

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Busoni himself considered the distinction between original composition

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(Vivaldis Konzerte, Schuberts Lieder, Webers Aufforderung zum Tanz

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For Busoni, composers were prophets and ambassadors rather than

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From Schoenbergs perspective, alterations were seen as an affront to

Schoenberg did not oppose arranging pieces of past historical

Busonis Compositional Process

Schoenbergs letter to Busoni, 24 August 1909, ibid., 39395.

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13 Busonis poietics bear some resemblance to eighteenth-century compositional

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17 Virginia Allen Englund, Musical Idealism in Ferruccio Busonis Klavierbung

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How do people compose? I answer you willingly because it interests

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Busonis letter to Hugo Leichtentritt, 25 Feb. 1914, in Selected Letters, 176.

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an abstract musical concept is recorded on paperis not unusual,

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I am grateful to Stephen Hinton for suggesting the inclusion of this example.

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Busoni, Sketch of a New Aesthetic of Music, 19.

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Nothing in Busonis writings appear to definitively substantiate this

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Being adverse to any alterations in the original texts of any master

Busoni had no such qualms about changing the original work. He

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of Busonis alterations of his own and other composers works extends

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was simultaneously an arrangement, a composition, and a transcriptionis

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36 The arrangements first appeared individually and then as a collection in the

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Oral communication by Petris student, Daniell Revenaugh, 25 October 2008.

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In the remaining fragments of his version of Mozarts Concerto

Busonis letter to Alicja Simon, 28 Oct. 1919, in Selected Letters, 296.

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One such Nachdichtung was Busonis Fantasia nach J. S. Bach, which

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thirteen measures in the neo-Baroque style of instrumental prelude or

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