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PASCAL AMOYEL 13
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, the composer of solitary and impassioned souls.
An exceptionally gifted and vulnerable virtuoso piano, he was 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; after a spectacular
early career, he withdrew from society, taking refuge in his inner world.
Busoni remembers having heard this young prodigy perform Bach and Beethoven
on an Erard piano: “I listened, transfixed by the crystal-clear, expressive style.”
Revered by his fellowmusicians yet unknown to the public, he remained above the
fray of his century, a misanthrope who left an immense body of work that includes
immense compositions (
Sonate des quatre ages
) aswell as delicateminiatures pieces.
Inquisitive,atypicalartistsaretheonlyonesstillexploringtheworldofthisromantic
musician born in 1813, the same year asWagner and Verdi, who cast overwhelming
shadows. In the late 1970s in France, pianist Bernard Ringeissen recorded an entire
series of albums. Alkan became one of American Raymond Lewenthal’s favorite
composers as he worked to recover his technique after an attack in Central Park
left himwith seven fractures in his hand. Yet he has few fervent admirers. For many
years, pianist PascalAmoyel has been promotingAlkan’smusic, which he compares
to that of Liszt, Chopin and Scriabine. The pianist has already recorded the
Sonate
pour violoncelle et piano
with Emmanuelle Bertrand, and is now celebrating the
bicentennial of the birth of this forgotten genius, offering a musical overview of
this desperate virtuoso with such a poetic and troubling work.