Busoni: Violin Sonatas

A child prodigy virtuoso pianist who had composed nearly 200 works before he was out of his teens, Ferruccio Busoni wrote his first violin sonata when he was 23. Brahmsian in flavour, its three-movement form, restlessness and passionate intensity place it firmly within the lineage of Austro-German Romanticism. The second sonata was composed a decade later, by which time Busoni had found his true voice. It makes references to Bach and Beethoven in structure and form, and to Liszt in its use of thematic transformation and overall sense of unity.