“The Sketch of a New Aesthetic of Music” (1906), the revolutionary treatise by Busoni which caused quite a stir in the European music scene of that era, is dedicated to the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, a “musician of words,” from whose works the composer drew both the title and the character of the Elegies. Romanticism had already signaled a return to ancient mystical ideas, and with the turn of the century, a period laden with decadent expressions and tragic premonitions, mysticism found fervent advocates such as M. Maeterlinck, P. Claudel, and, in the German-speaking world, R. M. Rilke. Sartre wrote, “…the West was suffocating… Since it had no visible enemies, the bourgeoisie began to feast on the fear of its own shadow… there was talk of spiritualism and ectoplasms, the hereafter seemed so near…”

During those years, the arcane disciplines began to exert a significant influence on Busoni. He attended séances and became interested in occultism, spiritualism, and clairvoyance. He developed theories on the ability to see ghosts: humans could supposedly see— for brief moments—into the future or the past. “…It would be nothing more than a fleeting, uncertain glance cast—into the present or the past. Everything proceeds in the form of a circle, and so it must be for clairvoyance. It is a phenomenon similar to what happens at a radiotelegraphic station, which transmits to the same distance in all directions…”

Similarly, he explained his beliefs in extrasensory perceptions: we can therefore reasonably deduce that Busoni believed in the existence of entities and forces that are not rationally or empirically explainable but might nonetheless be known and perhaps mastered, in his case, also through musical experience. During his American tours, Busoni came into contact with Theosophical doctrines developed in the United States at the end of the century. They advocated a path of ethical and spiritual evolution that, through the progressive purification of motives and works, culminates in achieving an ideal of mystical perfection rich in all attributes of wisdom, serenity, beauty, and power: the aesthetic foundations of the “New Classicism” (Junge Klassizität), in other words, the return to simple, clear, and beautiful compositional patterns, are fully expressed in the Sonatina on the Nativity of Christ MCMXVII.

Giuseppe Mariotti- piano