Fantasy on Themes from Mozart's Figaro and Don Giovanni

Earlier, Ferruccio Busoni had published a much shorter performing version, the Fantasy on Two Motives from W. A. Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, in 1912.

[4][5] Howard writes: The manuscript shows his method of composition of such a fantasy quite clearly: the broad outlines, such as the new themes or sections, are commenced on new pages, and space is left to concoct transition material.

These tiny tightenings of the structure add up to just a few bars [...] The penultimate section breaks off in the middle of some transitional material which does not join happily to the coda.

[4] 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as "probably the most open and enthusiastic Liszt exponent in the early twentieth century,"[7] became aware of the unpublished manuscript and prepared a performing version which he first played in 1911 in Berlin.

[8] 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.

)[9][10] 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.

[13][14] Kenneth Hamilton, in his review of Howard's later edition, notes that "for reasons of personal psychology that we can only guess at, [Busoni] chose to give the impression in his preface that he had expanded, rather than drastically cut, Liszt's manuscript.

"Since the transition to and from the Don Giovanni music is in C major, the 15 pages of manuscript can be played or omitted without any damage to the harmonic scheme.

There is nothing in this which conflicts stylistically with Liszt's music, but the greater elaboration does tend to reduce the improvisatory effect important to this section.

His intention was to "publish... the whole of Liszt's Fantasy with an authenticity of text, supplying and clearly indicating the few bars... which are necessary to render the work performable.

"[18] As reconstructed by Howard, the piece includes the music based on the dance scene from the Act I finale of Don Giovanni.

He does not add the waltz as Mozart does, but treats it separately, eventually combining it with the country dance and, "excellently",[4] a portion of Figaro's aria.

The evident deficiencies of the manuscript (time signatures, accidentals, stems, beams, rest signs, fermatas) have been tacitly supplied throughout.

Nevertheless, the Figaro Fantasy, as prepared by Busoni, was performed extensively by himself, his student Egon Petri, and later championed by the youthful Vladimir Horowitz and Grigory Ginsburg.

Mariam Batsashvili, the first prize winner of the 10th International Franz Liszt Piano Competition and the Chinese pianist Chiyan Wong have also made their recordings of Howard's reconstruction.