I've just bounced this one off the American Musicological Society list --
let's see who comes up with the answer soonest!
I am hoping someone out there might be able to throw some light on
a confusion in the identity of the ten chorale preludes that Busoni
transcribed in Vol. III of the _Bach-Busoni gesammelte Ausgabe_ in 1902.
I am reviewing a new (well, 1988) recording by Pietro Spada, and I noticed
that he has recorded only nine of the ten. The nine he plays are:
1) Komm, Gott, Schopfer, heiliger Geist, BWV631
2) Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, BWV 645
3) Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, BWV659
4) Nun freut euch, liebe Christen gmein, BWV734
5) Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ, BWV639
6) Herr Gott, nun schleuss den Himmel auf, BWV617
7) Durch Adams Fall ist ganz verderbt, BWV637/705
8) In dir ist Freude, BWV615
9) Jesus Christus, unser Heiland, BWV 665.
The Dent and Beaumont biographies of Busoni (1932/74 and 1985) do not
list the individual chorale preludes, either by name or BWV number. Sergio
Sablich's _Busoni_ (1982 -- in Italian) does list the BWV nos., not the
titles of the chorale preludes -- and then complicates matters because his
BWV nos. don't tally with those of Spada. The BWV nos. Sablich lists are
as follows:
667*
645
659
734
639
617
637
705
615
665
The one marked * does not occur in the first list (that from Spada's disc).
The nature of the missing chorale prelude (the tenth one that Spada has not
recorded) might have been explained by the "double" numbering (BVW 637/705)
of "Durch Adams Fall" in the Spada list, although Busoni is unlikely to
have transcribed the same chorale prelude in two different versions (and
even if he did, when then didn't Spada record it?). And what then is
BWV667 in the Sablich list? Exactly which chorale preludes did Busoni
transcribe?
All elucidation gratefully received -- particularly if it's swift,
since this is for a review I have to file tomorrow! (Maybe this could
be resolved swiftly if I had a _Grove_ to hand, but I don't.)
Martin Anderson
Toccata Press
http://www.classical.net/music/books/toccata/
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