Pattison, Theodore Pfeiffer, Laura Rappoldi, Cornelius Rybner, Hermann Scholz, Karl
Schulz-Schwerin, Albert Werkenthin and Bernhard Wolff.
Bülow made some Edison cylinders, since lost, but otherwise did not survive into the
recording era.
BURMEISTER
Richard Burmeister was born in Hamburg on 7 December 1860 and died in Berlin on 16
January 1933. He studied with Liszt from 1880 to 1883. He was a pupil with Liszt at
Weimar and accompanied him on his travels to Rome and Budapest. He taught at the
Hamburg Conservatory and was head of the piano department at the Peabody
Conservatory, Baltimore, from 1885 to 1897.
Burmeister’s piano concerto was performed in Baltimore in 1888 and published by
Luckhardt in 1890. He headed the Scharwenka Conservatory in New York from 1898 to
- He appeared with the Philadelphia orchestra during the 1902 season. Returning to
Germany he taught at the Dresden Conservatory from 1903 to 1906 and at the
Klindworth-Scharwenka Conservatory in Berlin from 1906 to 1925. He made extensive
tours of Europe and the United States. He married Dori Petersen, a Liszt pupil.
He wrote original works for piano, rescored Chopin’s piano concerto no. 2 in F minor
and added a cadenza. He also reworked some of Liszt’s piano pieces (Concerto
Pathétique, Mephisto Waltz) giving them an orchestral accompaniment, and at the final
concert of the Montreal Philharmonic Society on 25 May 1899 he was the soloist with
orchestra in the Concerto Pathétique. Burmeister did not make any discs. He made Liszt
rolls but none is in Denis Condon’s collection.
BUSONI
Ferruccio Busoni (1866-1924) played for Liszt on 16 March 1873 at the age of seven and
later took lessons from the Russian pianist and Liszt pupil Arthur Friedheim (1859-1932).
Busoni became a distinguished Liszt scholar and pianist and often performed the Sonata
and other works by Liszt, although he never studied with Liszt himself. Busoni wrote
that, in 1909, after playing the Liszt Sonata to Liszt’s pupil Sgambatti, ‘he kissed my
head and said I quite reminded him of the master, more so than his real pupils’. Busoni
played the Sonata regularly on his tour of Hungary, Europe and America in 1911-12.
Busoni made a number of rolls and discs, including Liszt rolls, but never recorded the
Liszt Sonata. Egon Petri who became a distinguished Liszt interpreter and teacher was a
pupil of Busoni.
CANTABILE
‘Cantabile’ means ‘in a singing style’.