So many-sided were Ferruccio Busoni's accomplishments—as composer, author, pedagogue, opher-that even his most important biographers have cast only a cursory glance at the pianistic aspect of Busoni's fascinating career. This book by Grigory Kogan, offered here in English translation, is the first to concentrate exclusively on Busoni-the-Pianist, through a comprehensive summation of extant written materials (reviews, contemporary commentary, Busoni's own writings), painstaking analysis of piano rolls, and an examination of the master's editorial and pedagogical works. As such, it is of interest to every pianist, historian, and musicologist.

Grigory Kogan (1901–1979) was a leading Soviet pianist and musicologist, musical writer, and critic. A conservatory professor at the age of twenty-one, creator of the first-ever course on the history and theory of pianism, art historian, scholar, polemicist, writer—such is the short list of Kogan's accomplishments. With his brilliant lectures, his concertizing, and his many books, articles and reviews, Kogan influenced an entire generation of Soviet pianists. Among his friends were luminaries such as Emil Gilels, Sviatoslav Richter, Heinrich Neuhaus, and Tatiana Nikolaeva. His greatest contribution to the study of pianism was the shifting of emphasis from the muscular and physiological aspects of the pianist's learning process to its psychological and artistic dimensions, illustrating that it is these latter facets that form a truly effective foundation of practice and performance.