More 20th Century Baroque

I've already posted about Leopold Stokowski's transcriptions for full symphony orchestra of music by J S Bach. This second cd in the same vein is called Stokowski's Symphonic Baroque by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra under Matthias Bamert. The composers given "the treatment" here are Handel, Buxtehude, Cesti, Purcell, Victoria, Byrd, Corelli and Vivaldi. Again, I would say that the art of transcription is an honourable one although I certainly wouldn't want to hear this repertoire performed in this style too often. But if you are going to play it on a full modern symphony orchestra, then the transcription route would be the way to go. As might be expected, some things work better than others but it is never less than interesting. The most curious must be the Buxtehude transcription featuring the ondes martenot as the solo instrument. The BBc Phil obviously enjoy luxuriating in the scores and the oboe deserves to be mentioned in despatches ( Christopher Blake )