Transcriptions for Mendelssohn's organ works

[mjames]

Not that I'm planning on working on them but I'm just curious, are there any out there? I've taken a liking to some of his sonatas and prelude&fugue and I'm wondering if there are any transcriptions (and recordings) for these works...
I know that there's at least one for his second organ sonata.

Would be great if they are more!

[8_octaves]

Not that I'm planning on working on them but I'm just curious, are there any out there? I've taken a liking to some of his sonatas and prelude&fugue and I'm wondering if there are any transcriptions (and recordings) for these works...
I know that there's at least one for his second organ sonata.

Would be great if they are more!

Hi mjames,

there should be more, but many of them are for piano 4 hands, I think.

A man named Rudolf Bibl was active in the field of Mendelssohn-arrangements, and to what extent we could compare the "arrangements" to, maybe, opera-"transcriptions" created by other composers like e.g. Liszt, I don't know.

Here, anyway, some snippets:

Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Felix, Op. 32. Sechs Sonaten f. Org., f. Pfte u. Harmon. einger. v. Rudolf Bibl. No. 1–6. Berlin, Simrock à Mk 3. Mai und Juni 1878.( = in English: Six sonatas for organ. For pianoforte and harmonium arranged by Rudolf Bibl. May and June 1878. )

It is a little bit "unclear" to me, since a ) I don't know whether "for pianoforte and harmonium" could mean you need two players. Or, b ) whether it means that you could play the arrangement on the piano and on the harmonium.

And c ) I didn't find an actual record of this version in other catalogues, which means, I didn't find a source to get it, up to now, but I only made a quick search.

To some piano four-handed versions of Mendelssohn's organ-works I found, then, these:

https://imslp.org/wiki/3_Preludes_and_Fugues,_Op.37_%28Mendelssohn,_Felix%29

and this one, at abebooks:

Organ Works Arranged for Piano 4 Hands. Three Preludes and Fugues Op.37 and Six Sonatas Op.65.
MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY F.
Verlag: Breitkopf and Härtel

and this one,

Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (F.) 6 Sonaten f. Orgel. Arrangement zu 4 Händen. Op. 65 . No. 1, in Fm . (20 Ngr.) No. 2, in Cm . (15 Ngr.) No. 3, in A . (15 Ngr.) No. 4, in B . (20 Ngr.) No. 5, in D . (15 Ngr.) No. 6, in Dm . ( 20 Ngr.) Leipzig, Breitkopf & Härtel, August 1846.

of which many versions (entries) are out there in the libraries.

You mentioned the arrangement for piano solo of the second organ sonata, which is on IMSLP.

https://imslp.org/wiki/6_Organ_Sonatas,_Op.65_%28Mendelssohn,_Felix%29

as is some 4-handed-version of the 4th sonate, too (Vilbac), and a complete 4 hds version (Breitkopf, maybe one of the already above mentioned ones. )

As far as I "dug" through the field of interest, the Simrock-version (Bibl) could be interesting, I think.
But maybe it will have to be dismissed, when we found it.

Cordially, 8_octaves!

[8_octaves]

Hi mjames, again.

I did further investigation in the field of the above mentioned Simrock-version:
First, there seems to be the opus-number-mistake in the Hofmeister Monatsberichte. As we can clearly see on the following site,

https://www.hofmeister.rhul.ac.uk/2008/content/monatshefte/1878_05/166.html

"op. 32" is said there, but op. 32 of Mendelssohn isn't a single - or group of - organ sonata(s), but "Märchen von der schönen Melusine". That's said on IMSLP. So, if we assume that op.32 ( the Melusine )  isn't in the Simrock-volume, TOO, it's a mistake which must have happened during the process of trading QAD ( "quick-and-dirty" ) data to the Hofmeister catalogue. That's not unusual, speaking of numbers and sth. like that.

But I didn't find the whole Simrock volume either,  even without using any opus-numbers as criteria.
If it doesn't exist, the reason can be, that it was only announced, but not really published. That won't be unusual either.

I checked some other volumes in which Rudolf Bibl was involved:

First example:
Bibl, Rudolf (Bearb.): Duos (Duetts). Sammlung ausgewählte[r] Stücke für Harmonium und Pianoforte
Werke von Von Weber, Spohr, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Mendelssohn., Wien : Universal, [ca. 1910]. - Klavierstimme (zugleich Partitur) + Harmoniumstimme.
Which means in English:
Bibl, Rudolf (Arr.): Duos (Duetts). Collection of selected pieces for harmonium and pianoforte. - Works of [...], Wien: Universal, [ca. 1910]. - Piano voice (representing score) + harmonium voice.
____
Or this one: Second example:
Harmonium-Album. Sammlung beliebter Tonstücke für Harmonium übertragen von Ernst Stapf u. Rud. Bibl. Bd V: Compositionen v. F. Mendelssohn-Bartholdy.- Leipzig : C. F. Peters [s.a.] .- 43 pages..
Solo.-
Plate-Number: E.P.No. 384e. 8443
In English: Harmonium-album. Collection of popular pieces arranged for harmonium by Ernst Stapf and Rud. Bibl. - Vol V: Compositions by F. Mendelssohn-Bartholdy.
___
Both of them together suggest that a ) the expression "for harmonium and pianoforte", as used for Bibl-arrangements, means DUETS. And that b ) when he did arrangements for e.g. solo harmonium, only the harmonium is mentioned, and no (other) keyboard instrument, on which the arrangements -maybe- could be played though.

More I don't know at the moment. 

Maybe others can help, or / and perhaps there are some recordings you asked for, which could give hints via added descriptive texts or sth like that.

Cordially, and many greetings, 8_octaves!