Symphony For Solo Piano Op 39 Nos 4-7 (26:06)
1 Allegro 	10:29 	
2 Marche Funèbre: Andantino 	6:06 	
3 Menuet 	5:05 	
4 Finale: Presto 	4:20 	
  	-
5 Salut, Cendre Du Pauvre! Op 45 	8:40 	
6 Alleluia Op 25 	2:40 	
7 Super Flumina Babylonis Op 52 (Paraphrase Du Psaume 137) 	6:30 	

Souvenirs: Trois Morceaux Dans Le Genre Pathétique Op 15 (29:56)
8 Aime-Moi 	10:06 	
9 Le Vent 	7:24 	
10 Morte 	12:22 	

Marc-André Hamelin – piano

Alkan's one of music's originals, a relatively neglected composer valued for his highly original, often visionary keyboard works accessible only to the most skilled virtuosos. Marc-André Hamelin certainly fills that bill and almost outdoes himself on this disc, playing with breathtaking virtuosity and imaginative insight. The Symphony for solo piano is just a four-movement work of symphonic scope and color. The opening Allegro is a tightly structured drama, followed by a Mahlerian funeral march, a vigorous scherzo, and a final blistering Presto dispatched by Hamelin with almost supernatural ease. The Symphony was part of an even bigger work, the Opus 39 Études, whose 12 pieces include Alkan's best music. The three brief pieces that follow have strong attractions, deep spirituality prime among them. The final three pieces from his early Opus 15 set exemplify Alkan the Romantic. Again, Hamelin makes light of their technical difficulties, while shaping them sensitively. Notable are Le vent, where the right-hand runs make you hear the whistling wind and Morte, another powerful funeral march. Vivid sound captures Hamelin's nuanced playing, helping to make this disc a must-have for pianophiles. ---Dan Davis, Editorial Reviews

download:   uploaded anonfiles mega 4shared mixturecloud yandex mediafire ziddu ifolder

back

01 Benedictus, Op. 54 8:18

Impromptu sur le Choral de Luther ‘Un fort rempart est Notre Dieu’, Op. 69
02 minim = 63 4:14
03 L’istesso tempo (minim = 63) 1:23			play
04 L’istesso tempo (minim = 63) 1:54
05 L’istesso tempo (minim = 63) 5:41
06 Saltarelle, Op. 47 for piano duet 6:54

Fantaisie à quatre mains sur Don Juan, Op. 26
07 Introduzione 1:49
08 Tema (‘Venite pur avanti’) 0:50
09 Variation 1 0:54
10 Variation 2 0:57
11 Variation 3 1:39
12 Variation 4 1:31
13 Variation 5 2:51
14 Finale (‘Finch’ han dal vino’) 2:21			play

Trois Marches, Op. 40
15 No. 1 in A flat major (Allegro) 8:35
16 No. 2 in C minor/E flat major (Allegro moderato) 6:13
17 No. 3 in B flat major (Modérément) 5:45

18 Bombardo-Carillon, for piano duet 5:45
19 Finale, Op. 17, for piano duet 3:01

Anthony Goldstone and Caroline Clemmow - piano duet, piano duo

There is just enough music for two pianos and four hands at one keyboard by Charles-Valentin Alkan – with the inclusion of arrangements of three works that he wrote for the briefly fashionable pedal piano – to fill one CD. Fans will snap it up and all the performances by Anthony Goldstone and Caroline Clemmow have panache, but while there are flashes of the strangeness that gives Alkan's music its piquancy, it's hard to regard much of this repertoire as comparable with his finest solo piano works, such as the Quatre Ages Sonata and the Concerto and Symphony in his Op 39 Etudes. Though the Fantasy on Don Giovanni for four hands rivals Liszt's Don Giovanni Reminiscences in its virtuoso scope and intensity, it's the arrangements that seem closest to the better-known Alkan – the Op 54 Benedictus, with its throbbing minor-key pulsations framing the consoling main theme, the obtusely repetitive Bombardo-Carillon, originally composed for four feet at one pedal board, and especially the Impromptu on the Lutheran chorale Ein feste Burg, which is much more substantial than the title suggests. ---Andrew Clements, guardian.co.uk

download: uploaded anonfiles mega 4shared mixturecloud yandex mediafire ziddu

back

Concerto For Solo Piano Op.39

1. Allegro assai
2. Adagio
3. Allegretto alla barbaresca 

Trois Grande Etudes Op.76

1. Fantaisie in A flat major (for left hand)
2. Introduction, Variations and Finale in D major (for right hand)
3. Rondo-Tocatta in C minor (for hands reunited)

Marc-Andre Hamelin – piano

Concerto for Solo Piano (French: Concerto pour piano seul) is a 3-movement solo piano piece. With sections marked "Tutti", "Solo" and "Piano", the piece requires the soloist to present the voices of both the orchestra and the soloist. The work features progressive tonality, beginning in G-sharp minor and ending in F-sharp major; this is a consequence of the piece being three consecutive elements of the cycle of 12 études, each of which is in a key a perfect fourth higher than its predecessor.

Etude, Op. 76 No. 3 is dedicated to Averil Kovacs and François Luguenot, respectively activists in the English and French Alkan Societies. As Hamelin writes in his preface to this étude, the idea to combine these came from the composer Alistair Hinton, the finale of whose Piano Sonata No. 5 (1994–95) includes a substantial section entitled "Alkanique".

download: uploaded anonfiles mega 4shared mixturecloud yandex mediafire ziddu

back

I. Allegro assai
II. Adagio
III. Allegretto alla barbaresca

Marc-Andre Hamelin (Piano)

Concerto for Solo Piano (French: Concerto pour piano seul) is a 3-movement solo piano piece written by Charles-Valentin Alkan. The pieces are part of a 12 piece cycle entitled Douze études dans tous les tons mineurs (12 Studies in the Minor Keys), published in 1857 (although it may have been written some years earlier). With sections marked "Tutti", "Solo" and "Piano", the piece requires the soloist to present the voices of both the orchestra and the soloist. The pianist Jack Gibbons comments: "The style and form of the music take on a monumental quality — rich, thickly set textures and harmonies [...] conjure up the sound world of a whole orchestra and tax the performer, both physically and mentally, to the limit."

The work features progressive tonality, beginning in G-sharp minor and ending in F-sharp major; this is a consequence of the piece being three consecutive elements of the cycle of 12 études, each of which is in a key a perfect fourth higher than its predecessor.

The piece, including all 3 movements, is 121 pages long and takes about 50 minutes to perform. The first movement on its own, comprises 72 pages and takes over 29 minutes to play (Jack Gibbons comments that "the first movement has more bars in it than the entire Hammerklavier Sonata by Beethoven"). Alkan authorized the piece to be truncated to make "un morceau de concert, d'une durée ordinaire" (a concert piece of normal duration). It may be that the composer himself performed the first movement (alone) in such a shortend version in a recital in Paris in the 1880s. It was not until in 1939 that Egon Petri gave the piece a proper performance, in its entirety, during BBC broadcasts. ---wiki

download:   uploaded ziddu yandex 26G

back

From: 25 Préludes, dans tous les tons majeurs et mineurs, Op. 31 (1847) 
1. No. 1 in C major 2:23 
2. No. 6 in G minor Ancienne mélodie de la synagogue 3:08 
3. No. 11 in F major Un petit rien 0:53 
4. No. 12 in B flat minor Le temps qui n’est plus 1:11 
5. No. 13 in G flat major J’étais endormie, mais mon coeur veillait 3:23 
6. No. 14 in B minor 2:43 
7. No. 8 in A flat minor La chanson de la folle au bord de la mer 3:47 	play
8. No. 15 in B major Dans le genre gothique 2:10 

From: Les mois, 1-ière Suite Op. 74 (1872) 
9. No. 1 Une nuit d’hiver 4:12 

From: Les mois, 4-ième Suite Op. 74 (1872) 
10. No. 1 Gros temps 4:19 
11. No. 3 L’opéra 1:35 

From: Trente Chants, 3-ième Suite Op. 65 (ca. 1869) 
12. No. 5 Horace et Lydie 3:48 
13. No. 6 Barcarolle 3:34 

From: Trente Chants 4-ième Suite Op. 67 (ca. 1873) 
14. No. 2 Chanson de la bonne vieille 3:27 

From: Esquisses, 48 Motifs, en quatre suites, Op. 63 (1861) 
15. No. 1 La vision 2:21 
16. No. 4 Les cloches 0:53 
17. No. 8 Pseudo-Naïvité 2:00 
18. No. 10 Increpatio 1:42 
19. No. 11 Les soupirs 1:44 
20. No. 35 Musique militaire 1:15 
21. No. 43 Notturnino innamorato 1:58 
22. No. 46 Le premier billet doux 1:05 
23. No. 48 En songe 1:18 
24. No. 49 Laus Deo 3:42 			play
25. Petit Conte (1859) 3:57

Stanley Hoogland – piano (Pleyel 1858) 
Recording: 16-18 September 2002, Maria Minor, Utrecht, The Netherlands

The sound of the Pleyel is rather clunky, although reasonably transparent. The pieces themselves are generally among the easier ones by Alkan. Hoogland's playing is not particularly characterful or graceful. ---Scott Morrison

By ways of introduction to the works of Alkan, these recordings would be, for me, up there with Lewenthal's superb albums - not just because of the pianistic skill of the performer, but also because of the choice of music included. The thing about alkan is that his work isn't consistently Superb. The selection of music on this CD, however, is exciting, original, and moving (not all at the same time, though), and if you're looking for something more easy going than the usualy piano-destroying repertoire pieces that are the standard on most alkan albums, I would recommend this. ---Patrick J. Lavelle

download: uploaded anonfiles 4shared mega mixturecloud yandex

back