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If you're still waiting to (re)discover the music of Ferruccio Busoni, this set tops the list of several recently released and tempting entrées (among which are Marc-André Hamelin's theatrically vivid account of the epic
Piano Concerto and the Serkin-Schiff collaboration on
Music for Two Pianos).
Doktor Faust is, after all, the magnificently all-involving
summa of this brilliant, eccentric, but neglected composer. Like
Goethe, Busoni saw his preoccupation with the Faust legend turn into a lifelong obsession, though his own interpretation actually has very little (directly) to do with Goethe's, drawing instead on the original puppet plays and on his own postromantic view of Faust as the archetypal alienated artist. The result is a richly multilayered work that, for all of its looking backward, suggests some points of comparison with a 20th-century landmark that was premiered within months of
Doktor Faust's unveiling: Berg's
Wozzeck.
Kent Nagano keeps convincing hold on the work's dual focus, blending intellectual intensity with sensual fabrics of sound, and his cast is quite honestly spellbinding, from Dietrich Henschel's versatile portrayal of the title character's complex development to Kim Begley's sardonic tenor Mephistopheles and Eva Jenis's hints of a transfixed Isolde as the Duchess of Parma (despite a tendency toward shrillness at her top). This set includes the Antony Beaumont completion of the score as extra tracks. What's more, now that the 1969 version starring Fischer-Dieskau (who appears here in the speaking role of the Poet) has fallen out of print, this is now the only available full account. Fortunately it does superb justice to a still dimly understood masterpiece.
--Thomas May
