Ferruccio Busoni was a phenomenon, a figure almost unique in Western music, a man and musician impossible to pigeon-hole. He was a virtuoso in pretty much every field of music he chose to explore. He was a pianist of other-worldly ability; a visionary composer possessing the very highest technical skills; a conductor of supreme intelligence; a brilliant musical thinker: a profoundly knowledgeable musician who, as a composer, managed to merge the past with the modernist impulse of the turn-of-the-twentieth century.