Few composers have more resolutely avoided popularity than Busoni. Like Rachmaninov and Liszt he took a jaundiced view of his career as a virtuoso pianist, seeing it as a vainglorious alternative to the serious business of composition. Is this why his work so often exudes an atmosphere of dark intellectuality and desolation? Such music, in Alfred Brendel's words, only 'begins to glow when the right eye falls on it', and in Roland Pöntinen it surely has an ideal interpreter.
His playing is subtly and brilliantly judged and, whether in the far-reaching Elegies, the more didactic kurze Stücke or in the Perpetuummobile, where Busoni temporarily rises from the slough of despond, his sympathy and virtuosity are unfailing. The recordings are excellent; those looking for an uneasy rather than comfortable experience need look no further.