Shopping for a Christmas gift for that hard to please pianist on your list? I have just the answer — The Complete Bach Concerti for solo Keyboard and Orchestra in Full Score ISBN 0-486-24929-8. No it won’t take a truck to deliver it. It’s just in the Dover series of music. 7 concerti, 206 pages and only $20.00 or so. Such a deal ! ! !
You pianist friend need not have a full string orchestra at his/her disposal, the keyboard parts are often rich enough to stand alone. This is particularly true of many of the glorious slow movements, where the strings aren’t really doing very much, and sometime are just doubling what the keyboard is doing with the left hand anyway.
It does look a bit intimidating to see 6 parts instead of the usual two. The only problem with this is the frequent page turns, and I recommend getting it spiral bound at the local copy place (under 5$ where I live).
All the concerti are fairly famous (to pianists at least) and the whole point about Bach is that it’s mind music which you hear in your head. That’s about all I played in med school having only PSOs (Piano Shaped Objects) to play.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year ! ! !
Chemiotics II 