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Title: Minestrone
Review: This music is lip-smackingly rich and thick, like a really good minestrone soup. Hamelin is pianism of the first order, busily and sometimes poundingly accompanying the full orchestra through an unusal 8-part "concerto," a daunting 72 minute Herculean opus. After several listenings I still haven't grasped the themes or larger architecture of this lyrical work, a great wall of sound; it would probably take many more. It seems a generaly upbeat paean to civilization (clearest in the text of the men's chorus), with no hint of the dissolution to come in WW I. However, there is no attempt to imitate or suggest the musics of the three ancient civilizations Busoni invokes (in his frontispiece drawing) as the architectural underpinnings of this sprawling work. The notes (written in 1958) are extremely detailed, but would be more comprehensible if keyed to the timings of each long and busy movement (10-23 min each, slightly faster than "usual").
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