Hamish Milne - Bach Piano transcriptions, Vol. 5: Goedicke, Kabalevsky, Catoire, Siloti (2005)

Hyperion's series of recordings of Bach transcriptions continues with this superlative release by Hamish Milne. While earlier volumes had featured the transcriptions of Busoni, Feinberg, Friedman, and Grainger, this volume features transcriptions by Russian composers. And, as with earlier volumes, the transcriptions reveal more about the transcriber than they do about the composer. In the case of Siloti's transcriptions of the Prelude in B minor and the Air from the Third Orchestral Suite, we find a transcriber of strength and delicacy, of massive sonorities and ethereal melodies. In the case of Kabalevsky's transcription of the Dorian Toccata and Fugue, we find a transcriber of overwhelming might. In the case of the hitherto unknown Catoire transcription of the Passacaglia in C minor, we find a transcriber of unbearable intensity. And in Goedickie's transcriptions of the Prelude and Fugue in G major, the Prelude and Fugue in D minor, and the Fugue in C minor, we find a transcriber of stately majesty and tremendous intensity. Milne, a Scots pianist who teaches at the London Royal Academy, brings intelligence, sensitivity, and virtuosity to the transcriptions and his disc has the power and glory of the best Bach recordings. Hyperion's sound is big, but perhaps a bit too reverberant.