the art of transcription
bach & tchaikovsky
SEPTEMBER 12, 2025
Dear Patrons,
We are so grateful you are here to share this special evening with us.
Tonight marks a double debut in Cleveland — the appearance of the acclaimed pianist Polina Osetinskaya and the launch of Domus Virtuosa, a new artist agency and production initiative.
This concert also opens the Stars of Summer Masters series, presented by Domus Virtuosa in partnership with The Stars of Summer, a program of the Cleveland School of Dance nonprofit organization. Through this series, we will welcome some of the world’s most celebrated artists to our city, with upcoming performances by legendary violinist Gidon Kremer and the Kopelman Quartet
But our vision goes beyond the stage. We want Domus Virtuosa to be a place where world-class artistry meets new talent — where the traditions of classical music and dance are passed directly to the next generation. Working with music conservatories, dance academies, universities, and community schools, we plan to host masterclasses, workshops, open rehearsals, and Q&A sessions, giving young performers the rare chance to learn from today’s leading artists.
We believe this series will be about more than music. It will be about connection — across cultures, generations, and histories. With gratitude, Domus Virtuosa
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Polina Osetinskaya, Piano
The Art of Transcription
Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center
Friday, September 12, 2025
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750)
Weichnachtsoratorium (Christmas Oratorio), BWV 248
1. Sinfonia (arr. Asiya Korepanov, 2022)
2. Opening Chorus (arr. Asiya Korepanov, 2022)
Cantata, BWV 127
Aria Die Seele ruht in Jesu Händen (My Soul Doth Rest in Jesus’ Keeping) Andante (arr. Harold Bauer, ca.1920-1930)
Concerto in A minor for four harpsichords, BWV 1065
After Vivaldi (arr. Florian Noack, 2024)
Chaconne in D-minor from Violin Partita No. 2 BWV 1004 (arr. Ferruccio Busoni, 1892-1916)
Composed: consequently 1734, 1725, 1731, 1717-1720
Intermission
Pyotr Iliych Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
Concert suite from the ballet "The Nutcracker" (arr. Mikhail Pletnev, 1978)
1. March
2.Tarantella
3. Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy
4. Intermezzo
5. Russian Trepak
6. Chinese Dance
7. Andante maestoso
Symphony No. 6 (Pathétique). Scherzo (arr. Samuil Feinberg, 1942)
Composed: consequently 1892, 1893
Polina Osetinskaya’s performance is generously supported by Local-n-Global Inc, the Real Estate and Investment Consulting Agency
Polina Osetinskaya
Polina Osetinskaya is one of today’s most compelling pianists, celebrated for uniting virtuosity, emotional depth, and fearless artistic vision. Renowned for her precise and imaginative programming, she is a passionate promoter of modern music, yet it is her luminous and profoundly personal interpretations of Bach that have earned her the love of millions. A critic once wrote, “Her tone is deep and rich, her articulation faultless, and her feeling for the pulse of the music she is playing is as natural as breathing — that’s something that cannot be taught.”
A prodigy from an early age, Osetinskaya gave her first solo recital in Vilnius at just six years old. By nine, she was performing Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto with orchestra, and at eleven she appeared in Moscow’s Great Hall.
Her full debut came in 1987 with Mozart’s Concerto No. 23 under Georgy Vetvitsky. She received her early training at the Central Music School of the Moscow Conservatory, continued her studies at the St. Petersburg Conservatory with Marina Wolf, and refined her artistry under the guidance of the legendary Vera Gornostaeva at the Moscow Conservatory.
Osetinskaya is also the author of the best-selling autobiography Farewell to Sadness, a candid and deeply moving account of her prodigy childhood, the
brilliance and abuse of her father — famed screenwriter Oleg Osetinsky — and her journey through trauma toward becoming a true artist. In her own words, music offered “a glimpse of a more idealized world, one filled with passion and depth… a kind of emotional richness and transcendence that contrasted with the drudgery of everyday life in the Soviet Union and with the violence of my father.”
Today, she appears on the world’s foremost stages, including Carnegie Hall, the Barbican, the Musikverein, and the Berlin Philharmonie, where her performances are celebrated for their structural clarity, expressive nuance, and extraordinary technical command. In 2022, Osetinskaya publicly opposed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, signing an open letter against the war. “I’ve always stood up for political prisoners in our country, and I’ve always fought for the truth,” she told VAN magazine. The result was swift: all her statesponsored concerts in Russia were cancelled, and she became a target of political denunciations. Undeterred, she continues to perform Russian music, stating, “Music is not to blame for anything at all… if it brings comfort to another person at the moment, I can’t take it away.”
Her life and art stand as a testament to resilience, integrity, and the enduring power of music to transcend politics, history, and personal pain.
Johann Sebastian Bach and the Art of Transcription
Few composers have inspired such a vast tradition of reimagining and revoicing as Johann Sebastian Bach In Bach’s own lifetime, “transcription” was not merely a practical adaptation — it was a respected art, often described in the old German term Parodie. Far from implying satire, Parodie meant the recasting of an existing work into a new medium, form, or context, uncovering fresh layers of meaning without betraying its essence.
Bach himself was a master of this process. He regularly transformed earlier compositions — both his own and those of others — into entirely new creations. A sacred cantata could borrow music from a secular serenata, an organ work could become a concerto, and an Italian violin concerto could reappear as a dazzling piece for harpsichords. This constant reinvention was not recycling but renewal: a way oftesting musical ideas against the colors, textures, and expressive possibilities of different instruments and settings.
In the centuries since his death, generations of performers and composers have engaged in their own dialogue with Bach through
IN THE RUSSIAN CULTURAL GARDEN,
transcription. From Romantic-era masters like Ferruccio Busoni to contemporary arrangers such as Asiya Korepanova and Florian Noack, each new version is both an homage and an act of creative interpretation.
In this recital, Polina Osetinskaya draws from this living tradition, presenting Bach as both an eternal source and a canvas for reinvention — where music’s soul remains constant even as its voice changes.
Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248 (1734)
• Sinfonia (arr. Asiya Korepanova)
• Opening Chorus “Jauchzet, frohlocket” (arr. Asiya Korepanova)
Cantata BWV 127 (1725)
• Aria “Die Seele ruht in Jesu Händen” (MySoul Doth Rest in Jesus’ Keeping) – Andante (arr. Harold Bauer)
Duration: about 18 minutes
Opening with the luminous Sinfonia and jubilant chorus from the Weihnachtsoratorium (Christmas Oratorio) and followed by the serene aria from Cantata BWV 127, this sequence moves from exultant celebration to profound inward peace. The Sinfonia, originally for orchestra, radiates pastoral warmth, while the chorus “Jauchzet, frohlocket” bursts with festive brilliance. The aria from BWV 127, by contrast, is an intimate confession of trust and spiritual repose. In these transcriptions for piano, the color of the orchestra and the human voice is reimagined in the rich resonance of the modern instrument — allowing the pianist to sing with her fingers.
Concerto in A minor, BWV 1065 — after Vivaldi (1731)
(arr. Florian Noack)
Duration: about 10 minutes
This work is a transcription twice over. Antonio Vivaldi’s Concerto in B minor for four violins became, in Bach’s hands, a Concerto in A minor for four harpsichords, strings, and continuo (BWV 1065). The transformation is itself a marvel of Baroque adaptation, with Bach intensifying the contrapuntal interplay while preserving Vivaldi’s rhythmic vitality.
In the version heard tonight, Belgian pianist composer Florian Noack condenses the fourharpsichord texture into a single piano part — a feat of compression that still retains the exuberance, clarity, and dialogue of the original.
Chaconne in D minor from Partita No. 2 for solo violin, BWV 1004 (1717–1720)
(arr. Ferruccio Busoni)
Duration: about 18 minutes
One of the most revered works in Western music, the Chaconne is a monumental set of variations built over a repeating bass pattern. In its original form for solo violin, it is both an expressive outpouring and a structural tour de force. Ferruccio Busoni’s celebrated piano transcription expands the piece’s dimensions, drawing upon the piano’s orchestral range to reveal hidden harmonies and monumental sonorities. Busoni described his approach not as replacing the violin but as “realizing the work as if Bach had the modern grand piano at his disposal.” The result is at once deeply faithful and expansively reimagined — a fitting culmination to this exploration of Bach through the lens of transcription.
The title page of the first volume of Singende Müse an der Pleisse, a collection of strophic songs published in Leipzig in 1736 by Johann Sigismund Scholze. The two people shown are thought to be Bach and his wife Anna Magdalena.
Tchaikovsky in Transcription
Before the phonograph (1877) and the advent of commercial recordings (1890s), the only way to hear music repeatedly was either in live performance or by playing it yourself. By the 19th century, the piano had become the dominant middle-class household instrument across Europe and North America, and piano transcriptions were the primary means of studying orchestral works in detail. To “bring an orchestra home,” one could choose from two-hand solo reductions (technically demanding), four-hand arrangements (closer to the orchestration and popular with amateurs), or virtuoso paraphrases and fantasies for professional performance.
In late 19th-century Russia, orchestral infrastructure beyond St. Petersburg and Moscow was sparse, so for much of the public, hearing Tchaikovsky meant hearing his music at the piano. These transcriptions were also crucial to his international reputation — particularly in Western Europe and the United States, where printed piano scores often reached audiences years before the first full orchestral performances. Tchaikovsky completed The Nutcracker in December 1892, as part of a doublebill with his one-act opera Iolanta for the Imperial Theatres. Premiered that holiday season in St. Petersburg, the ballet sparkled with vivid orchestral colors and unforgettable dances. Soon after, in early 1893, Tchaikovsky began work on his final symphony, No. 6 “Pathétique”, a deeply personal andemotionally charged work whose tragic intensity stands in poignant contrast to the ballet’s festive charm. The Pathétique premiered in St.
Petersburg on October 28, 1893 — just nine days before the composer’s sudden death — leaving these two works forever linked as the brilliant and bittersweet culmination of his career.
Tchaikovsky entrusted the transcription of The Nutcracker to his brilliant pupil Sergey Taneyev (1856–1915), who prepared a fourhand arrangement — based on excerpts chosen by the composer — that appeared almost immediately. The 1892 full ballet piano score was a highly accurate version approved by Tchaikovsky himself.
Similarly, in August 1893, just after completing the orchestral score of his Symphony No. 6 “Pathétique” (Op. 74), Tchaikovsky collaborated with Russian composer Yuliy Konyus on its fourhand piano reduction, enabling wide distribution across Europe soon after its premiere.
Concert suite from the ballet "The Nutcracker" (arr. Mikhail Pletnev)
1. March
2. Tarantella
3. Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy
4. Intermezzo
5. Russian Trepak
6. Chinese Dance
7. Andante maestoso
Symphony No. 6 (Pathétique)
Scherzo (arr. Samuil Feinberg)
Duration: about 30 min
Russian pianist, conductor, and composer Mikhail Pletnev (b. 1957) is celebrated worldwide for his breathtaking transcriptions, which transform orchestral masterpieces into dazzling showcases of pianistic color and virtuosity. None is more iconic than his 1978 reimagining of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite, written when he was just 21. That same year, Pletnev swept to victory at the VI International Tchaikovsky Competition, winning the Gold Medal. At the Gala Concert, in a moment that has since become part of competition lore, the youngpianist unveiled excerpts from his own Nutcracker arrangement, leaving audiences astonished at both hisartistry and audacity.
Pletnev’s transcription of six dances from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite transforms orchestral brilliance into a pianistic
tour de force. While preserving the melodies and harmonies, he reshapes the score through Liszt-inspired devices: rapid leaps spanning the full keyboard, thunderous octave passages, and layered voicing that allows inner lines to shimmer beneath soaring melodies. Pedal effects create colouristic illusions — the celesta’s bell tones in the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, muted strings in the Arabian Dance, and harp-like flourishes in the Andante maestoso. Dynamic range is pushed to the extreme, from whispering pianissimo to organ-like fortissimo; textures are thickened to achieve an orchestral breadth; massive chordal climaxes, octave doublings, and sweeping hand-crossings create the illusion of a full orchestra under the pianist’s fingers.
A Soviet pianist-composer Samuil Feinberg’s (1890–1962) piano arrangement of the Scherzo (3rd movement) from Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 “Pathétique” is one of the most famous and virtuosic
The first edition of the full score of The Nutcracker for orchestra and for piano, full (by Taneyev) and simplified (by the author)
Russian symphonic transcriptions for solo piano. In contrast to Pletnev, Feinberg keeps the orchestral score intact, with dynamics, phrasing, and tempo markings closely match Tchaikovsky’s score; orchestration effects are mimicked but never replaced — flute trills become light right-hand figurations, timpani rolls become left-hand tremolos.
Feinber’s arrangement demands exceptional precision, stamina, and control. The Scherzo’s relentless rhythmic drive, especially in the Presto coda, is preserved and made even more dazzling on the piano, culminating in massive two-handed octaves and rapid figurations that recreate the orchestral “crescendo to
21-year-old Mikhail Pletnev, playing Andante Maestoso at the Gala Concert, Moscow, 1978
explosion” entirely through keyboard brilliance.
Like black-and-white photography, these extraordinary arrangements use the piano’s “monochrome” palette to strip away orchestral color, sharpening the score’s contours, harmonic contrasts, and rhythmic architecture — heightening the drama through purity and focus.
Polina Osetinskaya crowns The Art of Transcription with these works, illuminating their orchestral grandeur through the prism of her own pianistic voice — revealing, in each transcription, new colors, heightened contrasts, and the kind of narrative sweep only a great storyteller at the keyboard can command.
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