the value of transcriptions

[serge urtizberea]

How do you feel about composers' works being transcribed by other composers or musically-enabled people? It seems everyone from Stokowski to Feinberg has taken a popular work and rescored it for piano, orchesra, voice... and surely this horrifies those who think manuscripts should be sacrosanct. I sort of enjoy transcriptions myself, though.<P>I am very fond of Bach transcribed for modern orchestra a la Stokowski. Sony recently released a cd of Bach transibed by various composers and conductors. It gives a whole new dimension to the works involved. There are also many pieces by Schubert that have been transcibed by Liszt, and I enjoy those, too. If nothing else, transcription is a nice tribute to the composer, and that is in itself a valuable thing. It's my feeling that a lot of people like to hear the remix version of these popular works.<P>Does anyone have any serious beefs with the retooling of music?

[shostakovich]

Hi Serge. The Stokowski (and other) transcriptions of Bach for orch were for the purpose of bringing to a certain audience (symphony-goers) music that would otherwise only be heard by chamber or church listeners. In the 19th C there were many fantasy piano transcriptions of themes from operas to bring to recitals music that would normally not be available there. More recently there have been classics arranged for rock groups (Emerson, Lake, Palmer come to mind) with similar effect. All transcriptions increase the reach of the works transcribed. To me, it's all to the good. The originals are preserved intact for those who want their music pristine. No beef here, especially for the beefed-up Bach.<BR>Shos.

[Flowerboy]

Sometimes transcriptions can be okay. I have Debussy's claire de lune for oboe and harp, and it is beautiful. i thought it was origannly written that way. also Ravel's pavane pour une enfant defunte (pavane for a dead child). it was origanally for piano but he transcribed it for orchestra, as he did with many of his pieces. Mahler transcribed Beethoven's 9th symphony - he said "it sounds better". i dont agree with that so much, because id rather hear what the original composer intended to portray.