The periodic recordings of pianist
Paul Wee
, a practicing attorney as well as a musician, are events to be savored, but he may have outdone himself with this superb album of 19th century transcriptions for solo piano. The major attraction is the 1860 transcription of
Mozart
's
Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K. 466
, by
Charles-Valentin Alkan
. This is much less often heard than its companion on the album, the
Liszt
transcription of
Beethoven
Symphony No. 3 in E flat major, Op. 55 ("Eroica")
, and it is well worth the exposure it receives from
Wee
here. It is almost wrong to call it a transcription or arrangement; really, it has elements of a fantasy on the original work.
Alkan
adds passagework of perilous difficulty and, for good measure, adds a Prestissimo tempo indication to the finale in place of
's original Allegro assai.
negotiates the resulting complexities with precision. His work also stands out in the
"Eroica"
Scherzo, where
's condensation of the orchestral textures into solo piano writing leads to some tricky rhythmically disjunct octaves. Sample this movement for an idea of what the underrated
can do. The entire album, one of the chart "hits" of the 2022 holiday season, shows absolute mastery in music that, although popular in its time, is not terribly common nowadays. ~ James Manheim