Don Satz:

>I might as well keep going with this.  The impetus for transcription
>is one that I can't identify with.  People often want transcriptions
>so that they can listen to music with their preferred instrumentation.
>People make all kinds of connections based on the transcription process
>including how highly one composer thinks of another.  All I do is listen
>to the original, listen to the arrangement, and decide for myself whether
>the arrangement diminishes, enhances, or does justice to the original
>work.

As it happens just this afternoon I listened yet again to Konstantin
Scherbakov's recording of the Liszt piano transcription of Beethoven's
Ninth Symphony.  I wrote a little squib about it here:

   http://snipurl.com/bg28

The burden of it was that I was predisposed to NOT like it because of
missing the voices (not to mention the orchestra) but second time around
came to value it as a composition on its own, and with my own instrument,
the piano. And what playing!

Scott Morrison