Good transcriptions

[Bob]

You can put the famous composers if you want (cough, Liszt, cough), but I'm thinking of others who might not be known but can write well for the piano -- make a nice piano arrangement of any type of music, something that sounds good on the piano. 

[pita bread]

Christopher O'Reily - Radiohead transcriptions
A. Icharev - Ravel - La Valse
Sorabji - Ravel - Rhapsodie Espagnole, Bach - Chromatic Fantasy (w/ diff. fugue)

[alzado]

When you say "transcriptions" I think of orchestral works arranged for the piano.

One that I just fell in love with was a chamber orchestra piece by Peter Warlock from the "Capriole Suite" that was arranged for solo piano.  Forget the arranger, and I am too lazy today to dig through the piano bench looking for it.

If you like Peter Warlock, and I do, this is really a fine selection.  It is sort of "upper intermediate" in difficulty, if that means anything to you.

It should be easy to find -- just search "Peter Warlock" and "piano."  Warlock (not his real name, actually) wrote almost nothing for solo piano. 

I would give the arranger a grade of "A" for transcribing this piece into a really excellent short piano piece.  (Would take 5 to 7 minutes to play.)

Regards--

[steinwayguy]

Bach/Busoni is the obvious one to me. Cziffra wrote a lot of transcriptions as well.

[burstroman]

Hi,  An extraordinary transcription is Rachmaninov-Mendelssohn, "Scherzo" from "A Midsummer Night's Dream".  It's a great encore piece.

[pita bread]

Guido Agosti did a virtuoso transcription of Stravinsky's Firebird. It consists of the Infernal Dance, Berceuse, and Finale.

[Barbosa-piano]

Gould's transcription of Ravel's La Valse. Busoni has pretty good ones. Rachmaninoff's transcriptions of Liebesfreund and Liebeslied by Kreisler, The Star Spangled Banner, Bach's violin partita (I cannot remenber which), Carmen's Menuet by Bizet, and many others, are great too.