FRANK MORANA
AmerOrganist 32/9

IP30 0SZ (Fax: 01449 737834). The concept of these editions

speaks for itself in the various titles. That concept --

representative snippets from mainstream "classical" works,

designed, perhaps, to spur interest for these works among

non-classical audiences; or otherwise, to provide some easy

listening for those who already enjoy a casual acquaintance

with such music -- that concept has been tried a thousand

times, but few such publications have ever attained to

distinction. What, then, differentiates the present series

from its predecessors? For one thing, Mayhew Ltd. produces

some of the most physically attractive scores in the market

place. The formats, cover pages, paper stock, and the

appearance of the music on the printed page are all of

remarkably high quality. For another, most of the

individual pieces in these respective volumes involve

a different arranger in each instance, so that there are

a variety of approaches to the transcription process.

Finally, some of these transcriptions are not snippets at

all, as in the Eine kleine Nachtmusik (first movement),

Hallelujah Chorus, and Kyrie from Mozart's Requiem, each of

which appears complete. Of these examples, however, the

Eine kleine Nachtmusik gives false dynamics and other

needless misrepresentations of the score, while the

Hallelujah Chorus and Mozart Kyrie read like finicky

counterpoint exercises. Elsewhere, the slow movement

from the "Elvira Madigan" concerto is simply scored

too thin for the organ, while the Schubert "Marche

Militaire" comes troublingly close to merry-go-round

music. It is all well and good to want to spur the

interest of naive audiences in serious music, but

the use of abbreviated passages from the symphonic works of

Beethoven is, possibly, the worst possible approach to doing

so, since the beauty of this music resides, not in its

melodies, but in the organic and inexorable connection from

one idea to the next. In opera, such connections are

necessarily more tenuous, and the arrangements by Colin

Mawby (Puccini, Wagner, and, in the March set, Verdi) are

among the more sensibly and idiomatically treated. In an

age of resurgence of interest in transcription as a

legitimate art form, it is well to keep in mind that

artistic merit is as rare among transcriptions as it is

among compositions generally; and that high quality in the

latter affords no guarantee for good quality in the former.