Klarinet Archive - Posting 000127.txt from 2002/10

From: LeliaLoban@-----.com
Subj: [kl] Transcriptions
Date: Thu, 3 Oct 2002 11:21:50 -0400

Bear Woodson wrote,
> However usually there is less to argue about,
>when the original composer transcribes his own
>work. There is the nice C Minor Woodwind
>Octet of Mozart, that he transcribed for String
>Quintet. Then there are the Solo Concerti of
>J.S. Bach, of which even the best scholars are
>not sure whether the harpsichord, violin or oboe
>d'amore versions came first.

Yes. Bach transcribed other people's music a lot, too. (I notice that
people forgive transcriptions quite easily when they're written by composers
long dead and universally acclaimed as great!) I especially love Bach's
Concerto After Vivaldi in D minor, BWV 596 (for solo pipe organ), based on
Vivaldi's Concerto Grosso for strings (Op. 3, No. 11). Apparently, Bach
borrowed the theme for his Fugue in C minor on a Theme of Legrenzi, S. 574,
from Giovanni Legrenzi, although Legrenzi's original composition hasn't been
found. Bach lifted the basso-ostinato theme for his stupendous Passacaglia
and Fugue in C minor, BWV 582 (for solo pipe organ) intact from Andre Raison
and borrowed from Raison again for the moto perpetuo section of the "Dorian"
Toccata and Fugue in D minor for organ, S. 538 (the *other* D minor, not the
one that the Phantom of the Opera, Captain Nemo and nearly all the other mad
organists of the movies blast out before they do something heinous).

Bach also transcribed enormous numbers of hymns written by other people. The
list of his borrowings and transcriptions could go on and on, and would run
to dozens of examples--but he never simply copied. He rewrote those
compositions so extensively and made them so thoroughly his own that nobody
today is foolish enough to accuse Bach of sounding derivative or unoriginal,
let alone of being a mere transcriber.

Lelia

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