Miguel Muelle:

>I love the transcriptions of Bach's keyboard music to orchestra (the
>Sitkovetsky, Stokowski.  etc.), but I also love the transcriptions from
>ortchestra to keyboard, as in the piano 4 hands versions of the Orchestral
>Suites as well as the Brandenburgs.  I have the Suites, in a "bearbeitung"
>by Max Reger, played by Sontraud Speidel and Evelinde Trenkner.  It is
>astounding!  It never lacks weight or fullness, and the pacing is very
>similar to my favorite orchestral version, Casals with the Marlboro
>Festival Orchestra.  I can't find the Brandenburgs, but I will keep
>trying.

Musical Heritage Society at one time released Reger's Brandenburg
transcriptions on LP with Martin Berkofsky and David Hagan.  I still
have the album, but don't know whether MHS has transferred the recording
to CD.

Other favorite instrumental transcriptions: as Deryck pointed out, the
Scherchen Art of the Fugue; also the Simpson transcription for string
quartet; Walton's The Wise Virgins ballet; Schoenberg's transcription
of the St Anne prelude and fugue; and to me the indisputable ne plus
ultra - the Webern orchestration of the Fuga ricercata a 6 from The
Musical Offering.  I've always been a fan of Carlos's Moog arrangements
and the Swingle Singers in their various incarnations have almost always
gotten my jaw to drop.  Incidentally, the Swingles and the Modern Jazz
Quartet did a wonderful album called Vendome, which has a few Bach things
on it.

Almost-but-not-quite an arrangement is Percy Grainger's take on "Sheep
may safely graze," titled Blithe Bells.  Grainger described it (charmingly)
as a "free ramble" on the Bach.

Steve Schwartz