Here is a question, what has more measures than Beethoven's Hammerklavier Sonata, borrows themes from the Hungarian War March known as the Rakoczy and at times sounds like Chopin wrote the music?
It is the etudes 8, 9 & 10 from the Opus 39 of Charles Valentin Alkan. On the Piano this Sunday three etudes that emulate a Concerto without Orchestra for solo piano. When you factor in Alkan's devilish technique and digital demands it takes a rare combination of strength, talent and bravura to be convincing for the 50 odd minutes it takes to perform this amazing work, but pianist Ronald Smith does it and you can hear him perform the "Concerto" from the Opus 39 of Alkan on the Piano this Sunday afternoon at 5 on KPAC and KTXI.
host Randy Anderson
What a descriptive phrase! Hector Berlioz with his imagination, love of the macabre and a penchant for monster, certainly nails down an impression, but of whom? Liszt, sure, maybe Anton Rubinstein, but this was said of Charles Valentin Alkan. This little known French composer/ pianist is hard to come to grips with; he avoided people, publicity and concerts. He was a friend of Chopin, who lived in the same apartment building and after his death in 1849; it was Alkan who inherited Chopin's pupils and unfinished notes on a teaching manual by the Polish composer.
What characterizes Alkan's music is it's incongruity between an arch conservative who was also one of the wildest romantics. Imagine a cross between a teenaged Mozart and Edgar Allen Poe and you are getting into the strange space that Alkan occupies in music.
This isn't music for the faint hearted performer. I've noticed that some composer's piano music often looks unique, like the fingerprints of the artist are visible on the printed page. Chopin's music does not look like Beethoven and Schumann isn't like Bach, no matter how hard he tried. Alkan's music looks blocky like Liszt's, but it is thick, really thick. The music looks so straight forward that you think you might be able to sight read some of it and then the thickness and complexity of the chords start to intimidate you and all it takes to finish your enthusiasm, is a glance at the time signature and this is where most pianists throw up their hands. Playing music this thick, rhymically tricky and fast isn't for the average pianist.
The people who take the trouble to learn Alkan are a special bunch. These are not pieces for a typical recital. The Symphonie for Piano solo is an offering for those connoisseurs that spend their time reading about and listening to composers that only show up as footnotes in main stream music books. You need a sterling technique, lots of stamina and what the Italians call bravura, the ability to whip up the piano into a froth of notes. That will get you entrance into the interesting and unusual world of Alkan.
Tune in for an introduction to this conservative/ wild man in the age of Romanticism on the Piano this Sunday at 5 on KPAC & KTXI.
host, Randy Anderson
Our featured composer on the Piano this week would frequently sit at the piano reading the Bible and playing his music. At one point Charles Valentin Alkan wanted to set the Bible to music, but time did not permit. It is amusing to think of Alkan as the Cecil B. De Mille of the romantic age. And like the movie-mogul, one needs the resources of a great technique, the pianistic equivalent of Cinema-scope to bring the composer's vision to life.
There is a contradiction in Alkan's compositions. The rhetoric is obviously Romantic, but the structure, the nuts of bolts of this music is decidedly classical. Great symmetry is found here. The endlessly repeated notes form a machine like texture that sounds rather modern to our ears which are used to the music of Riley and Glass. Alkan was also rather shy, as you can tell by this picture (seen right.)
On the Piano this Sunday at 5 we sample some of Alkan's best known works.
host Randy Anderson
