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16 CHARLES-VALENTINALKAN
His music is very demanding for the performer, who must almost
become a medium.
As with Scriabine! If you are only half-hearted about Alkan’s music, it’s better
not to play it. It is a music that requires a huge musical, physical and intellectual
investment! This is also undoubtedly why his music is performed so rarely today. A
musician has to accept to spend time deciphering his language, learning his style,
letting himself be immersed in its poetry. Once you have plunged into his world,
it’s very hard to let it go. With him, you often have the impression that the music
is so cryptic that it is not meant for the public. Take his sonata, for example: the
figure“four” is everywhere: four ages, four themes representing four figures (Faust,
Marguerite, God and theDevil) in theQuasi-Faust, fourmovements and a recurring
four-note cell (probably an homage to Bach) throughout the entire piece. Yet it is
up to the interpreter tomade his work as immediate as possible, to find the source
of the brilliant intuition fromwhich it emerged.
Did he go as far harmonically as Liszt’s final works?
Yes and no. His bold harmonies occur, for example, in the dissonance, in the
“accidents,” in his singular way of sometimes wanting to assault the listener or
merely not setting any limits for himself; and this is often linked to a literary or
realistic pretext. With Liszt, you feel that Liszt, despite the profusion of titles given
to his works, lets themusic develop by and for itself. There is something of a release
with Liszt that I believe is much less present with Alkan. For me, he is a composer
who is rooted in the earth, in the clay, and who climbs to the sky by dint of epic
battles.