Among the most prominent performing musicians whose fame history has preserved, it is difficult to name one whose art aroused as stormy and contradictory a reaction among contemporaries as that of Ferruccio Busoni, the German-Italian pianist of the turn of the century. His activities—not only performance but also composition, pedagogy, and musicology—constantly attracted the attention of the musical world, sparked passions, and created an extensive literature. His book Entwurf einer neuen Ásthetic der Tonkunst [Sketch of a New Aesthetic of Music] excites a lively polemic in the press; his idea for the reform of keyboard notation (Versuch einer organischen Klavier-Noten-Schrift) stirs up a protracted debate; a short article “Wie lange soll das gehen?” [How Long Will It Go On?], criticizing the atmosphere of concerts, incites passionate arguments. “I begin this letter with yesterday's concert of Ferruccio Busoni, which, in its interest, eclipsed all preceding ones and aroused such hot arguments and such a difference of opinion, that it is necessary to deal with it first,” writes the Berlin correspondent of the Russian Musical Gazette. “Although the ‘Concerto’ … is more than an hour long, and the listeners could not have understood everything upon first hearing, they became ever-more drawn in, electrified, reaching by the end a state of physical excitement—chaos reigned in the coatrooms, strangers spoke to each other, remarks were heard such as ‘but this is the tenth Symphony!’one saw bewildered faces, people bumped into one another, without even noticing—in general, the deep reaction was felt everywhere.”