Spiel mir das Lied von Giacomo

Giacomo Puccini
The Italian opera hero is also a hero of the silver screen. According to Alma Mahler, he was "the most beautiful man in the world" and is probably the composer most frequently filmed after Mozart: the eventful life of this aristocratic charmer provides material for numerous biographical films. Above all, however, his popular melodies have found their way into the world of cinema, where they remain indispensable soundtracks for romantic films and provide the dramatic backdrop for gritty Westerns. Among opera films, the political drama Tosca and the Far Eastern Madama Butterfly are the favorites—much to the displeasure of Puccini himself, who, however, cannot slow down the advance of the film industry.

Ferruccio Busoni
like Puccini, comes from Tuscany and is also the composer of an opera called Turandot, but otherwise fundamentally different in character and work. The Italian/German piano virtuoso, composer, and teacher makes Berlin his home. The second edition of his music theory treatise Entwurf einer neuen Ästhetik der Tonkunst (Draft of a New Aesthetics of Music) in 1916 sparked lively debate; Busoni's doubts about tradition and his foresight of future sound experiments provoked the conservative Hans Pfitzner to write his pamphlet Futuristengefahr (The Danger of Futurism) in 1917. With his playful ideas about a Young Classicism, Busoni became a pioneer for the next generation.

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