For the third issue of the Sonatina Series I focus on ‘Sonatina 3 ad usum infantis Madeline M.* Americanae’ by Ferruccio Busoni, a gentle, melodic and visionary work of deceptively rigorous and integrated construction, deriving all of its motivic elements and structure from the very first few bars, and alluding to his thinking on the course of new music as exemplified in his treatise ‘Absolute Melody’ (1913). I detect in it his continuing fascination and admiration of Native American cultures as also explored in his ‘Indianisches Tagbuch’, and its reflections of America and childlike wonder abound in a stridently beautiful approach using free polyphony and techniques of augmentation, inversion, and variation. It is at once charming and disarming in its trajectory. Busoni wrote in 1916: "My heart... is in a state of adolescence again; shy and full of longing and lacking practical impact."

Thus we find the composer reveling and reacquainting himself with the freedom and exploratory mind of a beginner, using the sensibility of someone who at this time was already considered a great master and one of the leading figures of the avant-garde in Berlin.

Sonatina Series • 3
Ferruccio Busoni (1866-1924)
Sonatina 3 ad usum infantis Madeline M.* Americanæ
1916

Gavin Gamboa, piano
Los Angeles, California
2024 February 17

Artwork
Ted Nava

Date
2025 August 15

View Ferruccio Busoni ⎮ Sonatina in the digital garden.