Completing our JS Bach Tribute Triptych with a curated listening party of transcriptions starting with... Tetris?

I never had a Game Boy; but when I got to borrow a friend's, Theme C was always my favourite:

 

 

Before Bach went 8-bit, he was fond of the harpsichord. Here's Christopher Hogwood playing the Minuet from Bach's third French Suite (BWV 814):

 

 

If there's one thing I've taken from this MWM Bach-stravaganza these last three weeks, it's that he was a master of tonal organization. From Bach, Mozart arranged a few fugues from the Well-Tempered Klavier for string quartet (not to mention an assortment for string trio from various collections); Beethoven followed suit with an arrangement of Fugue no 22. It wasn't until Mendelssohn brought Bach back into the limelight after 80 years of absence from concert repertoire that the flood of arrangements and transcriptions began. From writing accompaniments to solo partitas to piano transcriptions of chorales and preludes, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Liszt, Gounod, Tárrega, Busoni, Elgar, Stravinsky, Webern, Berio, Schönberg, among so many others. Here's a magical moment this week's birthday boy, Rachmaninoff, playing his own partial transcription of Violin Partita No. 3 (BWV 1006):

 

 

Some of the most legendary orchestral transciptions of Bach's music come from one of the most legendary personalities in 20th century orchestral music. Watch Leopold Stokowski conduct the BBC Symphony Orchestra in 1954 through one of his most famous Bach transcriptions:

 

 

A video that recently went viral on my social media feeds was this footage of Hungarian composer and pedagogue György Kurtág and his equally talented and accomplished wife Márta playing piano-four-hands transcriptions of a trio of Bach's works (BWV 614, 804, and 106). Proof that Bach brings (and keeps) people together: they met at the Franz Liszt Academy 70 years ago and they still sit on the same bench. 

 

 

Bach's inspiration isn't limited to the 'classical' world. French Jazz pianist Jacques Loussier has been performing countless Bach arrangements since the late 1950s. Here's a live performance of one of my favourite moments from his trio's Bach Book, the aria from F major pastorale (BWV 590):

 

 

And our final Bach-transcription-listening-party installment comes from digital soundmaker Soahc LABO of Japan. If you're a fan of Wendy Carlos' Beethoven transcriptions for A Clockwork Orange, you'll LOVE this. Yes, it's midi, but it's MAGICAL. This is especially novel for those of you out there who may not read music. Sit in awe of the beautiful density of the first movement of the Matthäus-Passion unfold in colour and shape:

 

 

To be completely honest, that movement could be played with toy pianos, ukuleles, and recorders and it would still bring me to tears... Truth.

 

Stay tuned to Classic107.com for another new episode of Mid-week Musicology every Wednesday!