Mozart/Alkan: Symphony #39 In E Flat, K 543 -3. Menuetto, Trio (López)

José Raúl López, piano “[The piano’s] sonorities are wide-ranging if one knows how to obtain them through various methods of attack, through the intelligent use of certain fingerings, hand-crossing, etc. It is this instinct, this tact which guides the intelligent musician when he wants to make the piano reproduce the great magical accents of an orchestra and a choir; which suggests to him at one moment how to combine the chords in a particular way, at another moment to write some part of other at this octave rather than that, to emphasize this, to lighten that; in fact, to use a thousand ingenious methods to arrive not at a mathematical similarity, but a faithful, relative, moral one.“ –Charles-Valentin Alkan “The Minuet from the Symphony in E flat major, K543, is among the contents of [Alkan’s] first transcription series (Souvenirs des concerts du Conservatoire) that appeared in 1847 and as such is a model lesson in the art as it remains texturally subordinate to the spirit of the orchestration, and yet adjusts it ever so slightly to the registral capabilities of the instrument and, during the da capo repeat, takes the creative initiative to vary the presentation of the material. It is in the Trio, again, where Alkan’s mastery manifests itself: amidst the lovingly placed slurs and staccato marks, Alkan further clarifies the orchestration by suggesting a necessary change in dynamic levels and the addition of the una corda pedal to produce an echo effect, distinguishing the timbral differentiation between clarinet and flute (1:56-2:08). The da capo repeat, as noted previously, is cleverly enhanced through the addition of octaves and filled-in chords, producing an added masculine grandeur.“ –program notes by José Raúl López Purchase this album and others in the series from Toccata Classics: