Laureto Rodoni

BUSONI'S EXIL IN ZÜRICH [1]

[traduzione in inglese a cura della Piccadilly School
of English, Bolzano e di Lisa Terzariol (Bolzano)
pubblicata sul catalogo della omonima mostra
fotografica allestita al Conservatorio
di Bolzano nell'agosto del 2001]

In early August 1914, at the start of the First World War, Ferruccio Busoni was in Berlin, where he had lived since 1894. Hesitant and anguished, in the following months he decided to go through with the tour of the United States that had been planned some months previously, also to have time to think about his delicate personal position, caught between two nations that had become enemies: Italy, where he had been born and educated and Germany, his adoptive country.
He left for America at the beginning of the new year. The tormented time spent in the United States and, paradoxically, the war itself brought him realise the intense relationship and the cultural ties that bound him to Europe, which he saw as «a single nation from which» he wrote to Mario Corti «I have drawn the little I know and for which I feel all the love I possibly can.» [2]
During the summer he therefore decided to return to Europe, but when, tragically, it came time to take sides, he was unable or unwilling to choose, also because he was considered persona non grata both in Germany and in Italy. He sadly decided then to request political asylum in Switzerland.
He reached Zurich at the beginning of October, where he took a flat in Scheuchzerstrasse 36. «J'ai choisi Zurich pour mon séjour [I chose Zurich]» he wrote to Isidor Philipp «la ville étant au présent la plus international de la Suisse, et parce qu'elle m'offrait plusieurs occasions artistiques. [since the city is, at the moment, the most international city in Switzerland and offers many artistic opportunities]» [3]. After the beginning of the war, Zurich had in fact «abandoned its silence and had become, all of a sudden, the most important city in Europe, centre of all the intellectual movements.» [4]


Scheuchzerstrasse 36.
Busoni's flat, on the first floor

But also the presence of Volkmar Andreae, [5] renowned musician and dynamic person of culture, that the great pianist knew slightly and with whom he had been in touch professionally since 1907, had a lot to do with his decision.
Highly cultured and far-sighted, Andreae immediately became, as of October of 1915, an irreplaceable support in the city where Busoni had taken refuge, [6] artistically, professionally and personally. He realised what an important cultural role Busoni could have in Zurich and without further ado, he made sure that the exile was included in the musical life of the city and that he was in the best possible condition to carry on all his various cultural and artistic activities:

Remembering Ferruccio Busoni I remember above all his visit […] in 1915, when [...] he begged us Swiss to grant him asylum. I had previously known Busoni only as an artist and as a man of culture. Now I saw before me a man persecuted by the follies of war, asking for help with tears in his eyes. Rarely has an event moved me so deeply and, at the same time, filled me with so much joy: I was moved by the dejection of this great man and yet filled with joy to be able to consider him one of us. [7]

Volkmar Andreae was a sort of incessant but patient and discreet director of Busoni’s activities in Zurich. He regularly directed the most important symphonic pieces written by the musician in exile, including some absolute premières and often acted as liaison with the Tonhalle when there were problems concerning concert dates or fees. From the frequent meetings in the flat in Scheuchzerstasse 36, in Andreae’s own villa and in the city’s public meeting places, from loyal artistic co-operation and from mutual respect, a deep friendship was born that not even the differences of opinion concerning musical matters ever lessened. Busoni expressed his gratitude when he left Zurich in an open letter published in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung:

Es ist vorerst Ihrer künstlerischen Einsicht zu verdanken, dass es mir überhaupt möglich wurde, in Zürich eine Aktivität zu entfalten, die Sie gütigerweise als eine anregende und wohltätige bezeichnet haben: sind Sie doch bei jeder meiner nach aussen gerichteten musikalischen Handlungen der planende und bewegende Geist gewesen. Ich werde Ihr Verhalten zu mir und zu meiner Kunstübung von nun an in meinem Herzen bewahren. [8] [It is first and foremost thanks to your artistic insight, that I was at all able to continue activities in Zurich that you were so good as to call stimulating and generous; you were the planner and mover behind every musical activity of mine meant for the outside world. I will hold what you have done for me and my art forever in my heart.]



Volkmar Andreae
Foto di Michael Schwarzkopf

The first months in exile, terribly difficult from a psychological point of view, were marked by efforts to overcome the barriers of loneliness and isolation thrown up by the new situation: Busoni planned the concert activities for the following spring with unshakeable determination, took up once more his philological and composing work, his research on the myth of Faust, the revision of his musical aesthetic, and continued studying and teaching piano.
Looking toward the future and open to the surrounding world, he built up a series of new relationships; on the one hand, getting to know better people that had not been part of his Freundeskreis, his close group of friends, before the war (besides Andreae, the Basle composer
Hans Huber, the Portuguese pianist Josè Vianna Da Motta, the futurist painter Umberto Boccioni), on the other, making new friends, with the Marquis Silvio della Valle di Casanova, [9] the banker Albert Biolley, the composer Philipp Jarnach...
Busoni’s meeting with Jarnach was crucial for both men’s lives, both personally and artistically. The French-Spanish musician soon became, in spite of his youth, (he was 23 in 1915) not only a precious assistant, but a sort of alter ego to the maestro, taking the place, in this role, of the pianist Egon Petri, who at that time had isolated himself in Zakopane, in Poland. Busoni was immediately struck by the intelligence of his young assistant and by the ease with which he moved in the meanders of his compositions.
Busoni was therefore firmly determined to continue artistically on the course begun with the Wendung (the turning point, stylistically speaking) of 1907. [10] After completing a brief, intense and rarefied symphonic piece built on an American Indian theme, the «Gesang vom Reigen der Geister», he returned to composing the theatrical capriccio Arlecchino. Later he wrote and put to music the Turandot in only three months based on the orchestral Suite of the same name.
But the composer’s efforts are mainly directed towards the Doktor Faust. Though he had finished the libretto a the end of 1914, he tirelessly continued his research on the myth both in literature and in music. After having roughed out the first musical plan of the piece in June of 1916, he composed the first Skizzen (musical sketches) three months later, deeply grieved by the death of his friend, the painter U. Boccioni. [11]
Other remarkable compositions also come from the period in exile: the «Sonatina in diem nativitatis Christi 1917» for piano, the «Divertimento per flauto e orchestra» (flute and orchestra) and the «Concertino per clarinetto e piccola orchestra» (clarinet and small orchestra): these two especially are the result, along with «Arlecchino», of the deep theoretical analysis which peaked in the open letter to Paul Bekker on the Junge Klassizität, an important part of the history of musical thought in the twentieth century. [12]


Albert Biolley
Foto di Michael Schwarzkopf

In Switzerland he could have given fewer concerts (long and intense work at the piano had not enriched him spiritually for many years by then), but his financial situation, quite shaky especially after the summer of 1916, did not permit this. His passion for rare and refined books (he bought about a thousand of them in Zurich), his desire to finance the production of «Doktor Faust», his purchases of paintings (the Boccionis, the Oppenheimers) and of a glass harmonica, his expensive lifestyle, his chronic incapability to manage money rationally (he was contemptuous of it), some financial and contractual errors on the part of his trusted banker in Berlin, his innate generosity were some of the reasons for his financial difficulties, not uncommonly solved by the willingness and generosity of the banker Albert Biolley.
Since he had no secretary or Konzertagent (agent) in Zurich, at the beginning Busoni acted as his own agent, as of the Autumn of 1916, Biolley took over this role humbly and efficiently, asking nothing in return: he became the concert organiser in the Swiss cities, especially in the French cantons.
In spite of his intense activity, the existential unhappiness caused by his exile remained latent and reappeared chronically, causing bitter outbursts, both in his written letters and verbally, in front of students and friends, «horrified witnesses to his pain and to his titanic rebellion against an event that seemed to him completely senseless.» [13]
The forced distance from his home and from his «Gewohnheiten», that is all the habits that make a place pleasant and irreplaceable, the forced interruption of the enlivening relationship with his city, his friends, with the volumes of his refined private library, an instrument as important as the piano, the impossibility of leaving Switzerland: Busoni felt all this as a tearing interruption of his life that caused him great inner pain. «Mein Leben hat einen Riss, und oft erkenne ich es kaum als das eigene» [14] [my life is torn, and often I hardly recognise it as my own], he wrote to Leo Kestenberg in October of 1915. And to Hans Huber a year later: «Zwei Jahre sah ich nicht mein Haus, meine Bücher, meine Freunde, meine Gewohnheiten. Die Gerade Linie ist unterbrochen. Der gastlichen Schweiz meine volle Dankbarkeit, aber heisst das Leben? Und in den Nebel der Ungewussheit hinein weiter, mit bald 51 Jahren?» [15] [It has been two years since I saw my house, my books, my friends, my habits. The straight line has been interrupted. Hospitable Switzerland has all my gratitude, but is this life ? And should I carry on into the foggy unknown, at almost 51 years of age?]
The consequences of this interruption on his psychological stability, on his identity and on his Weltanschauung cut deep: Busoni, the cosmopolitan, suddenly realised that he did not have a homeland to identify with, which he needed at that tragic time; Busoni, the Kulturmensch, began to suffer from the fact of belonging to two cultures that were antithetical in that historical context.
Existentially the First World War caused a deep break, that marred from the first Busoni’s relationship with the city in which he had taken refuge, though it guaranteed him tranquillity, work and cultural inspiration.
Zurich seemed too small, provincial, predictable, «veiled with boredom» [16] and all Switzerland, to his eyes, was «a sort of Sanatorium». [17] In 1917 he confided to Da Motta that Zurich had almost nothing further to offer him. [18] Under the deforming light of bitterness and impotent rage, the city became a sort of scapegoat for his unhappiness and inner suffering. Only rarely do his letters mention pleasure at the presence of important or remarkable people.
One of the ways in which Busoni relieved the most devastating effects of exile (ostracism, isolation, loneliness) was by creating a small circle of friends (Swiss and foreigners in exile). His house in Scheuchzerstrasse 36 became, from the first months of his time in Zurich, a place of meeting for famous musicians and intellectuals, «ein Sammel- und Brennpunkt regen und beschwingten geistigen Lebens, künstlerisch-menschlichen Erlebens» [19] [a place where lively intellects and artistic and human experience meet and burn], where it was not uncommon to meet «geistige und künstlerische Grössen aus aller Herren Länder [intellectual and artistic greatness from all the lands God made]», including the writers Stefan Zweig, Rainer Maria Rilke, Jakob Wassermann, Franz Werfel, Ludwig Rubiner, René Schickele, the composers Ermanno Wolf Ferrari, Othmar Schoeck, Marcel Sulzberger, the painters Hans Richter, Max Oppenheimer, Ettore Cosomati, the orchestra directors Otto Klemperer and Oskar Fried, the editor Paul Cassirer and the philosopher Ernst Bloch. How important this Freundeskreis was for Busoni emerges from many letters. In 1918, for example, he wrote to the young Swiss pianist Ernst Lochbrunner (but this message of gratitude can be extended to all who were close to him, lessening the pain of his exile): «du mildertest mir diese Passions-Jahre durch Freundschaft.» [20] [you have relieved the suffering of these years with your friendship.]
From the point of view of interpersonal relations, the Zürcherjahre, the years in Zurich, were thus so enriching for Busoni as to have a very positive effect not only on his mental stability, often threatened by depression, but also on his intellectual and artistic activity.
Important were also those friends that had decided to remain in their own countries and with whom he was constantly in touch by letter. [21] Letters were the second manner in which he broke through his isolation, to approach others, to leave the prison of his exile, to break through, at least metaphorically, the tight bounds imposed upon him by the war. By his own count, he wrote more than 5000 letters in Zurich (about 3 a day): [22] «Que j'ai écrit de lettres! Vraiment, ma correspondence fait une partie considérable de mes oeuvres et, souvent, elle les a - forcement! - substitué.» [23] [How many letters I have written! Truly, my correspondence is a considerable part of my work and often – forcibly! - has taken its place.]
But neither his Freundeskreis or his letters could relieve the heavier and deeper loneliness that merges from this confession to Baroness Oppenheimer: «Without having withdrawn from society, I sense that I am becoming progressively more isolated.» [24] The loneliness of his circumstances, in which he occasionally found himself in Zurich, overlapped a human and artistic loneliness that was rooted in his soul and had been since his youth.
His harsh opinions on German music and taste, on Wagner, wagnerian style and expressionism, and his crushing criticisms of Italian music and musicians, «vassals» of foreigners and their music, brought him ostracism and isolation, indifference and contempt, and forced him to realise bitterly and finally that he was and always had been an exile (before, during and after the period in Switzerland), not only as a man, but also as an intellectual and as an artist. An exile therefore in his two countries, the legal and the chosen one; [25] metaphorically an exile in language (German was, perhaps in spite of him, his preferred language). [26] Busoni was in fact a musician who was isolated in his time both as a composer and as a pianist, and as a theoretician: in all these activities his nonconformist attitudes, his originality, his strenuous and noble defence of his ideas often exposed him to the ferocious criticism of his adversaries.
Busoni was sadly aware of his condition as a permanent exile even after the war, since he wrote to Edith Andreae in 1920: «Ich litt für die ganze Welt und wurde - heimatlos.» [27] [I suffered for the whole world and became a man without a country.] Zurich, the actual place where he lived during his exile, became a symbol of that condition. The words that Rilke devoted to the artist in his Diario fiorentino seem to fit Busoni as few others do: «The fact that art in its highest forms cannot be national, means that every artist is born in a foreign land; he has no country except within himself. And those of his works that best express the language of this country are thus the more his.» [28]
Busoni left the apartment in the Scheuchzerstrasse 36 on the 9th of September 1920, with the title of Dr. h.c., conferred by the Department of Philosophy of the University of Zurich in August 1919: «Wir wissen wohl [We know well]», Volkmar Andreae wrote to him in a heartfelt letter of congratulations « dass Sie neben Liszt und Rubinstein der grösste Pianist aller Zeiten sind. Für uns aber noch wertvoller war Ihre ganze Persönlichkeit, Ihr künstlerisches Schaffen, Ihr hoher einzigartiger Geist.» [29] [that you, next to Liszt and Rubinstein, are the greatest pianist of all time. But for us your entire personality, your artistic creativity, your high unique spirit were even more precious.]

Before leaving, Busoni wrote to Biolley:

On ne se sépare pas facilement du lieu, de la personne ou même de la chose auxquels on etait lié pendant un lustre! Mais c'est irrevocable. Et il faut bien se résigner. La résignation est l'effort plus heroique et douloureux, dontl l'âme humaine soit capable. [30] [it is not easy to leave a place, a person or a thing to which one has been close for half a decade! But it is irrevocable. And I must resign myself. Resignation is the most painful and heroic effort that the human soul is capable of.]

A few days after arriving in Berlin, Busoni confided again to his banker friend:

Tous les changements, même les plus souhaités ont leur mélancolie, car ce que nous quittons, c'est une partie de nous-même; il faut mourir à une vie pour entrer dans une autre. [31] [All changes, even those most desired, have a certain melancholy, because that which we leave is apart of us; we must die to one life to begin another.].




In Berlin he was struck by a grave depression that forced Gerda to hasten her departure from Zurich. The causes were many: the great changes in the city, having had to leave his friends... But also leaving Giotto, his Saint Bernard, with whom he spent almost the entire period in exile and whom he greatly cared for, did much to darken his mood.
Whoever has read Elias Canetti’s autobiography may remember an amusing page in which the great Austrian writer, recalling his adolescent years spent with his family in Zurich during the Great War, mentions the frequent, almost daily meetings with an odd-looking gentleman, always accompanied by an enormous Saint Bernard, who rarely heeded his master’s orders:

[…] I always ran into the same gentleman strolling there, and the regular encounters lodged in my mind. He had a very lovely white head of hair, walked erect and absent-mindedly; he walked a short piece, halted, looked around for something, and changed his direction. He had a St. Bernard dog, which he often called to: «Dschoddo, come to Papa!» Sometimes the St. Bernard came, sometimes it ran further away; that was what Papa was looking for. But no sooner had he found it than he forgot it again and was as absent-minded as before. [...] His frequent call made children laugh, but they didn't laugh in his presence for he had something commanding respect as he peered straight ahead, tall and proud and not noticing anyone [...]. It was Busoni […] and his dog, as I found out only much later, was named Giotto. All the children in the neighborhood talked about him, but not as Busoni, for they knew nothing about him, they called him «Dschoddo-come-to-Papa!»

When Canetti’s mother heard of the nickname the children had given the great musician, she was very irritated.

She never missed a recital by Busoni, and it confused her a bit that he lived nearby. At first, she wouldn't believe me when I told her about running into him, and only when she learned from others that it really was Busoni did she accept it, and she upbraided me for calling him «Dschoddo-come-to-Papa», like the neighborhood children, instead of Busoni. She promised she would take me to hear him some day, but only on condition that 1 never again call him by that false name. She said he was the greatest keyboard master she had ever heard, and it was nonsense referring to all the others as "pianists" just like him. [32]

Giotto and Busoni were inseparable and in the four years they spent together they became well-known and well respected by the people of Zurich, amused by the exuberance of the dog, that the master could hardly ever contain. One could meet them in the, in the small streets that lead to the Rämistrasse, near the fountain in front of the central Station, where the musician often conducted lively discussions with the dadaists (especially Hans Richter) and with the expressionist writer Ludwig Rubiner. Giotto, in the meanwhile, would go into the fountain, causing irritation and indignation among the Zurich policemen. The big dog was almost always at his master’s feet when Busoni went to the public meeting places in the city (to the Odeon, on the Terrasse, to the Kronenhalle, to the Bahnhofbuffet) to drink a glass of red wine, dreaming sadly of the good Chianti in Toscana.
The tale goes that one day, at the station buffet, Giotto knocked over the sword of an army officer, which was leaning against the wall. Busoni, leaving, went by the unfortunate man’s table and whispered ironically: «Please excuse him: he is as anti-military as his master.» [33]
At the end of the war, when he was again able to cross borders for his triumphal European tours, he often wrote to his wife begging her to send him pictures of his dog.
Giotto did much to lessen Busoni’s loneliness in exile. For this reason Busoni had him immortalised in many magnificent photographs taken by Michael Schwarzkopf.

MICHAEL SCHWARZKOPF

This great photographer, unfortunately almost forgotten today, was born in Russia in 1884. As a small child he moved to Munich where he studied sculpture, receiving an artistic prize that allowed him to continue studying in Paris. Immediately after the beginning of the war, he settled in Zurich where he married a Russian woman. Because of the difficulties of the times, Schwarzkopf decided to devote himself to photographic portraits, soon becoming one of the photographers in greatest demand with Swiss and foreign artists and intellectuals.

Probably in Autumn 1916, at a concert at the Tonhalle, Schwarzkopf approached Busoni and asked him if he would like to be photographed. At first the musician refused courteously, but when Schwarzkopf showed him the photographic portraits of his future wife, he was so enthusiastic that he accepted. It is difficult to put a precise date to the photographs, all published in this catalogue: they were certainly taken between Autumn 1916 and the beginning of 1919.
On the 2nd of May 1918, having belatedly heard that Schwarzkopf was to marry that day, Busoni wrote him the following letter, [34] that shows the friendship between the two artists:

Lieber und geehrter Herr Schwarzkopf, [my dear and honoured Mr. Schwarzkopf,]
die Nachricht Ihrer Trauung trifft mich völlig unvorbereitet, da ich erst gestern Abend zum ersten Male davon erfuhr. [the news of your marriage caught me completely by surprise, since I heard of it for the first time last evening.]
Dass ich den Wunsch hege, Fräulein Reingold und Sie glücklich zu sehen, ergibt sich natürlich aus dem gegenseitigen Freundschafts- und Achtungsverhältnis, das uns in Zürich verband. [My hope that you and Miss Reingold will be happy is of course born of the mutual friendship and respect that bound us in Zurich.]
Dass die Veranlassung zu einem Glückwunsch aber so unmittelbar nahe stand, was mir erst seit 24 Stunden bewusst geworden. [However I only realised 24 hours ago that the happy occasion on which I congratulate you, was so close.]
Darum komme ich mit vollem Herzen zu Ihnen um mich mit Ihnen zu freuen, und Sie als Vermählte zu begrüssen; leider heute nicht gerüstet genug, um diese Feier durch ein Merkmal meiner Teilnahme zu veranschaulichen. Bis dieses sich erfüllen wird, nehmen Sie noch einmal alles Schöne und Hoffnungsreiche entgegen von Ihrem [thus I come with a full heart to wish you joy and salute you as a newly married man, though I am unfortunately unprepared today to honor this happy occasion with a sign of my participation. Until then, please accept the wishes for wonderful and hopeful things from]
Ihnen herzlich ergebenen Ferruccio Busoni [your heartfelt servant Ferruccio Busoni]
Zürich, am 2. Mai 1918 [Zurich, the 2nd of May 1918]

[1] This text is mostly drawn from an essay of mine on Busoni’s exile in Zurich (Die Gerade Linie ist unterbrochen. L'esilio di Busoni a Zurigo, 1915-1920), completed by a small anthology of unpublished letters, published in the «Schweizer Jahrbuch für Musikwissenschaft», n. 19 (1999), edited by Josef Willimann (University of Basle), Peter Lang, Bern, 2000, pp. 27-106. SU

[2] Letter to M. Corti of 17.4.1915, in Gustavo Marchesi, «Alcune lettere di Busoni», La Scala. Rivista dell'opera, April 1958, n. 101, p. 62. SU

[3] Letter of 20.11.1915, Mus. ep. F. B. 304c, Busoni-Nachlass BI, Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Musikabteilung, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin. SU

[4] Stefan Zweig, «Il mondo di ieri. Ricordi di un Europeo», Milano 1979, p. 219. SU

[5] Andreae was born in Bern in 1879. As of 1906 he directed the concerts at the Zürcher-Tonhalle-Gesellschaft and from 1914 (and until 1939) he was director of the city Conservatory. He was also a composer who was well thought of by Busoni. SU

[6] «Zürich! Stadt der Zuflucht [Zurich! City of refuge]» - he wrote to Jarnach, from Rome, on 21.10.1921 (Dent Collection, Rowe Music Library, King's College, Cambridge). SU

[7] Part of a commemorative speech given by V. Andreae on the 19th of June 1926, cit. in Hans Jelmoli, «Ferruccio Busonis Zürcher Jahre», Zürich 1929, p. 7. SU

[8] Open letter to V. Andreae dell'8.8.1919, in Joseph Willimann, «Der Briefwechsel zwischen Ferruccio Busoni und Volkmar Andreae», 1907-1923, Zürich 1994, p. 89, lett. n. 58. SU

[9] See in Laureto Rodoni, «Il carteggio tra Busoni e il Marchese di Casanova», «Verbanus» n. 21, Verbania-Intra 2000, pp. 13-33 e Tra futurismo e cultura mitteleuropea: l'incontro di Boccioni e Busoni a Pallanza, Intra-Pallanza 1998, passim. SU

[10] The first of the Elegies is entitled «Nach der Wendung. Recueillement»: in the title there is the «declared announcement of that new style identified and used in the Elegies»; the subtitle Recueillement has the double meaning of «inner absorption of the spirit » and of «gathering of previous experience» (Sergio Sablich, «Busoni», Torino 1982, p. 163). SU

[11] See L. Rodoni, «Tra futurismo...», cit., passim. SU

[12] In F. Busoni, Wesen und Einheit der Musik, Neuausgabe der Schriften und Aufzeichnungen Busonis revidiert und ergänzt von Joachim Herrmann, Berlin 1956, S. 34-38. SU

[13] Jakob Wassermann, «F. Busoni in memoriam», Berlin 1925, p. 27. SU

[14] Mus. ep. F. B. 599 (12.10.1915). SU

[15] Lett. of 8.12.1916, in «Briefe Busonis an H. Huber», published by Edgar Refardt, Zürich and Leipzig 1939, p. 23. SU

[16] Lett. to Petri of 4.3.1917, in F. Busoni, Lettere con il carteggio Busoni-Schönberg, selection and notes by Antony Beaumont [Original title: Ferruccio Busoni Selected Letters, London 1987], Italian edition edited by Sergio Sablich [the correspondence between Busoni-Schönberg is edited by Jutta Theurich], Milano 1988, n. 255, p. 356. Lettera non compresa nell'edizione inglese. SU

[17] Lett. to Max Oppenheimer, 25.12.1915, Mus. ep. F. B. 55. In the same letter he calls the world «a lazaret». SU

[18] F. Busoni, Selected Letters, cit., lett. of 20.6.1917, n. 237, p. 261. SU

[19] M. H. S. Sulzberger, «Busonis Haus», Mus NL 30: Bba 6, Sulzberger-Nachlass (Zentralbibliothek Zürich, Musikabteilung), not identified review, 1926, pp. 3 e 5. SU

[20] Mus. ep. F. B. 69, 1.1.1918. SU

[21] Umberto Boccioni, Arrigo Serato, Emilio and Augusto Anzoletti, Hugo Leichentritt, Edith Andreae, Isidor Philipp, the Marquis of Casanova, Leo Kestenberg, Mario Corti, Gino Tagliapietra etc. SU

[22] Lett. to the Marquis of Casanova, 7.8.1920, in F. Busoni, «Selected Letters...», cit., n. 299, p. 319. SU

[23] Lett. to Isidor Philipp of 11.5.1920, Mus. ep. F. B. 328a. On 5.12.1920, from Berlin, he wrote: «J'ai dû négliger ma correspondance, quoique j'écrive de trois à six lettres par jour. [I was forced to neglect my correspondence, though I write three to six letters a day.]» (Mus. ep. F. B. 338a.) SU

[24] Lett. to J. Oppenheimer, Sept. 1917, «Selected Letters», cit., p. 265. And again: «It is noteworthy that very many of the men who took refuge here have remained aloof, have not fraternized with each other.» And again: «[...] the circle narrows continually, inspiration must repeatedly be drawn from one's own vital parts; just as if one had to, gnaw at one's own arm for want of other nourishment.» (Lett. to Petri of 20.11.1917, in F. Busoni, «Selected Letters...», cit., n. 246, p. 268.) SU

[25] In the letter to Clausetti reproduced on the catalogue he considers his choice to live in Berlin as an «Exile». SU

[26] «[...] eine Sprache in der ich mich sicherer bewege.» [a language in which I move more surely.] (Mus. ep. F. B. 200) SU

[27] See the letter to E. Andreae of 25.7.1920, in «Briefe Busonis an Edith Andreae», edited by Andres Briner, Zürich 1976, p. 33 which corresponds to F. Busoni, «Selected Letters...», cit., n. 296, p. 317. SU

[28] R. M. Rilke, «Diario fiorentino», Milano 1971, p. 71. SU

[29] Lett. n. 56, in Willimann, «Der Briefwechsel...», cit., p. 88. SU

[30] Lett. of 11.8.1920 (Mus. ep. F. B. 246). SU

[31] Mus. ep. F. B. 249, 1.10.1920. SU

[32] «The tongue set fre», from «The memoirs» of Elias Canetti, New York 1999, p. 154-155 e 172. SU

[33] See Edward Dent, «Ferruccio Busoni. A Biography», London 1933, S. 238. SU

[34] © Amadeus Schwarzkopf. SU