Ferruccio Busoni was born at Empoli, Italy in 1866. He was the only child of Ferdinando Busoni, a clarinettist, and Anna (nee Weiss), a pianist. He studied at the Vienna Conservatory for two years, then at Graz under Wilhelm Mayer and at Liepzig. Busoni was an acclaimed concert pianist, and his performances and his transcripts of Bach eclipsed his own compositions. He later taught in Helsinki, Moscow (where he married Gerda Sjöstrand) and America in the early 1890s, before settling in Berlin in 1894. From 1898, in addition to the piano, he concentrated on composition and promoted concerts of new music by Bartok and others. He had two sons, Benvenuto (born in 1892) and Raphaello ('Lello', born c. 1900). In 1912 he returned to Italy to work at the Liceo Musicale in Bologna for three years. After this and a tour of America he lived in Zurich, finally returning to Berlin in 1920. He died at Berlin in 1924.