Musicologists, pianists, composers and music-lovers in general will welcome the re-issue and second edition of Larry Sitsky's Busoni and the Piano, which has been out of print for a number of years. The second edition, which brings various aspects of the book up-to-date, will thus once again be available. Since the book was written in the late 1970s, Busoni has re-emerged as an important figure in early 20th-century music, and moreover, one who seems to be exerting an ever-widening influence on current thought and pianism. Larry Sitsky has spent a lifetime performing, teaching, editing and studying Busoni's music. He has recently completed an ending to Busoni's great opera Dr.Faust, which will be heralded in the great opera houses of Europe; as well, he is currently working on another book on Busoni's instrumental, vocal and operatic music, and must be considered a world authority on this fascinating figure.

Historical background : Anatoliy V. Lunacharsky, the cultured commissar -- Valdimir I. Rebikov : the inventor of whole-tone music -- The diatonic Webern : Aleksei V. Stanchinskiy -- Nikolai A. Roslavets : the Russian Shcenberg -- Aleksandr V. Mosolov : the man of steel -- Arthur V. Louri(c)♭ : the decadent out of place -- Leonid A. Polovinkin : the partial avant-gardist -- Vladimir V. Shcherbachev : old wine in new vessels -- Lev K. Knipper : wind from the West -- Boris N. Liatoshinski : the passionate Slav -- Vladimir M. Deshevov : the man of the theater -- Samuil E. Feinberg : the post-Scriabin pianist -- Anatoliy N. Aleksandrov : the post-Rachmaninovian -- Boris A. Aleksandrov : son of the composer of the Soviet anthem -- Aleksandr A. Krein : voice in the wilderness -- Grigoriy A. Krein : toward assimilation -- Yulian G. Krein : precocious cosmopolitan -- Aleksandr M. Veprik : the Ukrainian Bart(c)đk and Bloch -- Mikhail F. Gnessin : the Jewish Glinka -- Ivan A. Vyshnegradsky : microtones -- Nikolai Obukhov : mystic beyond Scriabin -- Iosif M. Schillinger : Gershwin's teacher -- Aleksandr N. Tcherepnine : suave internationalist -- Sergei V. Protopopov : the post-Scriabin composer -- Leonid L. Sabaneev : would-be scientist becomes critic -- Dmitriy M. Melkikh : rhapsodist -- Gavrill N. Popov : contrapuntalist -- Aleksei S. Zhivotov : notorious for one piece -- Efim Golyshchev : the first serialist? -- Georgi M. Rimsky-Korsakov : microtonist