Goodness, how well off for Busoni Piano Concertos we are getting. I could honestly recommend any of the three listed above (John Ogdon's famous recording is at medium price, adding to its attractiveness) and each has its own qualities. The newcomer from Ohlsson and Dohnanyi is the most obviously stunning of the three: one doubts while listening to it whether the concerto has ever been played with such virtuosity, from the conductor and his players as well as the soloist. The second scherzo is so infectiously exciting that I cheated and played it all over again before proceeding to the finale, and the enormous central movement has a formidable sense of scale and pacing, to which Ohlsson's sonorous pianism is a bonus as well as a contributing factor. The orchestral sound is outstandingly beautiful and transparent and the piano (Ohlsson uses a Bosendorfer) produces crags of grandiose tone without ever seeming to approach its limit or giving any impression that the engineers have helped it.
The other two pianists are pretty formidable virtuosos, too, of course, but the fact that Busoni's concerto is a thundering vehicle for virtuosity as well as all the other things that it is, is a bit more apparent in Ohlsson's hands than in theirs. Hence a touch of disappointment, perhaps (since thundering virtuoso vehicle is not after all the greatest thing that this concerto is)? I think not, since Ohlsson and Dohnanyi between them have the gravity and the largeness of view to convey the work's vision as well as its pianistic triumphalism. But that vision crystallizes in the choral finale, and here I was a touch disappointed. The hushed and solemn opening pages are a shade more ravishingly coloured the opening phrases of the hymn more touchingly greeted by the solo oboe in Lutz Herbig's handling of the passage (for Volker Banfield's performance on CPO/Priory) than in Dohnanyi's. We are hair-splitting here, no doubt, but Banfield's and Herbig's reading is so fine in all other respects (a few minor orchestral lapses apart) that it would be a pity if it were over-shadowed by its new rival.
Ogdon's account has a few splashy moments, its orchestral sound is a bit opaque (and the tuttis have taken on a rather tiring edge in the transfer to CD) but his playing is so urgently communicative, so convinced and convincing of the grandeur of Busoni's conception that it cannot be set aside either. The dominance of the chorus in the finale is a slight drawback; the rather growly heaviness of the second scherzo (it seems slower than it is) is another. But as I say, we are spoiled for choice. Racked and thumbscrewed I would opt for Banfield, but would immediately seize Ohlsson's account as well the moment the thumbscrews were off. Ogdon for harder-up collectors or for those, scarcely less numerous, whose grateful memories of him include the discovery at his hands that Busoni was a great composer.'