Hi William,
thanks for the feedback. What you are suggesting makes perfect sense and I was not completely happy as to the representation of some of the melodic lines here. I will be working on this again next week to try and get something closer.
I too was blown away by the original Stokowski recordings/arrangements and for me they felt like new creations and not neccesarily something to compare against the "pure" organ versions. I think the purists in any form of music perform a hugely valuable function by maintaining such a high standard of expectation which in itself drives people to improve. Sometimes though this can be at the expense of creativity and innovation which is something that is also important not to lose (for me anyway). In particular with the VSL libraries, it is very easy to try things out to see how changes in instrumentation and arrangement etc effect the shape, colour and dynamics of the music and in so many cases it is immediately apparent why certain choices were made by the composer/arranger which I find fascinating.
Whilst the purists and devotees can all offer an opinion on what they "think" something should sound like, they cannot say with any degree of certainty that theirs is the only opinion that counts. At the end of the day, theirs is only another opinion, albeit a very well-qualified opinion which I do respect but probably not to the extent that it would dissuade me taking a look at some of these works - they're just too good and there is also too much to learn from them. I would like to believe though that there is always room for expression within these pieces without fear of ridicule or dismissal and whilst I'm nowhere close to what I would really like to represent musically, I am happy that this is a start. I'll take a listen to the pieces you suggested also as I only concentrated on this piece first as I felt it might be acheivable within the libraries/skills I currently have (and I really just liked this fugue!).
Thanks again for the feedback and comment. Much appreciated.
Regards,
Tom