WINGATE: WEDDING MUSIC FOR SOLO CELLO 
Transcriptions of Nuptual Classics for Unaccompanied Violoncello

Transcriptions Included:
1. Richard Wagner - Bridal Chorus from Lohengrin (1850)
2. Felix Mendelssohn - Wedding March from A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1842)
3. J. S. Bach - Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring (1723)

Transcription Date:
1996

Duration:
Variable

Notes:
Wingate’s solo cello transcriptions of famous wedding pieces were made in 1996 for the occasion of a mountaintop wedding in Colorado, and first performed by the transcriptionist—partially from memory, as a consequence of a wayward gust of wind blowing the newly-made score off the side of a cliff mid-ceremony. The collection turned out to be a hit, both with brides-to-be harboring romantic notions about the cello, and with gigging freelance cellists needing options for space-restricted or piano-less venues.
 
These transcriptions, however, often make breathtaking virtuosic demands upon the player, as they attempt to retain as much of the spirit and fullness of the orchestral versions as possible. There are forests of double, triple and quadruple stops, left-hand pizzicati, grand leaps of all kinds, and even a note on the C string that must be stopped with the player’s chin (as all the other usable appendages are off doing other things). But the collection also includes an appendix of simplified versions, and the resourceful player may choose to mix and match to suit the circumstances or ability level. In addition, the more challenging versions may be used as technique études in cello pedagogy, as their easily-recognizable melodies can serve as appealing enticements to convince an aspiring student to suffer through the daunting technical challenges.
 
Playing complex multiple voicings on a single cello will not seem insurmountable to most cellists, who often happily struggle their whole lives with the contrapuntal textures in Bach’s magnificent Cello Suites (BWV 1007–1012), but the enterprise of rendering a piece normally played by ninety musicians onto the four strings of a lonely cello might seem absurd. (Indeed, Wingate’s first title for the set was Three Absurd Orchestral Reductions for Solo Cello.) The set also recalls the 19th century habit of making piano reductions of simply everything during that golden age of after-dinner piano parlours, for there is a certain pleasure to be had in playing all the parts of a gigantic piece using only one’s own powers. This soloistic heroism is also perhaps the guiding spirit for Wingate’s solo cello transcription of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565.