The latest innovative release from The Orchestra Now and their founder-conductor Leon Botstein evokes the age-old practice of transcribing music from one set of instruments or voices to another. Transcription as Translation brings together two rarely heard symphonic transcriptions by two major 20th-century conductors who were eager to perform from the podium some of their favourite non-orchestral works and present them to a wider audience.

Turn of the 20th century Austrian composer and conductor Felix Weingartner had an illustrious international career that included the directorship of the Vienna Philharmonic and regular guest conducting of the Boston Symphony. He was at the vanguard of the era of acoustic recording and was the first conductor to make commercial recordings of all nine Beethoven symphonies. Weingartner’s Beethoven credentials informed his orchestral transcription of Beethoven’s “Hammerklavier” Piano Sonata.

The name of Hungarian-born conductor George Szell remains synonymous with the Cleveland Orchestra, where he was Music Director from 1946–1970, to this day. He had previously worked for many years in Prague where he developed a special affinity for Czech music which is attested to his orchestration of Smetana’s String Quartet no.1 (“From My Life”).