Wilhelm Middelschulte: Organ Works, Vol. 4 - Goldberg Variations (2007)

Talk about gilding the lily -- in 1914 Ferruccio Busoni made a transcription of Johann Sebastian Bach's Goldberg Variations as adapted for performance on the "modern piano" versus the harpsichord original. It wasn't played much then, and it has gained even less traction in future days, as since 1955 Glenn Gould has established for all time the reality that Bach's original sounds fine on the modern piano with only slight, or no, modifications. However, a decade after Busoni's effort, his Chicago-based friend Wilhelm ... Read More

Talk about gilding the lily -- in 1914 Ferruccio Busoni made a transcription of Johann Sebastian Bach's Goldberg Variations as adapted for performance on the "modern piano" versus the harpsichord original. It wasn't played much then, and it has gained even less traction in future days, as since 1955 Glenn Gould has established for all time the reality that Bach's original sounds fine on the modern piano with only slight, or no, modifications. However, a decade after Busoni's effort, his Chicago-based friend Wilhelm Middelschulte made a version for organ that he premiered in Evanston, IL, in 1924, a mere week before Busoni expired in Berlin. Middelschulte certainly had Busoni in mind when undertaking this work, and organist Jurgen Sonnentheil presents it for the first time on disc in CPO's Wilhelm Middelschulte: Organ Works Vol. 4: Goldberg Variations.The first page and a half of the liner notes attempt to justify Middelschulte's highly interventionist arrangement by citing a laundry list of instances... Read Less