Dazzling, delightful – and unfairly dismissed: Stephen Hough on the art of the transcription (opens in new tab)

Bach, Beethoven and Brahms did it. Liszt took it to such virtuosic heights that the entire genre almost collapsed. Ahead of his own album of transcriptions, the pianist and composer looks at the history of reworking existing musicThey have long been the norm in the world of jazz clubs and hotel lounges, but transcriptions in the classical world were for many years a bit of a naughty word – or at least a guilty pleasure. To arrange someone else’s music in a way they hadn’t originally intended,...