Edward Johnson writes… Greetings! … Those of you with a taste for orchestral transcriptions of Bach’s organ works might like to check this one out. It’s the Toccata and Fugue in D minor, ever familiar from “Fantasia” where Stokowski conducted his own arrangement. It has also been transcribed by Sir Henry Wood, Eugene Ormandy, Alois Melichar, Fabien Sevitzky, Rene Leibowitz, Lucien Cailliet, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, Salvador “Tutti” Camarata, Leon Leonardi, Andrew Davis and doubtless a few others as well.
Here’s a new name to add to the list: Mikhail Pletnev, who conducted the Russian National Orchestra in a programme of Bach arrangments in 2009. Five were by Stokowski, to which were added Respighi’s version of the Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor and Pletnev’s own arrangement of the Toccata and Fugue. In addition to bringing to the piece some new orchestral sonorities he also took it at quite a lick. No wonder the audience burst into unanimous hand-clapping applause at the end!