Valentin Alkan

Alkan was counted in Busoni's pantheon of five romantics alongside Chopin, Schumann, Liszt and Brahms. Brahms and Schumann are the references in the euphoric Grand Duo Concertant - nothing short of a 20 or so minute Sonata in three turbulent movements. This is a work of diving romance and if Alkan had stopped in the style of the first movement then we would have been able to 'place' Alkan. Instead we get a second movement that clamours in bass heavy capering for all the world like a picture of a Black Sabbath. As if to make ‘amends’ the finale is back to the helter-skelter tumble of vivacity we find in the first movement. This euphoria carries over into the Cello Sonata which is in four classically well-tailored movements. Alkan's originality or eccentricity (take your pick) returns for the Adagio which is part sentimental and part affecting. This perhaps offers a parallel with Joseph Holbrooke's chamber works in which sublime ideas and treatment suddenly find themselves up against kitsch music hall ditties. A wild saltarello with grand manner Hungarian gestures from the piano round out the picture.

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.’

Mark Viner’s survey of the complete solo piano music of Alkan continues to turn up discoveries and reveal previously little-known or misunderstood sides of a protean figure in late French romanticism. Viner himself regards Alkan as ‘the most enigmatic figure in the history of music as a whole’.

Alkan's gargatuan Op. 39 Etudes embody a symphony (Etudes 4-7), a solo concertos (Etudes 8-10), an overture (No. 11), and a riotous set of 25 variations depicting the animals of Aesop's fables (No. 12, La festin d'Esope). The music demands boundless technique and stamina, which Jack Gibbons supplies in spades. He dives headfirst into the treacherous writing, letting the chips fall where they may. One can't really top Marc-Andre Hamelin's unflappable proficiency in the concertos, yet Gibbons rougher, leonine demeanor thrusts Alkan's Dionysiac qualities more to the fore.

Alkan’s chamber music deserves much more attention: It’s a crime that terrific works like his Sonate de concert for cello and piano have almost no chance to be heard. Naxos once again has raided the Marco Polo archives and resurrected this 1991 recording. There isn’t much competition available anymore, and only the 1992 Timpani recording has the same three works together in worthwhile performances. These pieces are all excellent chamber music, not to mention very difficult to play, and the Trio Alkan certainly is up to the challenge. These performers obviously appreciate the music in a way that brings out Alkan’s lyrical and whimsical qualities, which often are overlooked (or overpowered) in his piano works.

Charles-Valentin Alkan (November 30, 1813 - March 29, 1888), and his four brothers, all musicians, adopted their father's first name as their surname. Alkan Morhange (1780-1855) was the proprietor of a music school in Paris, and he early recognized among the musical talents of his sons the singular ones of young Charles-Valentin. Consequently, at the age of five Alkan was enrolled in the Paris Conservatory of Music, the breeding ground of many outstanding musicians and composers in the Nineteenth Century. Alkan studied composition and piano, making his debut at 12 years of age performing his own compositions as well as those of others. He seemed a star ascendant. Before he was 20 he embarked on the first of two trips abroad (the second two years later), the only times he was ever to leave Paris in his lifetime.

This is Marc-André Hamelin's second recording of the Alkan Concerto for Solo Piano (the first for Music & Arts dates from 1992) and he now trumps his previous ace with a performance of the Concerto of such brilliance and lucidity that one can only listen in awe and amazement.

In 1837 Alkan published a series of twelve pieces, Trois études de bravoure or Improvisations, Op. 12, Trois andantes romantiques, Op. 13, Trois morceaux dans le genre pathétique, Op. 15 and Trois études de bravoure (Scherzi), Op.16. These twelve piano pieces were issued in four volumes under the general title Douze Caprices. The studies that form the first volume had the earlier title Improvisations dans le style brillant, aptly descriptive. The first of the three, with its leaping octaves and sudden modulations, opens the door to a new world, technically and musically. It is followed by a D flat major Allegretto, initially a gentle contrast, although it increases in intensity, before the wistful ending over a sustained pedal-point.

The 25 Preludes in all major and minor keys, Opus 31, appeared in 1847, designed for piano or organ, or, no doubt, for the instrument that Alkan particularly favoured, the pédalier or pianoforte with pedal-board, for which Schumann and Gounod, among others, also wrote. The Preludes go through all 24 keys, returning to a final Prayer in the affirmative original key of C major. The first set of nine opens meditatively and proceeds in a sequence of keys that moves alternately up a fourth and down a third, to F minor in the second and to D-flat major in the third, Dans le genre ancien, the old style in question being nothing more ancient than Bach, heard through the ears of Mendelssohn. Jewish tradition is at the root of the Prière du soir (“Evening Prayer”), the rejoicing of Psalm 150 and the Cantor’s chant of the Sixth Prelude.

The coupling of works by Alkan and Henselt is not as arbitrary as might appear. Born six months apart, both enjoyed long lives and died within eighteen months of each other; both have been entirely overshadowed by their more illustrious contemporaries Liszt and Chopin (to the extent that they have been assigned to the footnotes of musical history), though both had an individual approach to the piano with a style as clearly defined and as idiosyncratic as their two peers; both were recluses, rarely playing their works in public; both were transcendent technicians, exploring the potential of their instrument in ways which were to influence other pianists and composers of piano music; both were eccentrics in their personal habits and lifestyles; both have been almost universally ignored by the majority of concert pianists; and neither of their names is known to the general music-loving public.