BUSONI
Busoni is preparing a complete edition of Liszt's compositions, to be published by Breitkopf & Härtel. Concerning the studies, which are to appear in three volumes, he says:
"These études, a work which occupied Franz Liszt from childhood on up to manhood, we believe should be put at the head of his piano compositions. There are three reasons for this: the first is the fact that the études were the first of his works to be published; the second is that in Liszt's own catalogue of his works (Themat. Verz. Br. H. 1855), he puts the études at the very beginning; and the third and most patent is that these works in their entirety reflect as do no others Liszt's pianistic personality in the bud, shoot, and flower.
"These fifty-eight piano pieces alone would serve to place Liszt in the ranks of the greatest piano composers since Beethoven—Chopin, Schumann, Alkan, and Brahms; but proof of his superiority over these is found in his complete works, of which the études are only a small part.
"They afford a picture of him in manifold lights and poses, giving us an opportunity to know and observe him in the different phases of his character: the diabolic as well as the religious—those who acknowledge God do not make light of the devil—the refined and the animated; now as an illustrative interpreter of every style and again as a marvellous transformation artist who can with convincing mimicry don the costume of any country. This collection consists of a work for piano which contains within its circumference every phase, nation, and epoch of musical expression from Palestrina to Parsifal, whereby Liszt shows himself as a creator of twofold character—both subjective and objective."