Posted by Joe S. on August 30, 2000 at 23:13:26:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Bobo arrangement of Bach cello suites posted by Marc on August 29, 2000 at 21:32:06:
I think that pretty music is pretty music. As long as it makes YOU and the listener BOTH smile (and for the same reasons ;^/) I'd say anything is "legal". Certainly people perform single movements of sonatas and concerti, why not single - or various - movements of dance suites?...and for that matter, why not PART of a movement, if it reaches some point of "rest" or "resolution" (or not)? Last year, I performed a brass quintet that has some exquisite sounds: Michael Tilson Thomas' "Street Songs". As written, it is way up in the upper 20++ minute range. We CUT tons from it, putting it back into the high teens, duration-wise. The reason was because it was mostly the same stuff AGAIN, and the second presentation of the same material seemed quite tedious to us. We really thought at the time, however, that we were committing some sort of horrible "sin". After all, MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS !!!!! (???) Later, we didn't feel so bad when someone brought in a recording of some big time brass quintet's performance (maybe Empire) and they had not only cut what we cut, but considerably more.
Getting back to Bach: Usually, when one of those movements is omitted in bassoon, trombone, tuba, etc. ("single" note-at-a-time instruments') arrangements, it is because that particular movement is probably heavily dependant on double, triple, or quadruple stops to make the movement "work".