Paul Wee

Charles-Valentin Alkan made his name as pianist in nineteenth-century Paris and seemed poised for a glittering career. But following a series of setbacks he withdrew into a life of relative seclusion, and as he receded from the public eye, so too did his music. It was never entirely forgotten, but it was not until the 1960s and 1970s that Alkan’s works began to emerge from obscurity. To quote the liner notes by Paul Wee, ‘Alkan’s music exhibits a formidable grasp of form and structure, a strong command of melody, a high sense of drama and an unprecedented exploitation of the capabilities of the piano.’ Combined here on one disc – possibly for the first time – are the Symphony and the Concerto for Solo Piano, two pinnacles of Alkan’s legacy. Unusually, the four movements of the Symphony and the three movements of the Concerto are included as seven études within Alkan’s Douze Études dans tous les tons mineurs (Twelve studies in all the minor keys), in 1857 as his Op. 39. As to why Alkan composed these epic works and then hid them away in a set of études, Wee suggests that they are to be seen as ‘a celebration of the piano and its capabilities.’

Paul Hillier and ArsNova Copenhagen continue their exploration of Danish vocal music. The main work here, Line Tjørnhøj’sVoxReportage, was composed in close cooperation with the artists, and weaves various sources together –including 1981 Nobel laureate Elias Canetti, Chelsea Manning, and Rabi’ahal Adawiyya(8th-century Iraq) –to create a ‘reportage’ on the nature of humanity over the past thousand years. In Carl Nielsen’s Three Motets, Renaissance polyphony and the composer’s more personal style are molded into something fresh and powerful; the Swedish Romantic composer Stenhammarsets Danish texts, while Holmboesets British border ballads. Everything about this album crosses borders of one kind or another!