Based on JS Bach’s Cantata No. 156, the Arioso, due to its popularity and beautiful melody, has been arranged for many instrument combinations and the piano was destined to have such an an arrangement made as well.

Max Pirani (1898-1975) was an Australian born English pianist and teacher.

His early studies were at the Melbourne Conservatory - and continued in London - leading to a career as an accomplished solo artist, as well as a chamber music recitalist, whose well established career was interrupted by two world wars.

His pianistic influences were derived directly from mainstream European pianism - so it’s no surprise that he would embrace the practise of writing transcriptions for the piano. 

JS Bach himself was prolific transcriber of the music of his contemporaries and an equally prolific recycler of his own music, of which this Arioso is a good example. It was composed for the aforementioned church cantata but later recycled as the “Largo” movement of his own Harpsichord Concerto in F Minor, BWV 1056.

The attraction of this piece is its unaffected beauty, its direct presentation as a sort of polite conversation between high and low voices, the subject of which is intimate - even as I secretly evesdrop.

Listen to Max Pirani's transcription of Bach's Arioso

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