Bach/Busoni – a pairing that makes pianists’ hearts beat faster. This is because Busoni succeeded in making piano transcriptions of works that Bach had originally tailor-made for another instrument in such a way that one can still sense the original sound world while the grand piano is able to show off its full potential.
Together with the C-major Toccata, BWV 564, his transcription of the Organ Toccata in D minor, BWV 565 (now, after some interim uncertainty, once more considered a work by Bach), was to round off his reworkings of Bach for Breitkopf & Härtel in 1900. In Busoni’s view a worthy culmination because the toccatas were indeed – as he informed his publisher – “obviously the best among my achievements of this kind and I am confident in expecting they will make a strong impact”.
G. Henle Publishers agrees with this assessment and presents the famous D-minor Toccata and Fugue in an attractive Urtext edition that has consulted all of the sources and offers fingerings by the exceptional pianist Marc-André Hamelin.