Ferruccio Busoni (1 April 1866 – 27 July 1924) (given names: Ferruccio Dante Michelangiolo Benvenuto)[i] was an Italian composer, pianist, conductor, editor, writer, and teacher. His international career and reputation meant that he met and had close relations with many of the leading musicians, artists and literary figures of his time, and he was sought-after both as a keyboard instructor and a teacher of composition. Busoni was born in Empoli, just south of Florence; he was the son of professional musicians. Initially trained by his father, he later studied at the Vienna Conservatory and then with Wilhelm Mayer and Carl Reinecke. In the ensuing years, after brief periods teaching in Helsinki, Boston, and Moscow, he devoted himself to composing, teaching, and touring as a virtuoso pianist in Europe and the United States. His writings on music were influential; they covered not only aesthetics but considerations of microtones and other innovative topics. He was based in Berlin from 1894 but spent much of World War I in Switzerland. Less