Turandot Suite
| Turandot Suite | |
|---|---|
| by Ferruccio Busoni | |
Cover to the score, designed by Emil Orlík, and first published in 1906
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| Catalogue | |
| Composed | 1904–05 |
| Scoring | orchestra |
The Turandot Suite, Op. 41 (BV 248) is an orchestral work by Ferruccio Busoni written in 1904-5, based on Carlo Gozzi's play Turandot. The music – in one form or another – occupied Busoni at various times between the years 1904–17. Busoni arranged the suite from incidental music which he was composing to accompany a production of Gozzi's play. The suite was first performed in October 1905, while the play with his incidental music was not produced until 1911. In August 1916 Busoni had finished composing the one-act opera Arlecchino, but it needed a companion work to provide a full evening's entertainment. He suddenly decided to transform the Turandot music into a two-act opera with spoken dialog. The two works were premiered together as a double-bill in May 1917.
The original German title [with its English translation] is:
The titles of the eight movements as published in 1906 are:
In 1911 Busoni composed Verzweiflung und Ergebung ("Despair and Resignation", BV 248a) as an additional movement to be played between nos. VII and VIII. Even later, after completing the opera Turandot in 1917, he replaced the Funeral March of No. VIII with Altoums Warnung ("Altoum's Warning", BV 248b). The musicologist and Busoni scholar Antony Beaumont has stated that the final version of the suite, including both of these later additions, is the "definitive" version.
3 flutes (3rd piccolo), 3 oboes (3rd doubling English horn), 3 clarinets (3rd doubling bass clarinet), 3 bassoons (3rd doubling contrabassoon); 4 horns, 4 trumpets, 3 trombones, 1 tuba; timpani, percussion (glockenspiel, triangle, tambourine, covered drum, bass drum, tam-tam); 2 harps; chorus: female (unison) ad lib.; strings. BV 248a and b instrumentation: as for BV 248 except without chorus.
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