Descripción
Piano Transcriptions by Ira Levin
Works by Bach, Wagner, Tchaikovsky y Villa-Lobos
The art of transcribing for piano has its own rules. You need a deep and precise knowledge of the possibilities of the keyboard to translate to him the specific sounds of the organ, voices and symphony orchestra. In the history of piano transcriptions, and the bar was set very high by Liszt with the symphonies of Beethoven, Berlioz, Schubert’s songs and excerpts from operas by Wagner and Busoni and Siloti organ pieces by Bach. The conductor and pianist Ira Levin shows belong to the same group. In his transcriptions of pieces by Johan Sebastian Bach, is capable of playing on the piano, both the grandeur and the logical structure of a piece of great proportions as the Toccata in F Major, BWV 540, whose 438 bars and Mendelssohn said, the interpreting it in 1831 that looked like they were going to demolish the church. Levin leads all könen Schaefer melodic seduction sicher Weiden (Sheep may graze safe) for soprano and two flutes, the most beautiful aria of Cantata behagt Was mir, ist nur die muntre Jagd, BWV 208 (what most delights me is the joy of the hunt), written in Weimar in 1713 to mark the anniversary of his patron, the Duke Christian von Saxe-Weissenfels.
Schmueke Dich, or liebe Seele, BWV 654 (Adornate, dear soul) is probably the most beautiful of the 18 chorale preludes dating from the Weimar years and that Bach revised and reorganized at the end of his life, in full maturity. This work, with a poignant melody as a sarabande, justifies Mendelssohn’s words: If life deprive me of hope and faith, the sense of the Bach chorale enough to give it back. In this same collection belongs animated Allein Gott in Höh sel Ehr, BWV 664 (Only God be praised in the highest), in which Bach makes a sparkling arrangement of the German Gloria. This series of fine transcriptions of pieces for organ closes with the serene Andante Trio No 4 BWV 528, the group of six Trio Sonatas Bach wrote during his stay in Leipzig.
Beautiful Christmas gift and anniversary! In 1870, Richard Wagner gave his wife, Cosima, Liszt’s daughter, born on December 25, the Siegfried Idyll, a chamber piece written for thirteen instrumentalists. Reusing items of unfinished Quartet in E major, of 1864, and combining them with themes from his opera Siegfried. It is a delicate work in the background suggest the various sounds of chamber ensemble in this piece of sentimentality is assumed that while a number of private jokes between Richard and Cosima, and a declaration of his love of Wagner woman.
