Peter Armstrong performed at Town Hall, New York, as eleven-year-old winner of the Music Education League's Steinway Hall Piano Competition and at fifteen was guest soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Worcester Festival.  He performed numerous times at Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Wadsworth Atheneum, New England Conservatory's Jordan Hall, and over area radio stations WCRB and WEEI.

His study and championing of the late works of Ferruccio Busoni received the guidance of Edward Weiss and Otto Luening, Busoni pupils in piano and composition, respectively.  Armstrong's all-Busoni solo recital -- Elegien, 6 Sonatinas, Toccata -- was presented at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center and at some thirty East and West Coast campuses and community arts venues (1977-79).  His work as specialist included lectures, WGMS radio broadcast, an article in The Piano Quarterly, and a Carnegie Recital Hall performance of Busoni's Fantasia Contrapuntistica (2-piano version) with Edward Weiss.

Other performances have explored the wider 20C repertory, featuring works such as Ross Lee Finney's Variations on a Theme by Alban Berg (1952) and Ernst Lévy's Five Pieces for Piano (1955), both in a Short Piano Series season's opening recital at the National Gallery of Art, Washington (1983).

Selected tapes of Armstrong's live and studio performances are digitally archived at IMSLP. ______________________________________

Performance Highlights                 ______________________________________

 Alice Tully Hall

 Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
     Tuesday Evening, May 15, 1979 at 8:00


   Peter Armstrong

          Pianist


  Music of Ferruccio Busoni


 [Reviews: New York Times; Aufbau.]


Elegien                                                                                                       (1907)
o*  Nach der Wendung (Recueillement)
o   All' Italia! (In modo napolitano)
o   Meine Seele bangt und hofft zu Dir (Choralvorspiel)
o   Turandots Frauengemach (Intermezzo)
o   Die Nächtlichen (Walzer)
o   Erscheinung (Notturno)


Toccata                                                                                                      (1921)
            o   Preludio - Fantasia - Ciaccona


                     Intermission
Sonatinas 00000

o   brevis in Signo Joannis Sebastiani Magni                     (1919)

In freier Nachdichtung von Bachs
Kleiner Fantasie und Fuge d-moll



o   (Untitled)                                                                                      (1910)

o   ad usum infantis Madeline M.* Americanae                   (1916)

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



                         Pause
o   seconda                                                                                       (1912)

Il tutto vivace, fantastico, con energia,
capriccio e sentimento...Lento occulto


o   in Diem Nativitatis Christi MCMXVII                                  (1917)

o   Kammer-Fantasie über Bizets "Carmen"                        (1920)


       This concert is presented with the honorable patronage of
       Alessandro Cortese de Bosis, the Consul General of Italy.



 * "o" marks link to audio digitized from tape: Elegien at Tully Hall; the Toccata in
    recital at University of Oregon, Eugene (1978); Sonatinas separately in studio
    recording engineered by David Hancock, NYC (1978).


         ______________________________________________



    National Gallery of Art

    Short Piano Series V
 1705th Concert - June 5, 1983


   PETER ARMSTRONG

      [Review: Washington Times]


Ferruccio Busoni                                                     Elegien  (1907)
(1866-1924)


     No. 3 - Choralvorspiel: "Meine Seele bangt
                 und hofft zu Dir"
     No. 4 - Intermezzo: Turandots Frauengemach



                          Sonatina in Diem Nativitatis Christi MCMXVII  (1917)

                                                                                 Sonatina seconda  (1912)


Il tutto vivace, fantastico, con energia,
capriccio e sentimento...Lento occulto


                                                                                                        Toccata  (1921)


      Preludio - Fantasia - Ciaccona





      Intermission


Igor Stravinsky               Les Cinq Doights (8 Easy Tunes)  (1921)
(1882-1971)


   Andantino                       Moderato
   Allegro                            Lento
   Allegretto                        Vivo
   Larghetto                        Pesante



Anton von Webern            Variationen für Klavier, Op. 27  (1936)
(1883-1945)

        Sehr mäßig
        Sehr schnell
        Ruhig fließend



Ross Lee Finney     Variations on a theme by Alban Berg  (1952)
(b. 1906)

        Ernst Lévy                                                  Five Pieces  (1945)
            (1895-1981)

    o*  Un poco rubato, cantabile
    o   Leggiero
    o   Sempre legato
    o   Rudo - lamentoso
    o   Con impetù e sempre cantando

     * "o" marks link to digitized audio from a taped recital at Wesleyan University,
        Middletown, CT, in 1980; the tape was released to Novello Publications.

       ________________________________________________

          Earlier: Town Hall, NY, as winner of Steinway Hall Competition ('52); concerto soloist
          with the Philadelphia Orchestra at Worcester MA Festival ('55);  solo performances at
          New England Conservatory's Jordan Hall, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Wads-
          worth Atheneum (Hartford), and on Boston-area radio stations WCRB & WEEI ('60s).