Busoni was the soloist, with Karl Muck conducting the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and the choir of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church.

[3] A year later, the work was played in Amsterdam by the Concertgebouw Orchestra, conducted by Busoni, with Egon Petri as soloist.

The century following has seen relatively few performances, owing to the large orchestration, complex texture, need for a male chorus, and the staggeringly demanding solo part.

The slow final movement with male chorus brings full circle themes heard earlier in the concerto.

[8] In Mozart's case, the concerto centres around the spotlit virtuoso composer-performer, who appears to spontaneously create the work before us, on-stage.

But as Edward Dent comments: Despite the incredible difficulty of the solo part, Busoni's concerto at no point offers a display of virtuosity.

[10]Marc-André Hamelin offered the following perspective on the work: I find that a lot of people are sort of disoriented when they first hear it because they expect the traditional piano concerto, which it is not.

[17] As Oehlenschläger stated in his introduction to the 1808 version of Aladdin, he was not a native speaker of German; he admitted to incorporating various Danish modes of expression (Danismen) into his translation.

I have thought it out and decided not to use Oehlenschläger's Aladdin for an opera, but to write a composition in which drama music, dancing and magic are combined – cut down for one evening's performance if possible.

As a spectacle and as a deep symbolic work it might be something similar to the Magic Flute; at the same time it would have a better meaning and an indestructible subject [mit besserem Sinn und einem nicht tot zu machenden Sujet].

[21]However, Busoni never completed his adaptation of Aladdin,[22] although he did compose music for the final chorus in the magic cave; this soon made its way into the Piano Concerto.

As Busoni's biographer Edward J. Dent remarks: One may indeed wonder why an essentially Italian work should end with verses in praise of Allah.

The plain fact was that Busoni at the moment happened to be interested in Aladdin and had set the final chorus to music.

When he planned the Concerto he saw that this chorus, which has something of the mystical character of the concluding stanzas of Goethe's Faust, was exactly the music to give the general sense of serenity that he required for his own finale.

The chorus is directed to be invisible; it sings in plain chords, like a body of soft trombones added to the orchestra.

[27] But for Oehlenschläger – since Aladdin – happiness remained a sign of election (ein Zeichen der Erwählung) and of itself, of 'having been chosen'; almost a primordial phenomenon (Urphänomen) of poetry, as the struggle (or war) was for Schiller, or the demonic for Goethe.

[28] One alternative to this holistic approach was the dualism espoused by another Danish poet Jens Baggesen (a slightly older and overshadowed contemporary of Oehlenschläger), whose works were based on a consistently maintained pantheistic outlook, resulting in a strongly emphasized antithesis between the earthly and the heavenly.

Baggesen, who wrote in accordance with a strictly defined poetics, deeply desired to overcome this tension; but since he realized that his own dualist climb toward lofty heights (a recurring motif) would scarcely be successful, he praised Oehlenschlager and Goethe, whose poetry seemed to promise a synthesis, a new world void of such restriction.

Hebt zu der ewigen Kraft eure Herzen; Fühlet euch Allah nah', schaut seine Tat!

Wechseln im Erdenlicht Freuden und Schmerzen; Ruhig hier stehen die Pfeiler der Welt.

Hebt zu der ewigen Kraft eure Herzen Fühlet euch Allah nah', schaut seine Tat!

[32] Busoni did not set the subsequent closing speech of Oehlenschläger's fortunate hero as he looks around the magic cave for the last time: but Dent's assertion that "The actual meaning of the words hardly matters" can be balanced against Aladdin's final lines: Hier ging ich als ein Knabe, da mir noch Selbst von den Innern nur die Außenseite Ins Auge fiel.

There are two works including a male chorus with a more direct connection with Busoni's Piano Concerto: Aino by Robert Kajanus and Kullervo by Jean Sibelius, in which all three composers seem to evoke a similar, distinct and unusual sound-world at the first entry for the men's voices.

Kajanus also taught Jean Sibelius at the Conservatory, where Busoni, aged 22, was also on the teaching staff in 1888; during that year he wrote the Concert-Fantasie for piano and orchestra (BV230, Op. 29).

Videos YouTube links (in alphabetical order): Noncommercial recordings A performance of the concerto by Pietro Scarpini with George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus was broadcast on New York's WQXR on July 10, 1966.