Bach all day.
Honourable mentions to the composers who shaped Bach’s formidable output. Antonio Vivaldi, as Charles Rosen explains in this fantastic documentary, showed Bach how to begin a piece with a charismatic theme. Bach would have played Vivaldi’s music and transcribed several of the Italian master’s works for organ. In those days, transcribing a composer’s work was a compliment. Bach was far more generous in acknowledging his influences and themes he had borrowed from other composers (a substantial amount). Here, Bach is lively, but controlled: he keeps most of Vivaldi’s character without adding much of his own more advanced contrapuntal work. (With Reincken’s Hortus Musicus, however, he takes the reins and dashes off!).
Beautiful transcription!
