Bach/Rachmaninoff: Prelude from Partita in E (my electronic rendition)

I made this electronic version of a Bach piece back in 1995 using my Amiga computer and a Yamaha keyboard. (I was more clever back then -- whatever happened to me? Ha-ha!)

I connected my keyboard to my computer using a MIDI cable. I played all the voices one at a time on my Yamaha keyboard (sometimes slower, just to get the notes into my sequencing software, where I could bring them up to proper tempo easily). When I was done, the software used the MIDI connection to play back all the voices together on the Yamaha keyboard. It was fun creating all the different sounds I used in the piece -- they were often made up of combinations of 2 or more sounds built-in to the keyboard to make interesting new voices. One of the sounds was "harpsichord" + "banjo", as I recall. I remember the chimes sounded much richer if I also sounded the note an octave lower, slightly offset to the beat. I had 28-note polyphony on the keyboard, which means a maximum of 28 sounds can be playing at one time. It sounds like a lot, but believe me, you run out of simultaneous notes fast! I know I was pushing the maximum number of voices at several points during the piece.

I used the Rachmaninoff piano transcription of this piece as my source, so that's what I am displaying in this video. I know it's kind of a cliché to do an electronic version of Bach, but I hope you like it anyway!

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Bach
• prelude
• partita
• electronic
• transcription

[loydsheryl]

Oh, my, what a wonderful piece of work! I love the way you've orchestrated so that the different appearances of the motive are easy to follow. Thank you!

[magisterLudi1000]

Everything you do is music to my ears.

[gary903]

I have the old vinyl lp Switched On Bach album by Walter Carlos which has his version of this prelude realized on the Moog synthesizer. It's great and so is Kempf's piano transcription, but neither pleases my the way that this arrangement by Rachmaninoff does. He adds his own wonderful touches to the piece. For example, I love the way he fragments the beginning motif, having the semitone and fourth intervals from the first four notes pop up alternately in the treble and bass.

[edwinstar100]

3:03 to 3:10 absoutely my favourite moment!

[jiririji]

I have amiga computer yeah

[FirstGentleman1]

I like it very much!

[BoeingB17FF]

So cute!

[edwinstar100]

it was one of my favourites, lol. It sounds like a carnaval in this incarnation! I appreciate the work that went into this, and it is wonderful to hear it presented differently.  Listen to Tokarov playing it on piano it is sublime, this is not. It is a machine and sounds like it. Like using to many bright colours when painting, it is mostly, about subtlety and it ain't here. I an thinking Rachmaninoff would hate it.

[Quasaur]

This is one of my favorite Rachmaninoff transcriptions!

[michaelwathen]

Very nice.

Michael Wathen