Alkan: Grande Sonate 'Les Quatre Ages', Op. 33

One of the great forgotten figures in the history of music, a man admired by Liszt, nicknamed "the Berlioz of the piano" by Hans von Bülow, is undoubtedly Charles-Valentin Alkan, the best-kept secret of French Romanticism, a solitary and impassioned soul.

He was an exceptionally gifted virtuoso pianist; a demanding and inventive composer; a tormented artist who produced a kaleidoscopic and passionate body of work. Alkan is fascinating because of the mystery that still shrouds his life and his work when, after a spectacular early career, he withdrew from society, taking refuge in his inner world.

"I wanted to showcase all the composer's facets, in a multifaceted way. The 'Grande Sonate Les quatre âges', is a colossal, gigantic work, a sort of romantic ideal of the sonata, which undoubtedly influenced Liszt's. As a counterpart to this great work, I selected shorter pieces, like the 'Esquisses', which show a composer who could capture a moment in time. And then I also selected a number of pieces that are both visionary and 'anchored' in their era. The 'Barcarolle' is reminiscent of Mendelssohn and prefigures Satie, as with 'les Soupirs' for Scriabin and even Debussy. While the 'Nocturne' is similar to Chopin's opus 32, 'Les Cloches' and the 'Prélude La chanson de la folle au bord de la mer' illustrate Alkan's fascination with realism, everyday life, the strange and the extraordinary." Pascal Amoyel

Any new recording of Charles-Valentin Alkan is an event, which hopefully widens the public appreciation of this still unknown genius of the French Romantic period. After unsuccessful efforts at a brilliant concert career, Alkan went into reclusion, concentrating on teaching and composing his totally unique oeuvre, mainly written for solo piano. One of the greatest virtuosos of his time (even Liszt was nervous in his presence) he wrote piano music of the most colossal proportions, scope and difficulty. This new recording by the young and extraordinarily gifted young Italian, Vincenzo Maltempo, brings together two of Alkan's masterworks: the 'Grande Sonata' “Les Quatre Ages” (in which Alkan musically describes the several stages of Man’s Life, from exuberant youth to tragic old age), and the 'Symphonie pour piano solo', a dramatic four movement work in Classical/Romantic style. As an encore we have the fiendishly difficult 'Etude for two hands unisono', a pianistic tour de force.

Adventurous piano Music of the composer in whose presence even Franz Liszt was afraid to play. Piano music ranging from the miniaturist to the gigantic.

Both modern Steinway and period Erard piano are used in this set, a fascinating way of comparison. Charles-Valentin Alkan, often called ‘the Berlioz of the piano’, that mysterious, reclusive genius of the Romantic epoch, will forever be linked in our imagination to Chopin and Liszt, both of whom caught the Parisian public’s attention to a greater extent than did Alkan.

Were they and their music more acceptable to the public due to the greater accessibility of many of their works, neither so uncompromisingly ‘difficult’ as Alkan can be in his music? These demands on the listener take the form of extending a musical idea to the limit of its development – often, in the most extreme cases (e.g. the climax of ‘Quasi-Faust’), leaving the listener feeling as if he or she had been through a hurricane. Might this tendency be traceable to his strictly orthodox Jewish heritage and schooling in Talmudic logic? With Alkan, that extraordinary pianist before whom it is said that Liszt himself felt nervous to perform, the exception, compositionally speaking, becomes the rule.