This is the first edition and critical edition of Ottorino Respighi’s transcription of Johann Sebastian Bach’s chorale prelude “Nun komm’, der Heiden Heiland,” BWV 659. Respighi’s version is scored for solo violin, violoncellos, and double basses. The edition is based on the only recently rediscovered autograph manuscript of the score.
https://www.universaledition.com/Werke/Nun-komm-der-Heiden-Heiland-BWV-659/P0372663
The piece was written expressly for the concert repertoire of Arrigo Serato, the most important Italian violinist of the early twentieth century. Arrigo Serato had been a friend of Respighi’s since their student days at the Liceo musicale in Bologna. It was thanks to the violinist that Respighi spent a period working in Berlin, between 1908 and 1909, as an accompanist for the class of the singer Etelka Gester. This period proved highly fruitful: in the German capital, through Serato’s introductions, Respighi met Max Bruch and Ferruccio Busoni, and achieved his first successful performance with his transcription of Monteverdi’s Lamento di Arianna, performed by the Berlin Philharmonic under the musical conducting of Arthur Nikisch. After those years, Serato was forced to return to Rome at the outbreak of the First World War, where he resumed his contacts and association with Ottorino Respighi, who had himself been in Rome since 1913, teaching at the Liceo musicale di Santa Cecilia. It is therefore possible that Respighi also made this transcription aware of the homonymous transcription for solo piano by Ferruccio Busoni, published in 1898 and revised precisely in 1907.
Respighi’s version, scored for solo violin, three-part divided violoncellos, and double basses, retains the original key of G minor. It represents an important and hitherto unknown antecedent of the well-known and celebrated first of the Tre corali, composed in 1930. In that later work, however, the composition was transposed from G minor to C minor, a fifth lower, in order to heighten its dark colour of the string section. The solo violin is replaced by all the violins, first and second violins together, in unison, while the dark sonority of the strings is reinforced by the bassoons.
Here you can find the score and the orchestra parts:
https://www.universaledition.com/Werke/Nun-komm-der-Heiden-Heiland-BWV-659/P0372663
In addition, Elia Andrea Corazza realized a transcription for Solo violin and String orchestra:
The score and the orchestra parts are available here:
https://www.universaledition.com/Werke/Nun-komm-der-Heiden-Heiland-BWV-659/P0372679
First performance:
24 October 2026, Cathedral of Santa Tecla, Este, Italy.
Orchestra Sinfonica del Veneto.
Solo violin: Emy Bernecoli.
Conductor: Elia Andrea Corazza.
Piano Reduction, for solo violin and piano:
download your copy here:
https://www.universaledition.com/Werke/Nun-komm-der-Heiden-Heiland-BWV-659/P0372650
