Alkan Chamber Music
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: (Charles-)Valentin Alkan
Label: Timpani
Magazine Review Date: 12/1993
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 74
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: 1C1013
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Grand Duo Concertant |
(Charles-)Valentin Alkan, Composer
(Charles-)Valentin Alkan, Composer Dong-Suk Kang, Violin Olivier Gardon, Piano |
Sonate de Concert |
(Charles-)Valentin Alkan, Composer
(Charles-)Valentin Alkan, Composer Olivier Gardon, Piano Yvan Chiffoleau, Cello |
Trio |
(Charles-)Valentin Alkan, Composer
(Charles-)Valentin Alkan, Composer Dong-Suk Kang, Violin Olivier Gardon, Piano Yvan Chiffoleau, Cello |
Author: Bryce Morrison
The question ''Alkan, who was Alkan?'' (which Ronald Smith used to preface his indispensable two-volume study of the composer—London: 1976) could well become obsolete. In August alone two major releases were reviewed in Gramophone, one of them a highly praised Marco Polo disc of the chamber music. Now here is another, not ideally recorded but superbly performed; no small feat when the demands are so savage and incessant. Few composers have written music at once so virtuosic and austere, so acrobatic yet without a trace of poetic luxury or indulgence. The cello sonata's Saltarella finale provides one of several examples where the pianist is forced to play cascades of notes within a rigidly maintained rhythmic framework (Debussy's beloved sans rigueur is not for Alkan) and here Olivier Gardon, whom I first heard in a magnificent London recital some years ago, provides all the necessary unflagging impetus and momentum.
What masterly force and originality Alkan shows in all three works, whether in the Grand Duo's hypnotic ''L'enfer'' (with its directions to play firstly lourdement, then evangeliquement), or the more outwardly conventional but still wildly idiosyncratic twists and turns of the cello sonata's opening Allegro molto. This sonata (arguably Alkan's masterpiece) contains a Siciliano of a typically sweet-and-sour grace and an Adagio which concludes with shimmering tremolandos conveying a Biblical preface: ''As a dew from the Lord, as the showers upon the grass, that tarrieth not for man, nor waiteth for the sons of men...''. Yet every page of this extraordinary music is alive with Alkan's always unsettling genius and the performances are dazzlingly fleet and assured.
'
What masterly force and originality Alkan shows in all three works, whether in the Grand Duo's hypnotic ''L'enfer'' (with its directions to play firstly lourdement, then evangeliquement), or the more outwardly conventional but still wildly idiosyncratic twists and turns of the cello sonata's opening Allegro molto. This sonata (arguably Alkan's masterpiece) contains a Siciliano of a typically sweet-and-sour grace and an Adagio which concludes with shimmering tremolandos conveying a Biblical preface: ''As a dew from the Lord, as the showers upon the grass, that tarrieth not for man, nor waiteth for the sons of men...''. Yet every page of this extraordinary music is alive with Alkan's always unsettling genius and the performances are dazzlingly fleet and assured.
'
Explore the world’s largest classical music catalogue on Apple Music Classical.
Included with an Apple Music subscription. Download now.
Gramophone Digital Club
- Digital Edition
- Digital Archive
- Reviews Database
- Full website access
From £8.75 / month
SubscribeGramophone Full Club
- Print Edition
- Digital Edition
- Digital Archive
- Reviews Database
- Full website access
From £11.00 / month
Subscribe
If you are a library, university or other organisation that would be interested in an institutional subscription to Gramophone please click here for further information.