Johann Sebastian Bach - Organ Concerto in A minor, BWV 593 (Arr. August Stradal)

Under the banner of 19th-century aesthetics, we have the ’Concerto in A minor’ by Bach-Vivaldi BWV 593 transcribed by the Bohemian virtuoso August Stradal (1860 - 1930). This represents a double betrayal, for the concerto (Op. 3 No. 8 from Antonio Vivaldi’s L’estro armonico) had already been transcribed for organ by Bach and published by Peters in 1852. Stradal’s transposition from the organ to the piano is a vivid, grandiose and heroic testimony of how Bach was “approached” in the post-Romantic period: wide leaps of registers to represent the organ’s volume power, arpeggiato chords with wide use of the sustaining pedal, jumps in dynamics and “eccentric” indications (such as the sempre piano e cantabile e lugubre of the second movement), constant alternation between “hammered” and “cantabile” and, last but not least, the re-writing from scratch of the third movement’s finale with strepitoso e fortissimo chords all along the keyboard to grab the farthest “drifting resonances”. (Luigi Palombi) 0:00 - Allegro moderato e maestoso 6:29 - Adagio 14:04 - Allegro (nicht zu schnell) Composed in 1714, transcribed in 1899 (?). ’L’estro armonico’ composed in 1711. pf: Luigi Palombi original audio: