Charles-Valentin Alkan (30 November 1813 – 29 March 1888) was a
FrenchFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
composerA composer is a person who creates music, usually by musical notation, for interpretation and performance. The level of distinction between composers and other musicians varies, which affects issues such as copyright and the deference given to individual interpretations of a particular piece of...
and one of the greatest
virtuosoA virtuoso is an individual who possesses outstanding technical ability at singing or playing a musical instrument. The plural form is either virtuosi or the Anglicisation, virtuosos, and the feminine form sometimes used is virtuosa...
pianistA pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers....
s of his day. His attachment to his Jewish origins is displayed both in his life and his work. He entered the Paris Conservatoire at the age of six, earning many awards, and as an adult became a famous virtuoso and teacher. Although early in his life he was socially active and good friends with prominent musicians and artists including
Eugène DelacroixFerdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school...
,
Franz LisztFranz Liszt was a Hungarian composer, virtuoso pianist and teacher....
and
Frédéric ChopinFrédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He was one of the great masters of Romantic music....
, he gradually withdrew from the concert platform after 1848, and he lived a reclusive life in Paris until his death.
Life and career
Alkan was born Charles-Valentin Morhange on 30 November 1813 in
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, rue des Blancs-Manteaux, to Alkan Morhange (1780–1855) and Julie Morhange
néeNEE, Nee, Née may refer to:* Née or Nee, French for "born", indicates a person's birth surname* Nee , a band in Kannada* NEE, a political party in Flanders, Belgium* "Ne~e?", a 2003 single by Aya Matsuura- People with the family name :...
Abraham. He was the second of six children, one elder sister and four younger brothers, and his father supported the family as the proprietor of a private music school in
Le MaraisLe Marais is a district in Paris, France, traditionally a bourgeois area, but also well-known historically.It spreads across parts of the 3rd and 4th arrondissements in Paris .-History:...
, the Jewish quarter of Paris. At an early age, he and his siblings adopted their father's first name as their last (and were known by this during their studies at the Paris Conservatoire and subsequent careers). His brother Napoléon became professor of
solfègeIn music, solfège is a pedagogical solmization technique for the teaching of sight-singing in which each note of the score is sung to a special syllable, called a solfège syllable...
at the Conservatoire, his brother Maxim had a career writing light music for Parisan theatres, and his sister Céleste was also a pianist.
Charles-Valentin Alkan spent his life in and around Paris. His only known excursions were a concert tour in England in 1833-1834, and a brief visit to
MetzMetz is a city in the northeast of France, capital of the Lorraine region and prefecture of the Moselle department. It is located at the confluence of the Moselle and the Seille rivers....
on family matters in the 1840s.
Alkan was a child prodigy. He entered the Paris Conservatoire at the age of six, where he studied both piano and organ. He was a favorite of his teacher,
Joseph ZimmermannPierre-Joseph-Guillaume Zimmermann, , known as Pierre Zimmerman and Joseph Zimmermann, was a French pianist, composer, and music teacher.Zimmermann was born in Paris, the son of a piano maker...
, who also taught
Georges BizetGeorges Bizet was a French composer and pianist of the Romantic era. He is best known for the opera Carmen.-Biography:Bizet was born at 26 rue de la Tour d'Auvergne in the 9th arrondissement of Paris in 1838...
,
César FranckCésar Franck , a Belgian composer, organist and music teacher who lived in France, was one of the great figures in Romantic music in the second half of the 19th century.- Biography :...
,
Charles GounodCharles-François Gounod was a French composer, best known for his Ave Maria as well as his operas Faust and Roméo et Juliette.-Biography:...
, and
Ambroise Thomas Ambroise Thomas was a French opera composer, best-known for his operas Mignon and Hamlet and as Director of the Conservatoire de Paris from 1871-1896....
. At the age of seven, he won a first prize for
solfègeIn music, solfège is a pedagogical solmization technique for the teaching of sight-singing in which each note of the score is sung to a special syllable, called a solfège syllable...
and prizes in piano,
harmonyIn music, harmony is the use of simultaneous pitches, or chords. The study of harmony involves chords and their construction and chord progressions and the principles of connection that govern them. Harmony is often said to refer to the "vertical" aspect of music, as distinguished from melodic...
, and
organThe organ is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet...
, and
Luigi CherubiniLuigi Cherubini was an Italian-born composer who spent most of his working life in France. His most significant compositions are operas and sacred music. Beethoven regarded Cherubini as the greatest of his contemporaries.-Biography:Cherubini was born Maria Luigi Carlo Zenobio Salvatore Cherubini...
, director of the Conservatoire, described his technique and ability as extraordinary. At the age of seven-and-a-half he gave his first public performance, appearing as a violinist; his first public performance as a pianist took place at the age of twelve when he performed several of his own compositions in a concert in a private home. His
opusOpus , from the Latin word opus meaning "work", is usually used in the sense of "a work of art".The Latin plural of opus, "opera", is used to refer to the genre of music drama Opus (plural opera or opuses), from the Latin word opus meaning "work", is usually used in the sense of "a work of art".The...
1 dates from 1828, when he was 14 years old.
In his twenties, he taught and played concerts in elegant social circles, and was a friend of
Franz LisztFranz Liszt was a Hungarian composer, virtuoso pianist and teacher....
,
George SandAmantine Aurore Lucile Dupin, later Baroness Dudevant , best known by her pseudonym George Sand , was a French novelist. She is considered by some a feminist although she refused to join this movement...
,
Victor HugoVictor-Marie Hugo was a French poet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France....
and, later,
Anton RubinsteinAnton Grigorevich Rubinstein was a Russian pianist, composer and conductor. As a pianist he was regarded as a rival of Franz Liszt, and he ranks amongst the great keyboard virtuosos...
. By 1838, at just 25 years old, Alkan had reached the peak of his career. He often performed with Chopin, and was famed as a virtuoso rivaling Liszt,
Sigismond ThalbergSigismond Thalberg was a composer and one of the most distinguished virtuoso pianists of the 19th century.- Descent and family background :...
, and
Friedrich KalkbrennerFriedrich Wilhelm Kalkbrenner was a German pianist and composer.Son of Christian Kalkbrenner , a musician of Cassel, Friedrich was educated at the Paris Conservatoire, and soon began to play in public...
. Liszt once stated that Alkan had the finest piano technique of anyone he knew. At this time, (which coincides with the birth and childhood of his presumed son,
Élie-Miriam DelabordeEraïm-Miriam Delaborde, generally known as Élie-Miriam Delaborde was a French pianist and composer. He was also renowned as a player of the pedal piano....
), he withdrew into private study and composition for six years, returning to the concert platform in 1844. In the 1840s, he lived next to
Frédéric ChopinFrédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He was one of the great masters of Romantic music....
, and after Chopin died in 1849, many of his students transferred to Alkan.
In 1848 he faced a major disappointment when he was passed over for the position of head of the piano department in the Conservatoire upon Zimmermann's retirement; Alkan expected, and lobbied strongly for, the appointment, but
Daniel AuberDaniel François Esprit Auber was a French composer.-Biography:The son of a Paris print-seller, Auber was born in Caen in Normandy. Though his father expected him to continue in the print-selling business, he also allowed his son to learn how to play several musical instruments...
, the head of the Conservatoire, replaced Zimmermann with
Antoine MarmontelAntoine François Marmontel was a French pianist, teacher and musicographer.Marmontel entered the Paris Conservatory in 1827. His teachers were Pierre Zimmerman in pianoforte, Victor Dourlen in harmony, Jacques Fromental Halévy in fugue and Jean-François Le Sueur in composition...
, a pupil of Alkan. Deep disappointment arising from this incident may account for his reluctance to perform in public thereafter.. He was appointed organist at the
Paris TempleA synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer....
in 1851, but resigned the post almost immediately, and apart from two concerts given in 1853, he withdrew, in spite of his early fame and technical accomplishment, into virtual seclusion for some twenty-five years.
In a letter to
Ferdinand HillerFerdinand Hiller was a German composer, conductor, writer and music-director.-Biography:Ferdinand Hiller was born to a wealthy Jewish family in Frankfurt am Main, where his father Justus was a merchant in English textiles – a business eventually continued by Ferdinand’s brother Joseph...
in 1861, Alkan wrote:
“I’m becoming daily more and more misanthropic and misogynous…nothing worthwhile, good or useful to do… no one to devote myself to. My situation makes me horridly sad and wretched. Even musical production has lost its attraction for me for I can’t see the point or goal”.
Despite this, Alkan had a circle of friends and continued to compose and publish. The German-Scottish musical academic Friedrich Niecks, several days later after being sternly denied access by Alkan's concierge, found Alkan at Erard's. Niecks describes the meeting, saying, "the reception of me was not merely polite but most friendly."
Jack GibbonsJack Gibbons is an English classical pianist and composer. He performs music from a wide repertoire, but has especially championed the music of Frédéric Chopin, Charles-Valentin Alkan and George Gershwin....
writes of Alkan's personality:
Alkan was an intelligent, lively, humorous and warm person (all characteristics which feature strongly in his music) whose only crime seems to have been having a vivid imagination, and whose occasional eccentricities (mild when compared with the behaviour of other 'highly-strung' artistes!) stemmed mainly from his hypersensitive nature.
In his last decade Alkan emerged to give a series of 'Petits Concerts' at the
ÉrardSébastien Érard , born Sébastien Erhard, was a French instrument maker of German origin who specialised in the production of pianos and harps, developing the capacities of both instruments and pioneering the modern piano....
piano showrooms, which featured music not only by himself but of his favourite composers from
BachJohann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and organist whose ecclesiastical and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
onwards. He was occasionally assisted in these concerts by his siblings. Those attending included
Vincent d'IndyPaul Marie Théodore Vincent d'Indy was a French composer and teacher.-Life:D'Indy was born in Paris into an aristocratic family of royalist and Catholic persuasion. He had piano lessons from an early age but, to please his family, studied law. However, he decided to be a musician...
.
There are periods of Alkan's life about which little is known, other than that he was immersed in the study of the
BibleThe Bible contains the central religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. Modern Judaism generally recognizes a single set of canonical books known as the Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible, as it is written almost entirely in the Hebrew language, with some small portions in Aramaic...
and the
TalmudThe Talmud is a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, customs, and history. It is a central text of mainstream Judaism....
. It appears from his correspondence with
Ferdinand HillerFerdinand Hiller was a German composer, conductor, writer and music-director.-Biography:Ferdinand Hiller was born to a wealthy Jewish family in Frankfurt am Main, where his father Justus was a merchant in English textiles – a business eventually continued by Ferdinand’s brother Joseph...
that Alkan completed a full translation into French of both the
Old TestamentIn Christianity, the Old Testament is the collection of books that form the first of the two-part Christian Biblical canon. These works correspond to the Hebrew Bible , with some variations and additions. In the Eastern Orthodox Church the comparable texts are known as the Septuagint, from the...
and the
New TestamentThe New Testament is the name given to the second major division of the Christian Bible, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament, both terms being associated with Supersessionism...
, from their original languages. This has been completely lost, as have many of Alkan's compositions. Amongst the missing works are some string
sextetA sextet is a formation containing exactly six members. It is commonly associated with vocal or musical instrument groups, but can be applied to any situation where six similar or related objects are considered a single unit....
s and a full-scale orchestral
symphonyA symphony is an extended musical composition, scored almost always for orchestra. "Symphony" does not necessarily imply a specific form though most are composed according to the sonata principle...
, which was described in an article in 1846 by Léon Kreutzer, to whom Alkan had shown the score.
Delaborde
Alkan did not marry, but the pianist
Élie-Miriam DelabordeEraïm-Miriam Delaborde, generally known as Élie-Miriam Delaborde was a French pianist and composer. He was also renowned as a player of the pedal piano....
(1839–1913) is generally believed to have been Alkan's son. Some have sought significance in the fact that Delaborde was the maiden name of the mother of Alkan's friend (and sometime lover of
Frédéric ChopinFrédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He was one of the great masters of Romantic music....
)
George SandAmantine Aurore Lucile Dupin, later Baroness Dudevant , best known by her pseudonym George Sand , was a French novelist. She is considered by some a feminist although she refused to join this movement...
. Delaborde was taught by Alkan in his youth and performed and edited many of Alkan's works. Like his father, he was a notable
pédalierThe pedal piano is a kind of piano that includes a pedalboard, enabling bass register notes to be played with the feet, as is standard on the organ....
player. After
Georges BizetGeorges Bizet was a French composer and pianist of the Romantic era. He is best known for the opera Carmen.-Biography:Bizet was born at 26 rue de la Tour d'Auvergne in the 9th arrondissement of Paris in 1838...
's death, his widow Geneviève (daughter of the composer
Fromental HalévyJacques-François-Fromental-Élie Halévy was a French composer. He is known today largely for his opera La Juive.-Early career:...
) had an alliance with Delaborde; indeed there exists the application for registration of a marriage between them, which was never carried out. Interestingly Delaborde, who was a passionate athlete, may have been indirectly responsible for Bizet's death, which followed a swimming competition between the two, as a result of which Bizet caught a chill. Delaborde married late in life, and is not known to have had any children.
Death
Alkan died in Paris on 29 March 1888, at the age of 74. For many years it was believed that his death was caused by a bookcase falling on him in his home, brought down as he reached for a volume of the
TalmudThe Talmud is a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, customs, and history. It is a central text of mainstream Judaism....
from a high shelf. This apocryphal tale, which appears to have been circulated by Delaborde, has been effectively disproved by Hugh Macdonald, who reports the discovery of a contemporary letter by his concièrge explaining that Alkan had been found prostrate in his kitchen, under a
porte-parapluie (a heavy coat/umbrella rack), after his concièrge heard him moaning. He had possibly fainted, bringing it down on himself while grabbing out for support. He was carried to his bedroom, and died that evening. The story of the bookcase may have its roots in a legend told of the
RabbiRabbi is the term in Judaism for a religious teacher. The word rabbi derives from the Hebrew root word , rav, which in biblical Hebrew means ‘great’ in many senses, including "revered." The word comes from the Semitic root R-B-B, and is cognate to Arabic ربّ rabb, meaning "lord" Rabbi ' onMouseout='HidePop("44327")' href="http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Aryeh_Leib_ben_Asher_Gunzberg">Aryeh Leib ben Asher
Rabbi Aryeh Leib ben Asher Gunzberg was born in Lithuania, c. 1695, and died at Metz, France June 23, 1785...
, known as 'Shaagat Aryeh', rabbi of
MetzMetz is a city in the northeast of France, capital of the Lorraine region and prefecture of the Moselle department. It is located at the confluence of the Moselle and the Seille rivers....
, the town from which Alkan's family originated. Alkan was buried on 1 April (
Easter SundayEaster is the most important annual religious feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to Christian scripture, Jesus was resurrected from the dead on the third day from his crucifixion...
) in the Jewish section of
Montmartre CemeteryMontmartre Cemetery is a famous cemetery located at 37 Avenue Samson, in the 18
th arrondissement of Paris, France....
, Paris, not far from the tomb of his contemporary
Fromental HalévyJacques-François-Fromental-Élie Halévy was a French composer. He is known today largely for his opera La Juive.-Early career:...
.
A myth also circulates about an alleged obituary of Alkan, cited as fact in
Ronald SmithRonald Bertram Smith was an English classical pianist, composer and teacher, born in London. He entered the Royal Academy of Music at the age of 16 with the Sir Michael Costa Scholarship for composition, after leaving the academy he studied privately in Paris with Marguerite Long, while also...
's biography of the composer and since widely quoted, credited to the magazine 'Le Ménéstrel', beginning with the words "Alkan is dead. He had to die in order to prove his existence." No such obituary appeared in 'Le Ménéstrel' and none has been located to date in any other contemporary journal.
Alkan's sister Céleste is also buried in his tomb at Montmartre.
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. This is exemplified by his more sensitive pieces, (e.g. his Op. 22
Nocturne in B and several of his
Esquisses). The composer
Vincent d'IndyPaul Marie Théodore Vincent d'Indy was a French composer and teacher.-Life:D'Indy was born in Paris into an aristocratic family of royalist and Catholic persuasion. He had piano lessons from an early age but, to please his family, studied law. However, he decided to be a musician...
, recalling Alkan at his mid-sixties with "skinny, hooked fingers" in an empty room with an Erard pedalier playing Bach, said:
"I listened, rooted to the spot by the expressive, crystal clear playing."
Alkan later played Beethoven's
Op. 110 sonataThe Piano Sonata No. 31 in A flat major, Op. 110, by Ludwig van Beethoven was composed in 1821. It is the central piano sonata in the group of three opp. 109–111 which he wrote between 1820 and 1822, and the thirty-first of his published piano sonatas....
, of which d'Indy said:
"What happened to the great Beethovenian poem—above all, the Arioso and the Fugue, where the melody, penetrating the mystery of Death itself, climbs up to a blaze of light—I couldn't begin to describe. [The performance] affected me with enthusiasm such as I have never experienced since. This was not Liszt—less perfect technically—but it had greater intimacy and was more humanly moving..."
Another account of his playing, this one 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."
Music
Like Chopin, Alkan wrote almost exclusively for the keyboard, although in Alkan's case this included the organ and the
pédalierThe pedal piano is a kind of piano that includes a pedalboard, enabling bass register notes to be played with the feet, as is standard on the organ....
(a piano with a pedal board), of which he was a noted exponent. Some of his music requires a dazzling virtuosity, calling for extreme velocity, enormous leaps at speed, long stretches of fast repeated notes, and the maintenance of widely-spaced
contrapuntalIn music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more voices that are independent in contour and rhythm and are harmonically interdependent. It has been most commonly identified in Western music, developing strongly during the Renaissance and in much of the common practice period,...
lines. His music has been reviewed as "ferociously" and even "impossibly" difficult to play.
Notable compositions include the
Grande sonate Les quatre âgesGrande sonate: 'Les quatre âges is a four movement sonata for piano by Charles-Valentin Alkan. The sonata's title refers to the subtitles given to each movement, portraying a man at the ages of 20, 30, 40, and 50...
(Op. 33), depicting the Four Ages of Man, and the two sets of
etudeAn étude , is an instrumental musical composition, most commonly of considerable difficulty, usually designed to provide practice material for perfecting a particular technical skill. The tradition of writing etudes emerged in the early 19th century with the rapidly growing popularity of the piano...
s in all the major and minor keys (Op. 35 and 39, respectively). These are held by some to surpass even the
Transcendental EtudesThe Transcendental Etudes , S.139, are a series of twelve compositions written for solo piano by Franz Liszt in 1852. They are revisions and simplifications of a set of pieces published in 1837 called Douze Grandes Etudes...
of Liszt in scale and difficulty. The opus 39 collection contains the
Symphony for Solo Piano (numbers four, five, six and seven), and the
Concerto for Solo PianoConcerto for solo piano is a 3 movement solo piano piece written by Charles-Valentin Alkan. The pieces are part of a 12 piece cycle of etudes called "Douze etudes dans tous les tons mineurs"...
(numbers eight, nine and ten).
The Concerto of Op. 39 alone takes nearly an hour to play, and presents a great challenge to the performer.
Marc-André HamelinMarc-André Hamelin, OC, CQ, is a French Canadian pianist and composer.Born in Montreal, Quebec, Marc-André Hamelin began his piano studies at the age of five and was nine years old when he won the top prize in a Canadian music competition...
said of Alkan's music:
"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 to play... But the great musical worth of Alkan's music makes it worthwhile to master those difficulties, even though it would take a lot of time."
Number twelve of Op. 39 is a set of variations
Le festin d'Ésope ("
AesopAesop , known only for the genre of fables ascribed to him, was by tradition a slave who was a contemporary of Croesus and Peisistratus in the mid-sixth century BC in ancient Greece.-Fables:The various collections that go under the rubric "Aesop's Fables" are still taught as moral...
's Feast"). Alkan also composed other programmatic pieces, such as
Le chemin de ferLe chemin de fer , Op. 27, is a programmatic étude for piano composed by Charles-Valentin Alkan in 1844,, frequently cited as the first musical representation of a railway...
("The Railroad", Op. 27) which may be the earliest composition giving a musical picture of a steam train.
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 funèbre, sulla morte d'un Pappagallo ("
Funeral marchA funeral march is a march, usually in a minor key, in a slow "simple duple" metre, imitating the solemn pace of a funeral procession. Some such marches are often considered appropriate for use during funerals and other sombre occasions...
on the death of a
parrotParrots, also known as psittacines , are birds of the roughly 372 species in 86 genera that make up the order Psittaciformes, found in most warm and tropical regions. The order is subdivded in three families: the Psittacidae , the Cacatuidae and the Nestoridae...
", 1859), for three
oboeThe oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois", "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...
s,
bassoonThe bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 1800s, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band, and chamber music literature...
and voices.
Musically, many of his ideas were unconventional, even innovative. Some of his multi-movement compositions show "progressive tonality" which would have been familiar to the later
DanishDenmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe and the senior member of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries; southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and it is bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark borders both the Baltic and the North Sea...
composer,
Carl NielsenCarl August Nielsen was a composer, conductor, and violinist from Denmark. His works have long been well known in Denmark and they have been "a mainstay throughout the Nordic countries and, to a lesser extent, in Britain," noted the critic Alex Ross in 2008 in The New Yorker, and rising young...
(for example, Alkan's first chamber concerto begins in A minor and ends in E major). He was rigorous in avoiding
enharmonicIn modern music and notation, an enharmonic equivalent is a note , interval , or key signature which is equivalent to some other note, interval, or key signature, but "spelled", or named, differently...
spelling, occasionally modulating to keys containing double-sharps or double-flats, so pianists are occasionally required to come to terms with distant keys such as E major and the occasional triple-sharp.
Influence
Alkan seems to have had few followers, although his admirers included
Ferruccio BusoniFerruccio Dante Michelangiolo Benvenuto Busoni was an Italian composer, pianist, editor, writer, piano and composition teacher, and conductor.-Biography:...
and
Anton RubinsteinAnton Grigorevich Rubinstein was a Russian pianist, composer and conductor. As a pianist he was regarded as a rival of Franz Liszt, and he ranks amongst the great keyboard virtuosos...
. The latter dedicated a concerto to him. The claim that
Ernest FanelliErnest Fanelli was a French composer of Italian descent who is best known for sparking a controversy about the origins of Impressionist music when his composition Tableaux Symphoniques was first performed in 1912...
was Alkan's pupil at the Conservatoire is mistaken, as Fanelli came to the Conservatoire in 1876, long after Alkan had left it.
Debussy and Ravel both studied Alkan's music under teachers who knew Alkan personally and noted their debt to his examples. Alkan's organ compositions were known to
César FranckCésar Franck , a Belgian composer, organist and music teacher who lived in France, was one of the great figures in Romantic music in the second half of the 19th century.- Biography :...
,
Camille Saint-SaënsCharles-Camille Saint-Saëns was a French composer, organist, conductor, and pianist, known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse Macabre, Samson and Delilah, Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo capriccioso, and his Symphony No...
and others and their influence can be traced in the French organ school up to the present day. They have only recently been recorded, however; the English organist
Kevin BowyerKevin John Bowyer is a English organist, known for his prolific recording and recital career and his interest in playing unusual, modern and extremely difficult compositions.-Biography:...
is committing all of them to disc for the British label Toccata Classics. The composer
Kaikhosru Shapurji SorabjiKaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji was a British composer of Parsi origin. He was a music journalist and pianist....
promoted Alkan's music in his reviews and criticism, and his sixth and final symphony for piano solo, completed in 1976, includes a movement entitled
Quasi Alkan.
For much of the 20th century, Alkan's work seemed forgotten. There has been a steady revival of interest in his compositions over the course of the twentieth century. Works by Alkan have been recorded by
John OgdonJohn Andrew Howard Ogdon was an English pianist and composer.Ogdon was born in Mansfield Woodhouse, Nottinghamshire, and attended Manchester Grammar School, before studying at the Royal Northern College of Music between 1953 and 1957, where his fellow students included Harrison Birtwistle,...
,
Raymond LewenthalRaymond Lewenthal was an American pianist.Lewenthal was born in San Antonio, Texas to Russian-French parents. His birth date is often given as 1926, but he was actually born three years earlier in 1923 . The false birth year was probably an attempt to assist his career as a child actor...
,
Ronald SmithRonald Bertram Smith was an English classical pianist, composer and teacher, born in London. He entered the Royal Academy of Music at the age of 16 with the Sir Michael Costa Scholarship for composition, after leaving the academy he studied privately in Paris with Marguerite Long, while also...
,
Jack GibbonsJack Gibbons is an English classical pianist and composer. He performs music from a wide repertoire, but has especially championed the music of Frédéric Chopin, Charles-Valentin Alkan and George Gershwin....
,
Mark LatimerMark Latimer is an English pianist.His repertoire consists of over 75 performed piano concertos, including the mammoth Concerto for Piano and Chorus by Busoni and the Alkan Concerto for solo piano, of which he made the first live recording...
,
Stephanie McCallumStephanie McCallum is a classical pianist. She has recorded works of Erik Satie, Charles-Valentin Alkan, Franz Liszt, Carl Maria von Weber, Albéric Magnard, Pierre Boulez, and Iannis Xenakis among others.-Life:...
, Alan Weiss,
Steven OsborneSteven Osborne is a Scottish pianist.He was taught by Richard Beauchamp at St Mary's Music School in Edinburgh before going to the Royal Northern College of Music/Manchester University in Manchester to study under Renna Kellaway...
and
Marc-André HamelinMarc-André Hamelin, OC, CQ, is a French Canadian pianist and composer.Born in Montreal, Quebec, Marc-André Hamelin began his piano studies at the age of five and was nine years old when he won the top prize in a Canadian music competition...
, amongst others.
Ronald StevensonRonald Stevenson is a British composer, pianist, and writer about music.-Biography:The son of a Scottish father and English mother, Stevenson studied at the Royal Manchester College of Music , studying composition with Richard Hall and piano with Iso Ellinson, graduating with...
has composed a piano piece
Le festin d'Alkan (referring to Alkan's Op. 39 No. 12) and the composer
Michael Finnissy-Biography:Finnissy was born in Tulse Hill, London. He was a foundation scholar at the Royal College of Music from 1965-68, where he studied composition with Bernard Stevens and the Webern disciple Humphrey Searle, and piano with Edwin Benbow....
has also written piano pieces referring to Alkan, e.g.
Alkan-Paganini, no.5 of
The History of Photography in Sound. Marc-André Hamelin's
Étude no. IV is a
moto perpetuoThe term perpetual motion, taken literally, refers to movement that goes on forever. However, the term more commonly refers to any device or system that perpetually produces more energy than it consumes, resulting in a net output of energy for indefinite time...
study combining themes from Alkan's Symphony Op. 39 No. 7 and Alkan's own perpetual motion etude Op. 76 No. 3. It is dedicated to Averil Kovacs and François Luguenot, respectively activists in the English and French Alkan Societies. As Hamelin writes in his preface to this étude, the idea to combine these came from the composer Alistair Hinton, the finale of whose Piano Sonata No. 5 (1994-95) includes a substantial section entitled "Alkanique".
On 25 April 2009, BBC Radio 3 dedicated a 45 minute program to Alkan, presented by
Piers LanePiers Lane is an Australian classical pianist. He has a flourishing international career, which has taken him to over forty countries. His concerto repertoire exceeds 75 works....
and with contributions by
John WhiteJohn White is an English composer and musical performer.-Life:White trained and taught at the London Royal College of Music...
and David Conway.
Sources
- The Concise Edition of Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, 8th ed. Revised by Nicolas Slonimsky
Nicolas Slonimsky was a Russian born American composer, conductor, musician, music critic, lexicographer and author. He described himself as a "diaskeuast"; a reviser or interpolator.- Life :...
. New York, Schirmer Books, 1993. ISBN 0-02-872416-X
About Alkan
Scores and sheet-music
Performances on the Web
- Alkan's Allegro Barbaro (Etudes dans les tons majeurs, Op. 35. No. 5), played by Jack Gibbons
Jack Gibbons is an English classical pianist and composer. He performs music from a wide repertoire, but has especially championed the music of Frédéric Chopin, Charles-Valentin Alkan and George Gershwin....
- Menuet from Alkan's Symphonie op. 39 no. 6, played by Jonathan Powell
Jonathan Powell is a British pianist and composer. He specializes in playing avant garde and Russian Romantic music.He was educated at King's College, Cambridge, and was a student of Denis Matthews and Sulamita Aronovsky...
.
- Last movement of Alkan's Symphonie (op. 39 no. 7), played by Jonathan Powell