It takes not only super-virtuoso technique to play Ferruccio Busoni's piano transcriptions and paraphrases, but brains, soul, and especially guts, and pianist
Holger Groschopp has everything it takes. For this four-disc Capriccio set,
Groschopp has recorded all of Busoni's transcriptions and paraphrases, including seven that have never been recorded before. The familiar works are here (the Carmen Fantasy and the Chaconne transcription), along with less well-known works (the Don Giovanni Serenade and the Magic Flute Chorale), and hitherto unknown works (the Fantasy on Goldmark's Merlin and Mozart's C minor Fugue).
Groschopp has the speed, the dexterity, and the strength to bring off the most technically difficult pieces, along with the intelligence, the character, and the charisma to make the most interpretively difficult pieces compelling. Although there have been recordings of some of these works that go deeper than
Groschopp's (
Michelangeli's reading of the Chaconne, for instance, remains one of the marvels of recorded history), anyone interested in Busoni's music will want to hear these recordings, especially in Capriccio's clean, but atmospheric digital sound.