lacuna towards the return of the Figaro theme. Liszt probably tried out an improvised solution in performance, judging by the rather insignificant gaps. Version by Busoni At some point, the pianist-composer Ferruccio Busoni, who has been described as "probably the most open and enthusiastic Liszt exponent in the early twentieth century," became aware of the unpublished manuscript and prepared a performing version which he first played in 1911 in Berlin. Busoni gave a series of six all-Liszt recitals in mid-October of that year, playing nearly all of the major piano works, and these are the concerts at which his version, the "Figaro Fantasy", most likely received its first performance. (Busoni had been on tour in the United States for the first three months of the year, and these were his first piano recitals after returning to Europe in April.)Couling 2005, p. 242. Later, in the summer of 1912, after the unsuccessful premiere of his Wagnerian-length opera Die Brautwahl in mid-April and a concert tour through Italy in May, Busoni decided to stay home alone in Berlin to work, while his wife Gerda was in Switzerland on holiday. It was during this period of time that he prepared his version of Liszt's "Fantasy" for publication. The manuscript (No. 245 in the Busoni Archive) is dated 11 July 1912. It was published that same year by Breitkopf & Härtel as Fantasie über zwei Motive aus W. A. Mozarts Die Hochzeit des Figaro [Fantasy on two motives from W. A. Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro] (BV B 66). As the title suggests, Busoni did not include the music from Don Giovanni, shortening the currently known manuscript of more than 597 bars by 245 bars. The changes also included Busoni's 16-bar completion, as well as 10 additional bars on page 28, and other elaborations of 5, 1 and 4 bars duration, including expression marks, cadenzas, and ossias. Unfortunately, no editorial notes were included, so there was little or no indication of his alterations or pages omitted. That summer Busoni also arranged and composed music for the edizione minore of the Fantasia contrappuntistica, the Sonatina Seconda for piano, and incidental music for Frank Wedekind's play Franziska, consisting of sketches for twelve numbers which he never finished. He also shortened and modified the music of Die Brautwahl for a new production and extensively rearranged the music into a suite for concert performance. There is no mention