'... flawless technique and missionary commitment ...'
Alistair Hinton, CD Spotlight
French Jews were given full civil rights in 1791, so while Alkan’s grandparents, the Morhanges, who had moved to Paris in 1780, named their son Alkan Morhange, he in turn was allowed by 1813 to use French Christian names to name his son, Charles-Valentin who adopted Alkan as his surname. Young, precocious and prodigiously talented, Alkan (1813-88) soon became well-known as a pianist, although the first recital he gave was as a violinist.
Great friend and neighbour of Chopin, with whom he shared recitals and pupils, teacher of Nadia
Boulanger’s father, Alkan moved in the highest Parisian circles. Liszt had enormous respect for his playing, though Alkan’s temperament was more akin to the introvert Chopin than the extrovert Liszt.
The shy sensitive young man in the portrait on the cover of Volume 1 of this series is now replaced by an older man with an impish look for Volume 2. Later, after Alkan retired from public life after Chopin’s death and his not being appointed to his teacher Zimmermann’s professorship at the Conservatoire he gradually brought an end to many friendships and got a reputation for serial misanthropy. He was a combination of opposites, very shy yet prickly and acerbic, the virtuoso pianist who often disliked performing in public, and is accurately described by William Alexander Eddie as a “conservative radical”.
This description applies to his music. Adventurous, passionate and solemn, sometimes all three, it has strong rhythms and a strict lack of rubato, and often makes use of the keyboard’s and pedal-board’s extremes. The works on this release is part of a projected three-volume collection of Alkan’s complete music for pedal-piano and organ. Alkan had two apartments, one above the other, so that his playing of his Erard grand connected to a thirty-note pedal-board would less disturb the neighbours.
The disc opens with Pro Organo, for manuals only; whether this was to be the first in a longer cycle or suite is not known, but it serves as an excellent introduction to this intriguing recording. It has the Alkan’s hallmarks of high and low contrasting passages.
Do not consider the ‘Studies for Pedals Alone’ as a mere academic exercise; the six included here are rich in real music and make an enjoyable and fascinating programme. Many are fiendishly difficult and make enormous demands on the player. Indeed, Alkan dedicated one his organ works in Volume 1 to his friend Lefébure-Wély, who was not famed for writing difficult pedal parts. I do hope that the extraordinary Bombardo-Carillon for four feet will appear in Volume 3. The final Étude, a Chaconne with forty variations in all of four minutes, is a microcosm of Alkan’s writing.
The major portion of the recital is the dozen religious pieces, the last a delightful arrangement of the ‘Pastoral Symphony’ from Handel’s “Messiah”. The eleven original pieces are full of invention, some paying homage to Bach, some looking far forward, and bear serious investigation. Alkan’s ideas about ‘Style Religieux’ range from the most optimistic and flourished to the devotional. Among them, the fourth, marked Assez doucement, has a remarkable affinity with “Cwm Rhondda” written many years later, and the eleventh, Dolcemente, is the most mysterious and adventurous of the cycle.
Alkan, the virtuoso composer, is extremely well served by Kevin Bowyer, the virtuoso organist. His pedal work is breathtaking and his registrations so well thought through and just right for the moment.
The CD comes with a thick booklet including the organ specification and most excellent notes by Malcolm MacDonald. In first-rate sound, the rich acoustic of Blackburn Cathedral has been captured without losing any of the details of either the music or its interpretation. The third and final volume is eagerly awaited; in the meantime, this issue, as with Volume 1, comes very highly recommended as an authoritative journey through Alkan’s organ music.
Peter Joelson, The Classical Source
Everyone who has enjoyed volume I of Kevin Bowyer’s intégrale of Alkan’s organ works
will need no persuasion from me to acquire this second volume – indeed they will probably
have it already. For those who do not know this music, Nicholas King’s review (above) of
Kevin Bowyer’s recital at City of London School, which included a number of pieces from
this disc, will doubtless have excited their curiosity. But like volume I, this recording is not
just for the curious; it reveals a major and little–appreciated dimension of Alkan’s genius, and
also places these works as vital ‘missing links’ in the French organ tradition. The splendid
organ of Blackburn Cathedral enables Bowyer to display these works to their maximum
advantage.
The disc begins with the enigmatic ‘Pro organo’, an album leaf of about 1850 which may be
an entity in its own right, or (since it is headed by the word ‘Praeludium’) the precursor to a
suite which was never (?) elaborated. This little piece is like a glass of clear water, compared
to the complexities and turbidity of much of what follows.
The present writer candidly admits that, despite the excellent performances, the Six Preludes
‘pour les pieds seulement’ (nos. 7-12, the first six being on volume 1) have, to him, the least
to offer, certainly on disc -when seen live the acrobatics of the performer are a wonder to
behold, whatever one’s opinion of the music. I am inclined to agree with Ronald Smith that a
‘rather savage’ joke may underlie these pieces, which demand miracles of execution to -13
somewhat limited total musical effect. We may marvel at no 12, a chaconne with 40 variations
– we will wonder how the performer does not get his feet permanently entangled in the
crossings in no. 9 – we will certainly be engaged by many remarkable moments of tone-colour
and contrast -but we won’t perhaps feel any strong urge to listen to any of them again..
But the bulk of the disc is taken up with the ‘11 pieces in religious style and a transcription
from Handel’s Messiah’, op. 72, which are a very different matter. The variety, colour and
different perspectives of these pieces belie any blandness which the title of the collection
suggests, and constitute an exploration of an untrodden musical world, which has been rarely
since revisited. Having now heard some of these pieces live twice (at Nicholas King’s recital
reviewed in Bulletin 76 and at Bowyer’s recital reviewed above) and listened carefully to this
new recording, I find them consistently engaging and displaying new facets. What an
astounding contrast, for example, between the steamroller course of no.10 and the fractured
progress and ultimate collapse of no. 11, the longest of the set! We badly need after this
disturbing piece of musical psychosis, the further glass of water provided by the simple
transcription from the Messiah.
Bowyer is performing great services to Alkan and to the organ repertoire as a whole through
this series and, like volume I (and doubtless the forthcoming volume III), this recording is a
must.
Alkan Society Bulletin no. 77 –
December 2007
