Some of the most celebrated composers—Beethoven, Brahms, Busoni, Liszt, Rachmaninoff, and Ravel—prepared piano transcriptions of some of their own works, as well as those of other composers. Maurice Hinson has selected, from the myriads of transcriptions now in existence, more than 2,000 such works of real musical worth.
The Pianist’s Guide to Transcriptions, Arrangements, and Paraphrases describes pieces for solo piano, duet, and two pianos, as well as outstanding transcriptions for one hand. Most of them are written for piano(s) alone, but a considerable number are scored for piano(s) and a small instrumental ensemble or a full orchestra.
Thanks to the organization of this volume, the user can see at a glance the various transcriptions that have been made of a particular composition (say, a Schubert song) and also become aware of the breadth of a particular transcriber’s output (as in the case of the prodigiously prolific Liszt).