The Art of Transcription

Chronique

Intention and execution don't quite match up on this disc of transcriptions by Finnish pianist Risto-Matti Marin, but the results are entertaining all the same. Marin offers up a set of his own rather term-paper-like booklet notes, complete with introduction, history, and conclusion, in which he discusses the nature and aims of transcriptions for piano through the ages. He talks a good deal about Busoni, who curiously does not appear on this disc at all. Once you get to the music, though, delights await. Inasmuch as most people who've sat down at the piano have played music by Carl Czerny in the form of exercises, his other music is rarely heard, and the opening Fantaisie brillante sur divers motifs de Figaro, Op. 493, is a pleasure to find, not a mere potpourri but a surprisingly (in view of its stratospheric opus number) intricate tapestry of Mozartian melodies. Sigismund Thalberg's Lacrymosa from the Mozart Requiem for chorus and orchestra, K. 626, is a great four-minute introduction to the way the Romantics heard Mozart. The program keeps things lively with music from various periods, from Vivaldi as heard by Bach to modern times. Beethoven's own transcription of his ballet The Creatures of Prometheus, generously excerpted, really comes out sounding like one of his keyboard works and offers a wealth of potential insights into the role of the piano in his compositional process. The transcription of Yuki, a choral work by Canadian-Finnish composer Matthew Whittall, is fascinating: transcriber Alex Freeman calls for unusual preparation techniques toward the end of the work, seemingly pointing toward the limits of the transcription technique. The Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody No. 19, for which Marin borrows bits of several existing transcriptions (the predominant one is that of Vladimir Horowitz) makes a satisfying finale: it is a well-established piano showpiece, but in its status as a transcription of a transcription it fits in with the disc's more abstract aims as well. Marin takes everything nineteenth century pianism can throw at him technically, and the end result is a performance that's stimulating on every level.
© TiVo