Bach's adaptability

[Chaszz]

Why is Bach's music seen as natural for transcription to other instruments than the ones specified, whereas with other composers this is rarely or never done?

[Enrique]

He did not care as much as Berlioz?

[Peter]

Why is Bach's music seen as natural for transcription to other instruments than the ones specified, whereas with other composers this is rarely or never done?

I think this is because the Baroque era was more flexible - Bach himself transcribed his music and was not always specific about the particular keyboard instrument he required (Harpsichord/Clavichord etc). This adaptability was all probably because they had to make do with what was available.

[Peter]

He did not care as much as Berlioz?

No - by the time of Berlioz and the growth of the middle classes, larger numbers of people had exposure to music. There was a drive towards professional music institutions such as Conservatoires and the resources available were much greater. Publication and wider disemmination meant a certain loss of the composer's control over the performance of music, so naturally composers responded and you see this trend beginning with Beethoven where he was far more explicit in his requirements than say Mozart or Haydn had been.

[Chaszz]

An aside: on the current Bach 360 broadcast (going on through March 31 on WQXR-FM 105.9 New York, and on wqxr.org), I heard yesterday a recent reconstruction of a lute-harpsichord playing Bach. This was evidently a fairly popular instrument in Bach's time, designed to soften the more metallic sound of the regular harpsichord. It has completely disappeared, none are left, so this one had to be built from whatever plans and descriptions are available. The sound was surprisingly much closer to a piano than is the sound of a clavichord, the putative ancestor of the piano. This can lead to all kinds of speculation and research into how widely this instrument was in use and how it may have influenced composition. I have a notion we'll be hearing a good deal more from and about the lute-harpsichord in coming years.