This disc needs no recommendation for readers familiar with Marc-Andre Hamelin's previous recordings (Hyperion's recent Henselt/Alkan issue, 8/94, or Hamelin's recording of Alkan's Concerto for solo piano on the Music & Arts label, 8/93) or those who attended the Wigmore Hall concerts at which these performances were recorded. Others, less familiar with Hamelin's playing, may well be put off by the solo transcriptions on the first half of this disc. To that I would say most emphatically—don't be! These are not intended as substitutes for the real thing, at least not in the context of this disc, but are presented here as supreme examples of the art of piano transcription in the late nineteenth century. In addition, they are superb display pieces, revealing not only the subtleties of the transcriber's art and, in this case, the pianist's ability to render them audible, but also Hamelin's extraordinary ability to make the pieces sound like originals rather than transcriptions. Indeed, in the Alkan transcription of the first movement of Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto, the absence of the orchestra never became a concern for me; more importantly, however, I was left with a satisfying sense of symphonic structure in Hamelin's titanic performance. Titanic, too, is the only word for Alkan's cadenza which flies in the face of today's less ostentatious climate with its cataclysmic climax juxtaposing the concerto's opening subject with material from the finale of the Fifth Symphony.
The principal glory of the disc for me, however, is Hamelin's account of Alkan's Etudes, Op. 76, for the hands separately and reunited—an exceptionally formidable opus (one that Ronald Smith claims ''alone establish[es] Alkan as the rival, if not indeed the peer, of Liszt as the joint architect of transcendental piano technique'') which here receives an equally formidable and awe-inspiring performance that is certainly the equal of Smith's own 1987 recording (EMI, 11/88—nla). The absence of Smith's recording from the catalogue makes my task somewhat easier when it comes to choosing between the two, for although I would certainly hate to be without Smith's classic account, Hamelin's reading is just that little bit extra special. Like Smith's, Hamelin's account is authoritative and magisterial in stature, but we also have the added frisson of knowing that what we hear is a single take before a live audience; listen to the hair-raising final study, a blistering, unbroken five-minute salvo of prestissimo semi-quavers—Hamelin's precision is truly phenomenal! Duration buffs may like to note that Hamelin shaves no less than seven minutes off Smith's timing of the second study.
The remaining items on the disc, a scintillating account of Busoni's Sonatina No. 6 and Medtner's ebullient Danza festiva from Op. 38, provide further evidence that Hamelin is a considerable presence in the pianistic world at the moment, and one which I foresee remaining so for a very long time to come. The recorded sound varies a little from piece to piece (they were recorded over three evenings) but all are excellent in quality and have a natural, intimate ambience. A disc I cannot recommend too highly—buy it!'