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Igor Levit's impeccable technique and burnished, well-defined sonority perfectly befit Busoni's aesthetic / ClassicsToday

Ferruccio Busoni's transcriptions of Bach and Brahms Chorale Preludes aspire to recreate the original organ textures in thoroughly pianistic terms, requiring the performer to render smooth sleight-of-hand shifts between registers, and the already well-occupied left hand to cover pedal passages that organists play with their feet. Igor Levit's recordings of the complete Busoni Bach and Brahms Chorale Prelude transcriptions are by far the best we've had since the late Paul Jacobs' 1980 Nonesuch release (reissued by Arbiter on CD).

Levit's impeccable technique and burnished, well-defined sonority perfectly befit Busoni's aesthetic. What is more, Levit never drags, and avoids the kind of ponderous, texturally heavy interpretations of these works that we often hear.

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