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Thursday, September 28, 2017

Johann Sebastian Bach - Composers' Transcriptions (Leonard Slatkin)


Information

Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach
  1. Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor, BWV 582 (orch. Ottorino Respighi): 1. Passacaglia
  2. Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor, BWV 582 (orch. Ottorino Respighi): 2. Fugue
  3. Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, BWV 645 (orch. Granville Bantock)
  4. Prelude and Fugue in C major, BWV 545 (orch. Arthur Honegger): 1. Prelude
  5. Prelude and Fugue in C major, BWV 545 (orch. Arthur Honegger): 2. Fugue
  6. O Mensch, bewein' dein' Sünde groß, BWV 622 (orch. Max Reger)
  7. Fantasia and Fugue in C minor, BWV 537 (orch. Edward Elgar): 1. Fantasia
  8. Fantasia and Fugue in C minor, BWV 537 (orch. Edward Elgar): 2. Fugue
  9. Wir glauben all' an einen Gott "Die Große Fuge", BWV 680 (orch. Ralph Vaughan Williams)
  10. Bach - Partita for Solo Violin No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1004: V. Chaconne (orch. Joachim Raff)
  11. Fugue in G major "Fugue à la gigue", BWV 577 (orch. Gustav Holst)
  12. Prelude and Fugue in E flat major "St Anne", BWV 552 (orch. Arnold Schoenberg): 1. Prelude
  13. Prelude and Fugue in E flat major "St Anne", BWV 552 (orch. Arnold Schoenberg): 2. Fugue

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra
Leonard Slatkin, conductor

Date: 2000
Label: Chandos
https://www.chandos.net/products/catalogue/CHAN%209835

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Review

A colourful wardrobe for music’s mightiest master, though not everything suits him. Superb performances and recordings

And there’s not a single arrangement by Stokowski! A good thing, I’d say – especially as Stokowski’s own recordings of his Bach transcriptions are so generously represented on CD. Respighi’s Passacaglia and Fugue opens like a lavish sacramental ceremony. Organ pedals add so much thunder though the softer moments are moulded with great care. Just occasionally you sense the Respighi of the Roman trilogy: at 4'02'', for example, where raucous winds lend a touch of tartness to the texture. The Chandos recording is generally superb, even though momentary overhang obscures the opening bassoon note of the Fugue. It’s a warm, regal statement, quite the opposite of Toscanini’s wild-eyed sermon (which is still tops in my book).

Bantock’s Wachet auf uses the brass as a sort of substitute organ, with the strings as decoration. I much preferred it to Honegger’s C major Prelude and Fugue which, like the Schoenberg St Anne that closes the programme, has instrumental lines popping through the surface like so many sore thumbs. The overall canvas favours the sort of primary-coloured palette that Ravel chose for Mussorgsky’s Pictures.

Slatkin has recorded Elgar’s blustery Prelude and Fugue before (RCA, 3/89), to equally good effect (though here the bass drum in the Prelude is particularly striking), and his mastery of string sonorities presents the best possible case for Reger’s beautiful O Mensch, bewein’ dein’ Sunde gross. Between them, Vaughan Williams and Arnold Foster manage to make the ‘Giant’ Fugue sound like a dead ringer for the first movement of Bach’s Double Concerto for two violins while Holst’s Fugue a la gigue spurts to a sudden and excited full-tutti close.

For me, though, the really big news is Joachim Raff’s Chaconne, where pompous chest-beating is never on the agenda and transparency is a welcome attribute. Just listen to the exultant transition at 6'00'', where full strings take the lead, or the way Raff negotiates woodwinds and pizzicato strings. You could, I suppose, accuse him of making a molehill out of a mountain, but the colour, variety and imagination he brings to bear on the piece are remarkable, and the performance is again superb.

Individual listeners will no doubt squabble about this or that preference, just as I will be doing with my colleagues (a cue for a Take Five follow-up review, perhaps?). For this listener, the Respighi, Elgar and Raff costumes are the principal attractions, although the others also deserve an occasional airing. Stokowski remains in a class of his own but when all has been listened to and you think back at what you’ve actually heard, the most lasting memory is of one man, and one man only: JSB himself.

-- David HurwitzGramophone

More reviews:
ClassicsToday  ARTISTIC QUALITY: 10 / SOUND QUALITY: 10
BBC Music Magazine  PERFORMANCE: **** / SOUND: ****
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2000/aug00/bachtranscription.htm
http://www.amazon.com/Bach-Transcriptions-J-S/dp/B00004TZSE

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Johann Sebastian Bach (31 March [O.S. 21 March] 1685 – 28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the Baroque period. Bach enriched established German styles through his mastery of counterpoint, harmonic and motivic organisation, and his adaptation of rhythms, forms, and textures from Italy and France. He is known for instrumental compositions such as the Brandenburg Concertos and the Goldberg Variations, and vocal music such as the St Matthew Passion and the Mass in B minor. Since the 19th-century Bach Revival he has been generally regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Sebastian_Bach

***

Leonard Slatkin (born September 1, 1944 in Los Angeles) is an American conductor and composer. Slatkin attended the Juilliard School where he studied conducting under Jean Morel. He also studied with Walter Susskind at the Aspen Music Festival and School. Slatkin worked as principal conductor and music director of the St. Louis Symphony, National Symphony, BBC Symphony and Orchestre National de Lyon, as well as principal guest conductor of the Philharmonia, Royal Philharmonic and Pittsburg Symphony. He has been the music director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra since 2007.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Slatkin

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