In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • Ferruccio Busoni and the New England Conservatory:Piano Pedagogue in the Making
  • Erinn E. Knyt (bio)

Student memoirs provide a vivid portrait of what it must have been like to study with Ferruccio Busoni (1866–1924) in private lessons or in master class in Weimar (1900/1901), Vienna (1907–8), Basel (1910), and Berlin (1921–24).1 In private lessons, Busoni never liked to hear a work more than two times during piano lessons, and expected the piece to be polished and ready for performance at the second hearing.2 Months sometimes separated lessons, which could then last for hours. He rarely talked directly about technical matters, instead expecting students to come up with their own solution so that the focus of the lesson could be on interpretation, history, culture, or form. He often used colorful metaphors to make interpretive or musical suggestions. Augusta Cottlow (1878–1954) remembers that once while playing the second trio of Robert Schumann’s Novelette, op. 21 no. 8, Busoni suddenly interjected, with humor:3

“Doesn’t that sound as if it were written for a German Männerchor (Male chorus)? One can actually hear the words.” With that he began to sing the following words, adjusting his voice to a falsetto in the tenor parts and a growl in the bass, in an indescribably comical manner: “Wie schön ist der deutsche Wald, der deutsche Wald, der deutsche Wald, Wie schön ist, Wie schön ist der deutsche Wald, der deutsche Wald, Wie schön ist, Der deutsche Wald, der deutsche Wald, wie schön ist, Der Schöne, schöne, schöne, schöne Wald! DER [End Page 277] WALD!” (Translation—“How lovely are the German woods, the German woods,!” etc.)

He continued this to the part Schumann has marked: “Stimme aus der Ferne” (“Voice from afar”), when he sang in a quivering, pathetic tone: “Einsam wand’re ich durch … den Wald!” (“Alone I wander through the woods!”) The thing that stirred his humor was the touch of sentimentality Schumann had allowed to creep into this particular part and which was of the same type that often stirs the breast of a small-town male chorus.4

Instruction in piano or composition also extended beyond the confines of private lessons or master classes to tea or coffee hours and walks through a park, where animated discussions would contribute not just to musical understanding, but also to an understanding of all things pertaining to humanity and the making of a well-rounded human being.5 Busoni’s pedagogical approach appears to have been effective; quite a few of his pupils established successful careers in performance, composition, or higher music education. These include Kurt Weill (1900–1950), Edgard Varèse (1883–1965), Philipp Jarnach (1892–1982), Egon Petri (1881–1962), and Rudolph Ganz (1877–1972), to name a few.

Although Tamara Levitz has already written about Busoni’s teaching in the Berlin composition master class, and students have left personal memoirs describing the piano master classes and private lessons, little is known about how Busoni taught in his early years at the Helsinki Music Institute (1888–90), the Moscow Conservatory (1890–91), and the New England Conservatory (1891–92).6 Particularly unexplored is Busoni’s time at the New England Conservatory. This lack of scholarship can be explained in part by a paucity of source material and lack of published or private accounts of his teaching. Regular grade books were only maintained beginning in 1908.7 Additionally, there are few letters from Busoni describing his time at the conservatory. When the subject of his position teaching piano and theory, harmony, or composition at the New England Conservatory is mentioned in secondary sources, Edward Dent’s brief entry in his 1933 Busoni biography is most frequently quoted or paraphrased. Yet Dent, a friend of Busoni, devotes only two paragraphs to the subject, focusing exclusively on Busoni’s activities as piano teacher. Moreover, the reliability of Dent’s description has been questioned by Donald Harris, an administrator and faculty member of the New England Conservatory from 1967 to 1977, who considers Dent’s negative description of the conditions at the conservatory to be harsh. Joseph Matthew...

pdf

Share