A composition that marked the birth of the modern symphony orchestra, it was instead through the medium of the piano that Symphonie fantastique became generally known to the public when Franz Liszt a prime champion of the music of his friend, Hector Berlioz made a transcription of the work for solo keyboard. The project undertaken here by Jean-François Heisser and Marie-Josèphe Jude continues that respected tradition, but it doubles the stakes and multiplies the pleasure: the expanded sound palette offered by the two-keyboard piano constructed by Pleyel and housed at Pariss Museum of Music gives rise to unexpected colours emanating from the shared resonator box, and their fingerings (twenty fingers strong) can reproduce the minutest details of Berliozs dazzling, ground-breaking orchestral writing. The work of a master indeed!
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REVIEW:
The pianists don’t quite find their center in the first movement. Un bal, however, is light, lilting, and rhythmically pliable. Even with the greatest orchestras and conductors, Scene aux champs can sound static and uneventful, yet the Pleyel’s aforementioned timbral character comes into its own in regard to the varied tonal shadings in the long chains of tremolos. Similarly, the close counterpoint in Marche au supplice never sounds muddy, while the pianists impart an exuberant sweep to the main march theme in tandem with the rising scales.
The pianists are at their best in the finale, as they lock into the fugal writing with infectious “swing” while generating steady and galvanic momentum in the swirling woodwind sequences. Had Heisser and Jude gotten another shot at the first movement I would have been able to recommend this release without reservation.
