In 1828, the firm of Richault issued the Op.1 of a 14-year-old prodigy, Charles-Valentin Morhange, who had already begun to advertise himself as Alkan. After winning several first prizes at the Paris Conservatoire, ‘Alkan’ had started making a stir in aristocratic salons as a pianist of prodigious powers. On one of those salon evenings, he encountered Liszt, two years his senior, leading to a wary friendship, a lifelong rivalry and guarded mutual respect.
Some flavour of Alkan’s extraordinary touch at the piano may be gleaned from the runs and figurations decorating that Opus 1 as if with silver streamers: a set of variations on a theme from a concerto by Daniel Steibelt. While Steibelt himself has long been consigned to the pages of musical encyclopedias, Alkan lives on as one of the most original composer-performers whose time has belatedly come in the last few decades, and especially in the hands of Mark Viner.
During its course, this cycle of Alkan’s complete solo piano music has attracted extravagant praise from critics everywhere, encapsulated by Jeremy Nicholas in Gramophone: ‘he can claim a place at the top table as one of the pre-eminent Alkan players de nos jours.’ As Viner elucidates in his authoritative booklet essay, Alkan’s Op.1 – remarkable in itself for a teenager, if musically almost unrecognisable to most of us as the sound of the composer to come – is the curtain-raiser to an extraordinary display of keyboard wizardry. Titled Les omnibus, Op.2 is another variation set demanding particular facility with repeated notes. Opus 3, a little rondo on a nursery rhyme, is followed by the fireworks of the Rondo brillant Op.4.
There follow elaborations or variations on arias and themes from Donizetti and Bellini, dry as the best champagne.
The ‘Variations quasi fantaisie’ on a Neapolitan barcarolle hint at the darkness in much of Alkan’s mature output, before Viner signs off with more fistfuls of flourishes and roars of keyboard lionism in the Rondo Chromatique Op.12. Many of the works are little known even to Alkan aficionados, making this latest volume an essential acquisition for all adventurous pianophiles.
- This 7th instalment of the recording of the complete piano music by Charles-Valentin Alkan (1813-1888) by Mark Viner presents a collection of works under the title “Early Works & Juvenilia”.
- The piano music of Charles-Valentin Alkan is fortunately gaining more and more recognition by today’s general public. This eccentric pianist-composer lived the most part of his life in total reclusion, embittered by his lack of public success. He was a phenomenal pianist, the only pianist in whose presence the celebrated Franz Liszt was nervous to play!
- Alkan’s piano works are of colossal substance and difficulty, earning him the nickname of “The Berlioz of the Piano”. Even today only a handful of pianists can do justice to the fierce demands of his music. But it wouldn’t be fair to let the technical difficulties distract the listener from his truly original, personal style, full of wit, energy and deep feelings.
- Presented here are several variation cycles and a Rondeau chromatique. These works are in the style of the early 19th century piano virtuosos, full of instrumental brilliance and glitter. However, we can already discern the budding genius of the later works in their eccentricity and experimental zest.
- “For the second disc in his gargantuan 17-CD project of recording all Alkan’s music Mark Viner gives us the 25 Préludes with an exemplary musicianship and assurance... makes you eager for further issues from this outstanding and most enterprising pianist” (Bryce Morrison in International Piano). Viner’s previous recording of the Alkan Etudes Op.35 (PCL10127) received 5 stars and CD of the Month in BBC Music Magazine as well as 5 stars in The Guardian (“Viner rises to Alkan’s extraordinary challenges”). Grande Sonata Op.33 (PCL10209): “[Viner] can claim a place at the top table as one of the pre-eminent Alkan players de nos jours… a disc of piano playing out of the top drawer.” Gramophone.
