Gordon Fergus-Thompson - Bach Transcriptions (2016)

Few composers have had their music rearranged with such variety and a high degree of success as Johann Sebastian Bach. Mozart, Elgar and Webern, Mendelsohn, Brahms and Vaughan Williams and countless others, not to mention jazz musicians such as Jacques Loussier, Dave Brubeck, the Swingle Singers and even the rock band, Procul Harum, all rearranged his music. This gem of a disc, originally released on ASV, presents more than a dozen of Bach’s pieces rearranged for the piano, from the familiar (Myra Hess’s arrangement of ‘Jesu, joy of man’s desiring’) to the quirky (Lord Berners’ arrangement of ‘In dulci jubilo’) and from the sonorously imposing (the famous Chaconne from the Second Partita in the Busoni arrangement) to the vertiginous (Busoni again, with ‘Nun freut euch, lieben Christen’). Most of the composer-arrangers on this recording were themselves professional concert pianists and, in most cases, believed that their function was not to assert their own musical personalities on top of, or alongside, Bach’s so much as to try to recreate as well as possible, what Bach might have written had he been alive at the time when the transcriptions were made.


Tracks:

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH
transcribed by

FERRUCCIO BUSONI
Chaconne (from Partita No. 2 in D minor for solo violin, BWV 1004)
Chorale Prelude ‘Wachet auf, ruft uris die Stimme’
Chorale Prelude ‘Nun komm der Heiden Heiland’
Chorale Prelude ‘Nun freut euch, lieben Christen’
Chorale Prelude ‘lch ruf zu dir, Herr’

FRANZ LISZT
Prelude and Fugue in A minor, BWV 543

LORD BERNERS
In dulci jubilo

DAME MYRA HESS
Jesu, joy of man’s desiring

WILHELM KEMPFF
Siciliano (from Flute Sonata No. 2 in E flat major, BWV 1031)

CHRISTOPHER LE FLEMING
Sheep may safely graze

SERGEI RACHMANINOV
Suite from Partita No. 3 in E major for solo violin, BWV 1006

FERRUCCIO BUSONI
Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565

Personnel:

Gordon Fergus-Thompson, piano