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Music

Compositions

See also: List of compositions by Charles-Valentin Alkan

Influences

Brigitte François-Sappey points out the frequency with which Alkan has been compared to Berlioz, both by his contemporaries and later. Hans von Bülow called him "the Berlioz of the piano"; whilst Robert Schumann, who was not impressed by the op. 15 Romances claimed that Alkan merely "imitated Berlioz on the piano." Ferruccio Busoni repeated the comparison with Berlioz in a proposed monograph, whilst Kaikhosru Sorabji commented that Alkan's op. 61 Sonatine was like "a Beethoven sonata written by Berlioz". Berlioz was 10 years older than Alkan, but did not attend the Conservatoire until 1826. Although the two were acquainted, and were perhaps both influenced by the unusual ideas and style of Anton Reicha who taught at the Conservatoire from 1818 to 1836, and by the sonorities of the composers of the period of the French Revolution, and both created idiosyncratic sound-worlds in their music, there are however major differences between them. Alkan, unlike Berlioz, remained closely dedicated to the German musical tradition; his style and composition were heavily determined by his pianism (whereas Berlioz could hardly play at the keyboard and wrote nothing for piano solo); Alkan's works therefore also include miniatures and (amongst his early works) salon music, genres which Berlioz avoided.

Like Chopin, Alkan wrote almost exclusively for the keyboard. Some of his music requires a dazzling virtuosity, clearly reflecting his own abilities, calling for extreme velocity, enormous leaps at speed, long stretches of fast repeated notes, and the maintenance of widely-spaced contrapuntal lines. Some 'trade-marks', such as a sudden explosive final chord followng a quiet passage,were established at an early stage.

His attachment to the music of his predecessors is demonstrated throughout his career, from his arrangements for keyboard of Beethvens Seventh Symphony (1838), and of the minuet of Mozart's 40th Symphony (1844), through the sets Souvenirs des concerts du Conservatoire (1847 and 1861) and the set Souvenirs de musique de chambre (1862), which include transcriptions of music by Mozart, Beethoven, JS Bach, Haydn, Gluck, and others. In this context should be mentioned Alkan's cadenza for Beethoven's 3rd Piano Concerto (1860), which audaciously incorporates a 'quote' from the finale of Beethoven's 5th Symphony. Alkan's transcriptions, together with original music of Bach, Beethoven, Handel, Felix Mendelssohn, Couperin and Rameau, were frequently played during the series of Petits Concerts given by Alkan at Erard.

Alkan's interest in Jewish music has been mentioned above. As regards the music of his own time, Alkan was unenthusiastic, or at any rate detached. He commented to Hiller that "Wagner is not a composer, he is a disease." At the Petits Concerts, little more recent than Mendelssohn was played, except for Alkan's own works and occasionally some by his favourites such as Camille Saint-Saëns.

Such examples of his music have been reviewed as "ferociously" and even "impossibly" difficult. The pianist Marc-André Hamelin has said: "The aspect of Alkan that is most apparent when people who don't know him listen to him for the first time is that his music is difficult to play... But in a way, I wish that it did not take a formidable technique ... the great musical worth of Alkan's music makes it worthwhile to master those difficulties."

Extract from 2nd movement of the Alkan's sonata Les quatre âges, showing a typically complex musical texture

Alkan's notable compositions include the Grande sonate Les quatre âges (Op. 33), depicting the Four Ages of Man, and the two sets of études in all the major and minor keys (Op. 35 and 39, respectively). The opus 39 collection contains the Symphony for Solo Piano (numbers four, five, six and seven), and the Concerto for Solo Piano (numbers eight, nine and ten). The Concerto takes nearly an hour to play. Number twelve of Op. 39 is a set of variations Le festin d'Ésope ("Aesop's Feast").

Alkan's chamber music compositions include a violin sonata, a cello sonata, and a piano trio. One of his most bizarre pieces is the Marcia funebre, sulla morte d'un Pappagallo ("Funeral march on the death of a parrot", 1859), for three oboes, bassoon and voices.

Musically, many of his ideas were unconventional, even innovative. Some of his multi-movement compositions show "progressive tonality"; for example, Alkan's sonata Les quatre âges begins in D major and ends in G-sharp minor. He was rigorous in avoiding enharmonic spelling, occasionally modulating to keys containing double-sharps or double-flats, so pianists are occasionally required to come to terms with unusual keys such as E-sharp major, enharmonic equivalent to F major, and the occasional triple-sharp.

Technique

Alkan's remarkable technique is evidenced by the technical and physical demands of his compositions; however, this technique was not at the expense of musicality, as exemplified by his more sensitive pieces (e.g. his Op. 22 Nocturne in B and several of his Esquisses). An account of his playing by a pupil of Liszt and Alkan towards the end of his life, recalls how Alkan's performance retained "an extraordinarily youthful quality despite his appearance, which was frail and older than his years."