Probably no great composer has been ‘arranged’ more often than Bach. Be it the C major Prelude from Book 1 of the Well Tempered Clavier which has another life as Gounod’s Ave Maria, or the jazz piano trio arrangements of Jacques Loussier of his keyboard concertos, his music shines through, and endures, reaching wider audiences. The Sitkovetsky arrangement of the Goldberg Variations (originally for harpsichord) ranks as one of the finest arrangements. It is the most recent in a long and honourable tradition that has seen Mozart arrange Bach’s fugues for string trio and quartet, and, indeed the great Johann Sebastian arrange Vivaldi’s concertos for keyboard.
Sitkovetsky’s arrangement treats all three instruments as different registers of a single instrument – all three are equal partners. Bach dedicated the ‘Aria’ ‘ to music lovers for the benefit of their souls’. This arrangement was certainly made in the spirit of Bach’s dedication.
