Listen to my appearance on Ben Kapilow’s “All Keyed Up” Podcast as we discuss J.S. Bach Piano Arrangement and Transcription resources:
Eleonor Bindman spoke with Barry Lenson about her new J.S. Bach Cello Suite transcriptions and recordings on the Classical Archives blog:
Prepare to be surprised when you listen to the new 2-CD release of Eleonor Bindman playing her piano arrangements of Bach’s Cello Suites. Ms. Bindman’s arrangements faithfully include the notes you will find in the original Bach, but have become works that are new, unique, and completely satisfying on their own terms.
That is just one of the discoveries to be made in this new recording, which follows an earlier, excellent 2-CD recording, The Brandenburg Duets of four-hand transcriptions of the Bach Brandenburg Concertos that Ms. Bindman performed with fellow pianist Jenny Lin.
In nearly every way, the Cello Suite transcriptions feel very different from the Brandenburgs. How did that happen, and what was the thinking behind this new release? We spoke with Ms. Bindman, and here is what she had to say.
Classical Archives: What motivated you to transcribe and record these pieces?
All my transcriptions are motivated by the desire to play my favorite music on the piano. My first major piano transcription – Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain – was made because I just loved the orchestral piece and wanted to have more Mussorgsky to perform. Max Reger’s piano-4-hands version of the Brandenburgs has been on my music shelf for decades but proved too unwieldy when I tried to play them with my piano duet partner. So I made a new, playable one, thinking that a good arrangement would really enrich the piano-4-hands repertoire. The Cello Suites by nature are suitable for amateur pianists so this new set is also intended to provide more playable Bach for them.
See the interview on the ClassicalArchives.com blog!
Seen and Heard International‘s Robert Beattie interviews Eleonor Bindman about her J.S. Bach transcriptions:
“I spoke to Eleonor about her background as a professional pianist, what drew her into making transcriptions of other composer’s works and about her latest transcription of Bach’s solo cello suites. Some of the most recent transcriptions are for amateur pianists and we spoke about how these motivate and inspire enthusiastic amateurs.
Robert Beattie: Can you tell us about your background as a professional pianist and what drew you to make transcriptions of other composers’ works?
Eleonor Bindman: When I was in college we were encouraged to study a wide range of repertoire ranging from Baroque to contemporary music and virtuoso works. I enjoyed playing transcriptions by composers such as Liszt, Busoni and Rachmaninov. My piano teacher, Vladimir Feltsman, encouraged me to think about how to capture orchestral textures, colours and sonorities when performing these works. I performed Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition at a number of competitions and this work featured in my first solo recording. I included my own transcription of Mussorgsky’s A Night on a Bald Mountain in that recording. In my second recording I performed Tchaikovsky’s The Seasons and included Liszt’s transcription of the Polonaise from his opera Eugene Onegin. Once again, I also decided to record my own transcription of the waltz from Eugene Onegin.
RB: You then went on to record a number of transcriptions for piano duet with Susan Sobolewski and Jenny Lin. Can you tell us about them?
EB: Susan and I recorded the version of Holst’s The Planets for two pianos. Holst originally scored seven of the movements for two pianos before scoring it for large orchestra. This was bookended by a transcription of Bernstein’s Candide Overture and Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. I then started to look at transcriptions of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos for piano duet. There is a transcription by Max Reger for piano duet, but I found this work very uneven and lopsided as the primo piano part is much more dense and busy than the secondo part, which has much less to do. I then worked on my own transcription of the Brandenburg Concertos for piano duet and tried to distribute the material much more evenly among the two parts. Jenny Lin and I made a recording of this transcription in 2018 and this was well received by the critics and the general public.
RB: You then composed a series of Bach piano transcriptions specifically tailored for amateur pianists. How did this project come about?
EB: I have a number of adult piano students and I was conscious of the fact that many of them found it difficult to negotiate Bach’s contrapuntal lines. I often found it easier to teach composers such as Chopin where they have to play a melody and accompaniment. I love Bach’s music and I wanted to create a series of short pieces which would allow amateur pianists to find a way into his music. I therefore composed 48 short pieces which I called Stepping Stones to Bach which were distillations of his orchestral, choral and instrumental works such as movements from the cantatas or Passions, orchestral suites or instrumental works. These pieces are idiomatic and satisfying to play and they have helped many of my students to develop technique. They are intermediate level pieces and they are useful for students of all ages. I developed a playlist on Spotify to accompany the pieces which allows students to listen to the original works before playing the pieces.
RB: You have just recorded your own new transcription of Bach’s Cello Suites for Piano Solo. There are of course existing transcriptions of these works as well as for the solo violin works. How do your transcriptions differ from these?……
Primephonic’s Jennifer Harrington and I talk about the Brandenburg Duets on their blog and explored some of the next steps for me around the project:
What is the process you must take to have your arrangement of The Brandenburg Duets published?
I am working diligently on getting more reviews, attention on social media and other publicity for the Brandenburg Duets recording. Reviewers are swamped these days and many of them don’t really care much about the 4-hand piano medium or the educational potential of this new arrangement because the classical music field is so star-driven. Fortunately, the listeners really like it so it’s selling well, and I am getting great feedback about hearing the music in a fresh new way and the wonderful mood the recording puts people in. Now I’m about to approach music publishing houses, chiefly aiming for German/European ones, and hoping they will think this is a worthwhile project to bring to light in time for the 300th anniversary the Brandenburg Concertos in 2021.
You’ve transcribed several pieces of music over your career. Do you foresee more projects like this in the future? Any that you can share about?
Yes, every recording of mine includes a piano transcription, as it turned out. I was always fascinated by the possibility of sounding like an entire orchestra on just one piano and I am motivated by making great music possible for pianists to play. I tried to simplify the Brandenburg Duets as much as possible, so that amateurs and students can play some of the movements. Having taught adults for years, I really value the experience of amateur pianists, not just concert-level performers. Most well-known Bach transcriptions by Busoni, Liszt, Siloti, etc., are virtuosic, so lately I’ve been making shorter and less complicated Bach transcriptions that still sound beautiful.
Do you have any recording projects you look forward to releasing that you can share with us?
Currently, I have about 7-8 shorter new solo piano Bach arrangements (including a solo version of one movement from Brandenburg Concerto #4) and I am adding more for a future recording project. Also, I want to record the Partitas soon – I have played them for years and feel very close to that music.
What is your favorite classical music memory?
My favorite memory comes from doing research on Liszt’s transcriptions at the Library of Congress about 20 years ago. To gain access to them I had to fill out a separate slip of paper for each one and give it to a librarian who then descended into what they called “the vault” and brought them out for me, one after another. I remember sitting in a small private room at that library with those old manuscripts and trying to wrap my mind around the fact that I’m holding the same papers as Franz Liszt once held. I was looking at his original markings: they were so well-organized with different edits in colored ink that you could still clearly see… I had goose bumps, a sensation of awe, a feeling of time travel touching those papers. I still get that sensation, even now when I think of it.