Your opinion about particular transcriptions of Bach music for piano solo?

[iumonito]

With the expection of Mozart (and maybe not even) Bach is the most widely transcribed of all composers.  Let alone that playing his music on the piano is a transcription of sorts, very great musicians have left us jewels that enrich the repertoire enormously:  Liszt, Busoni, Rachmaninoff, Godowsky, Saint-Saens, and Siloti left entire bodies of it; Myra Hess, Egon Petri, Wilhem Kempff and many others a bunch of one-off that are equally worthwhile.

Against that background, let's talk about our favorites, alternative arrangements of the same music, and pieces that could be added to that body of transcriptions.

I'll get things started with a question:  do you have a favorite alternative of Jesu Joy ... other than the version by Myra Hess?

[rallestar]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rE0ViyTqJQ&feature=PlayList&p=CF3AD2C88323B294&playnext=1&index=1

[thalbergmad]

I would have thought that Bach is the most heavily transcribed composer by some margin. There must be a thousand of them ranging from easy straight transcriptions to the more complex transcriptions of Godowsky and Sorabji.

I don't think there is a great deal more one can do with the Jesu Joy transcription. Fifield makes it easier and Bauer adds a bit more depth with liberal use of 10ths, but i don't see what more can be done.

As for favourites, i would probably change my mind on a daily basis and to be honest i have hardly listened to any over the last year, as much to my shame, i have yet to listen to a large percentage of the originals.

The Friedman transcriptions probably please my ears the most, but i don't think i could really explain why. The enormous output by Augustus Stradal i have not really looked at.
The Sorabji transcription of the Chromatic Fantasia is an astonishing work.

Studying them became too big a subject for me and i gave up.

Thal

[richard black]

By a small margin, I'd say my favourites are the Godowsky transcriptions of three violin sonatas - G minor, B minor, A minor. But there's some very strong competition. The Stokowski/Stevenson transcription of 'Komm, süsser Tod', for instance.

[minor9th]

By a small margin, I'd say my favourites are the Godowsky transcriptions of three violin sonatas - G minor, B minor, A minor. But there's some very strong competition. The Stokowski/Stevenson transcription of 'Komm, süsser Tod', for instance.

I love those Sonatas, too. Does anyone besides Grante and Scherbakov play them? They sound quite difficult. I also like Zhukov's Passacaglia in C minor (Catoire's version is good, too.)

[richard black]

Does anyone besides Grante and Scherbakov play them?

Me! OK, I played one of them, once.

I learned about them from the late Charles Hopkins, who recorded them. Other than that.... can't think of anyone.

[cmg]

I've dabbled in most everyone, but Liszt's transcriptions of the big organ works are the most satisfying and pianistic, for me, at least.

Saint-Saens' Overture for the "Cantate d'Eglise" is undoubtedly the most UN-pianistic transcription I've ever encountered.  Klutzy beyond belief.  Astonishing, considering Saint-Saen's genius in writing for the piano.

I truly love Dohnanyi's highly underrated Second Symphony with its last mvt a set of variations on "Komm, susser Tod."  Great music. 

[edwardweiss]

The August Stradal transcriptions of Bach are interesting and different to most others- I think his 'Orgelbuchlein' ones are really good- but perhaps that's just me. He also transcribed a lot of Bruckner as he was a pupil of that master. I play his transcription of Reger's Fantasy and Fugue on B.A.C.H., but I have altered quite a lot of bits of it  to give it more sonority- 'in the light of modern piano technique' to paraphrase a genius often wrongly insulted and criticised on this forum.