"Cranked-up," "Rock 'n' Roll," "thick shag of strings": these are just a few of the unlikely descriptions used by the writer of the liner notes for his release in a useless attempt to justify the ways of transcription to man. But no justification is possible or even necessary. To the purist, a transcription is an abomination in the ears of God and man, and any transcription is a mortal sin against the art of
Bach. But that hardly matters since this disc is clearly not for purists; it's for music lovers who want to rock with
Bach. And this disc does rock, loud and hard. After some fairly snoozy years under the aging André Previn, the Los Angeles Philharmonic under music director
Esa-Pekka Salonen has become one of the great virtuoso orchestras in the country, fully capable of playing
Mahler,
Stravinsky,
Messiaen or even
Bach transcriptions with fire and precision.
As you might expect, the disc starts with the most (in)famous
Bach transcription of all time: the
Stokowski Toccata and Fugue in D minor. Apparently, to
Stokowski,
Bach was a chubby German burgher with a penchant for flashy clothes and cheap jewelry: his transcription of the Toccata is overdressed, fat, and slow. Salonen gives the devil his due and grants
Stokowski all the ponderous weight the LAPO can summon. He even goes so far as to slow down at the stretto just before the climax of the fugue. One imagines that
Stokowski would have loved it. Amazingly enough, the rest of the disc isn't anticlimatic. The
Elgar C minor Fantasy and Fugue is a moving example of
Elgarian Nobilmente at its best. The
Schoenberg "St. Anne" Prelude and Fugue is boisterous good fun. And the
Mahler Suite is an infectious confection.
On its own terms, this disc is highly recommended.