Bolzano pays tribute to Ferruccio Busoni

Attentive to the past, lucid in questioning the present, a century after his death Ferruccio Busoni (1866-1924) remains an intellectual of great modernity. Pianist, composer, essayist, the Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition in Bolzano, which belongs to the World Federation of International Music Competitions (WFIMC), is named after him. A rigorous and creative pianist, equal to Liszt, with an idea of ethical music as seen in his writings on Bach, Mozart, Beethoven; the Busoni Piano Competition is the embodiment of an artistic manifesto, of a vision for the future of music itself and stands out from many others due to its uniqueness.

Twenty, thirty years ago, music competitions were the instrument that allowed candidates visibility and a career; today, due to various communication opportunities, many competitions have become an end in themselves. "There are candidates who for years participate and live, even economically, on competitions; in this way, the young musician risks losing his identity to become whatever the juries want him to be," says Peter Paul Kainrath, President of the Busoni Competition and of WFIMC "We have to make candidates aware that they should not be exploited by the system in order to preserve their artistic personality. You can undertake three international competitions but think of them as performances in prestigious venues to make yourself known".

The Busoni Competition takes place over two years, the candidates perform twice, it is the Glocal Piano Project that takes place in 12 cities. The candidates' performance, recorded by a team of experts, is streamed on the competition platform and evaluated by an international jury as well as the online audience. At the end of the GPP, the finalists who will participate in the finals in 2025 will be identified.

Also in the name of Busoni in Bolzano are two resident youth orchestras; the European Union Youth Orchestra -which this year makes its debut at Carnegie Hall in New York- and on 2 September will be conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner, music by Schönberg, Wolf, Webern, Enescu and Schubert's "Streichquartett d-moll D. 810 - Der Tod und das Mädchen" in Mahler's transcription. The other orchestra, founded by Claudio Abbado, is the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester, which will be conducted by Ingo Metzmacher in two concerts with pieces from Wagner's Parsifal, 'Symphony No. 3 in D minor, WAB 103" by Bruckner, the overtures of Beethoven's "Leonora and Coriolanus", Šostakóvič's "Symphony No. 8 in C minor", Schoenberg's "Fünf Orchesterstücke" and a remembrance "to the infinite possible" by architect Carlo Scarpa of Luigi Nono, 20 and 22 August.

The artist believed in friendship as much as in music. Among his favourites were Umberto Boccioni, who portrayed him in 1916 - the painting is at the Gam in Rome - and Elias Canetti, who mentions the composer in 'La lingua salvata'. At the Galleria Civica in Bolzano, the exhibition, realised in collaboration with the Staatsbibliothek in Berlin, unveils the composer's rich relations: reproductions on explanatory panels of materials from Busoni's bequest that include photographic collections, annotated scores and letters that the maestro exchanged with protagonists and patrons of the musical world of his time. A mechanical roller piano of the time also makes it possible to play some performances recorded by Busoni himself, to hear an echo of the great master's sound. Filippo Gorini considers Busoni one of his points of reference; the talented pianist, 29, will play and dialogue with the public during his artistic residency at the Bolzano Festival Bozen, proposing new listening formats. Gorini has chosen Bolzano for the debut of his new project "Sonata for 7 Cities": a tour between Vienna, Hong Kong, Cape Town, in which the artist will stay for a month, concentrating not only on performance but also on teaching, music education in the many places of the communities.