Vanessa Maes Toccata and Fugue… why the hate?
Vabessa-Mae is a DITZ! She struts around in her little dresses, and has a pretty face and a pretty smile, but her playing lacks expression, not counting the lewd smiles she gives the audience. She takes masturfull compositions and plays them with unconfident bow strokes, and in terrible arrangements… I HATE her! Worst of all she makes people think hat what she is playing is classical music. ARGH!
Some interesting comments! Glinzek is correct. Ironically, Bach’s most famous piece is probably not by him at all – there are many compositional techniques used which are not characteristic of his style. Some of those characteristics which are so unknown in his keyboard music work very well indeed on the violin and there is good evidence to support the theory that Bach transcribed someone else’s violin music (we don’t know who) for the organ. This was not without precedent because, as suhawahak has correctly said, Bach transcribed violin works by Vivaldi for the keyboard. HOWEVER, any transcription, I think, has a duty to retain some of the nature and mood of the original. This ‘pop’ version of the Toccata and Fugue does neither – it is cheap, nasty, clumsy and (the worst sin of all) unmusical. It does nothing for Bach nor for Vanessa Mae (who wonders why she has credibility problems in the classical music world!). That’s why ‘the hate’.
