SKU: BO.B.3647

Al Valles, for oboe and piano, is a work that has two distinct characteristics-it is a concert work but was composed as a work for a final examination piece. The work is dedicated to Vicent Montalt, who performed it for his final examination at the Mozarteum in Saltzburg, 2012.

Al Valles begins with a Paganini-like cadenza for the oboe which introduces the main feature of the work- the alternation of legato with spiccato which is at times rapid and at other times lento. The cadenza is followed by an Allegro which begins with decisiveness by the piano. The two instruments establish a game of brief and very specific rhythmic figures with rapid chromatic descents, which in the piano are in octaves. A tranquil and mysterious passage ends with a sudden fortissimo. The oboe plays another cadenza, reminiscent of the first one, which is followed by a return of the Allegro. However, this time the music stops on a trill on F # in the high register of the oboe. The work concludes with a rapid coda which begins brilliantly in the piano with chromatic descending octaves.