Musical musings: Charles-Valentin Alkan

In my continuing search for new composers and music, I recently stumbled upon an obscure French composer of Jewish descent from the 19th century named Charles-Valentin (or Valentine) Alkan. He was a pretty amazing piano player who was friends with both Liszt and Chopin, and his musical output reflects this: most of his music involves the piano (though he also wrote for other instruments, including a full symphony which has sadly been lost).

I decided to write about him because I've found some of his music to be profoundly moving and novel, and think he deserves greater recognition. I'll illustrate with some select pieces, so you have something listen to while reading. For instance, Alkan's Opus 27. “Le chemin de fer”  (“the railway” or “the railroad”) published in 1844 is the first known depiction of a train in music, and it is absolutely incredible—a breakneck perpetuum mobile that keeps up its pace nearly to the end. (Opus numbers are not sequential for Alkan, just FYI.)

Contrasting with the perpetual driving rhythm is a lovely second melody (the “happy passengers” theme), and the whole thing will have you feeling a bit breathless at the end of its five minute duration. This is, perhaps, not a great work of music, but it's certainly an interesting and different one.

Alkan was a virtuoso on the piano and it comes through in some his work, which includes some of the hardest piano writing of the 19th century. Of course, mere difficulty does not equate to goodness or greatness, but I don't get the feeling he was writing hard music for the sake of difficulty—he also published plenty of easier music—rather, the ideas he wanted to express just required that level of skill sometimes. The results are well-worth it, though, I think. Here's another piece I quite like, Opus 34, Scherzo-focoso in B-minor.

Similar to Le chemin de fer, this is a stunningly fast piece intercut with a second majestic and flowing melody (there might be a pattern to my likes here…). As it builds towards an explosion of chords at the end this piece sends a thrill of frisson down my spine.

Now there are plenty more pieces I like which I could share here, but rather than risk providing too much I'll focus on what is undoubtedly Alkan's magnum opus, Opus 39, Douze études dans les tons mineurs (Twelve Etudes [or studies] in the Minor Keys). Nearly every one of its constituent pieces is a masterpiece in its own right and I would highly recommend listening to the entire thing (recorded by English pianist Jack Gibbons, who's made a special study of Alkan's music), but I'll pick out the best of the best to highlight here. It's an unusual collection in some ways: among its twelve pieces are a four-movement Symphony for solo piano, and a monumental three-movement Concerto for solo piano which follows it, where Alkan masterfully makes use of the piano's range of expressiveness to mimic or suggest other instruments or even whole orchestral sections in some really interesting ways.

This concerto (pieces 8–10 of the collection) is…there's no other word for it than epic, and I do not use that word lightly. The first movement (Allegro assai in G-Sharp Minor) takes nearly half an hour to perform, and contains more bars than the entirety of Beethoven's (justifiably) famous Hammerklavier sonata. The other two movements (Adagio in C-Sharp Minor and Allegretto alla barbaresca in F-Sharp Minor) are no slouches either at about 8–10 minutes long each, making the entire concerto a test of stamina for the player. The first and third movement especially are very fast, filled with incredibly challenging music (such as performing trills with the third and fourth fingers while simultaneously playing the melody). I personally think these three movements are the absolute pinnacle of the collection, so I've linked them all below. (Fun fact: Gibbons made his concert debut playing this work [among other things] at the age of 17!) If you don't want to listen to an hour of music, I do have one more shorter suggestion at the end.

I could gush at length about all the amazing feeling in these three pieces, but in the interests of brevity, the last piece in the collection is a remarkable set of variations called Le festin d'Ésope, or Aesop's Feast (referencing a particular legend about Aesop, but the music also seems to nod towards the many animals in Aesop's fables). Here Alkan takes a simple 8-bar theme and puts it through the wringer in 25 variations which span the gamut of human emotion. If you watch only one video in this post, watch this one. I think it shows off a bit of Alkan's sense of humor: some of the variations are downright funny, such as the twenty-second where the right hand resolutely plays the theme while the left hand jumps back and forth on the piano playing short motifs marked “barking,” as if it were a dog joyfully unaware of the “serious” music going on (the right hand very much does not know what the left is doing in this case, or is at least trying to steadfastly ignore it).

There are plenty of other pieces I could have shared here, but hopefully this will suffice to give you taste of this remarkable musical genius. There's some really powerful and evocative music here which I could wax lyrical about for hours—I find themes and melodies in my head at all hours for days after listening to some of these pieces—but half the fun is discovering things for yourself. Let me know in the comments if you enjoyed any of these pieces, or were inspired to seek out more of Alkan's output! A hui hou!