Molto tranquillo - Andantino melancolico - Vivace (alla Marcia) - Molto tranquillo - Polonaise (un poco cerimonioso)

In 1910, the great composer-pianist Ferruccio Busoni visited America and discovered the world's finest harpsichord builder, Arnold Dolmetsch, gainfully employed by the Chickering Piano Company in Cambridge, MA. He thought Dolmetsch's English harpsichords were "magnificent" and had one sent to Berlin. (There exists a lovely photograph of Busoni sitting at this harpsichord in his Berlin studio.) When he returned to the U.S. in 1915, he taught in New York and among his students, apparently, was the young American girl Madeline M., for whom he composed his 5-movement harpsichord Sonatina. The work is a gem of neo-romantic eclecticism, beginning with a prelude and fughetta in the style of Puccini, a witty but satiric Mahleresque march, and finally a Chopin-like polonaise stretching the capabilities of the harpsichord to its utmost. The work is playful and humorous, but like all wit, has its core somewhere near the truth.