Alkan - Character Pieces & Grotesqueries
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Label: Piano Classics
Cat No: PCL10275
Format: CD
Number of Discs: 1
Genre: Instrumental
Release Date: 15th December 2023
Contents
Works
Capriccio alla soldatesca, op.50 no.1Chapeau bas!
Desir
Fantasticheria
Jean qui pleure et Jean qui rit, due fughe da camera
Le Chemin de fer, op.27
Le Tambour bat aux champs, op.50 no.2
Petit conte
Petites Fantasies (3), op.41
Petites Pieces (2), op.60
Pour monsieur Gurkhaus
Quasi-Caccia, op.53
Toccatina, op.75
Artists
Mark Viner (piano)Works
Capriccio alla soldatesca, op.50 no.1Chapeau bas!
Desir
Fantasticheria
Jean qui pleure et Jean qui rit, due fughe da camera
Le Chemin de fer, op.27
Le Tambour bat aux champs, op.50 no.2
Petit conte
Petites Fantasies (3), op.41
Petites Pieces (2), op.60
Pour monsieur Gurkhaus
Quasi-Caccia, op.53
Toccatina, op.75
Artists
Mark Viner (piano)About
Mark Viner’s survey of the complete solo piano music of Alkan continues to turn up discoveries and reveal previously little-known or misunderstood sides of a protean figure in late French romanticism. Viner himself regards Alkan as ‘the most enigmatic figure in the history of music as a whole’.
The sixth volume of his survey focuses not on the grand cycles which have won this series such uniformly glowing reviews, but on sketches and miniatures which demonstrate Alkan’s capacity to charm as well as astound and dazzle his listeners. All these pieces are further illuminated, as before, by his own comprehensive booklet notes.
Several of them will be unfamiliar to all except the most dedicated of Alkan connoisseurs. Jean qui pleure et Jean qui rit is a pair of two ‘chamber fugues’ inspired by Voltaire’s account of a man who goes, with great ease, from a state of depression in the morning to making merry in the evening. The Capriccio alla-soldatesca also has a poetic origin, as a paraphrase of an evocation of a night-watch – the subject of Rembrandt’s most famous canvas – by Joseph Christian von Zedlitz. Le Tambour bat aux champs is its companion piece, underpinned from the outset by a relentless ostinato of drum beats as a noble theme emerges, dignified and laconic.
Better known, the Toccatina, op.75, can be counted among Alkan’s finest shorter pieces for the piano, demanding phenomenal dexterity and lightness of touch. At the other end of the expressive scale, Désir is a little fantasy, one of Alkan’s most homely-sounding miniatures, yet still coloured by his characteristic use of the ninth.
Previous volumes in the series have demonstrated to listeners and critics that Mark Viner is the pre-eminent Alkan interpreter of our day. Jeremy Nicholas remarked in Gramophone: ‘It takes a certain kind of temperament and a superior finger technique to take him on. Those who cut the mustard are few and far between. Mark Viner is such a one.’ Reviewing the most recent volume, he noted: ‘Viner responds to the composer’s unique voice with great sensitivity and imagination.’ The series looks set to claim definitive status.
The sixth volume of his survey focuses not on the grand cycles which have won this series such uniformly glowing reviews, but on sketches and miniatures which demonstrate Alkan’s capacity to charm as well as astound and dazzle his listeners. All these pieces are further illuminated, as before, by his own comprehensive booklet notes.
Several of them will be unfamiliar to all except the most dedicated of Alkan connoisseurs. Jean qui pleure et Jean qui rit is a pair of two ‘chamber fugues’ inspired by Voltaire’s account of a man who goes, with great ease, from a state of depression in the morning to making merry in the evening. The Capriccio alla-soldatesca also has a poetic origin, as a paraphrase of an evocation of a night-watch – the subject of Rembrandt’s most famous canvas – by Joseph Christian von Zedlitz. Le Tambour bat aux champs is its companion piece, underpinned from the outset by a relentless ostinato of drum beats as a noble theme emerges, dignified and laconic.
Better known, the Toccatina, op.75, can be counted among Alkan’s finest shorter pieces for the piano, demanding phenomenal dexterity and lightness of touch. At the other end of the expressive scale, Désir is a little fantasy, one of Alkan’s most homely-sounding miniatures, yet still coloured by his characteristic use of the ninth.
Previous volumes in the series have demonstrated to listeners and critics that Mark Viner is the pre-eminent Alkan interpreter of our day. Jeremy Nicholas remarked in Gramophone: ‘It takes a certain kind of temperament and a superior finger technique to take him on. Those who cut the mustard are few and far between. Mark Viner is such a one.’ Reviewing the most recent volume, he noted: ‘Viner responds to the composer’s unique voice with great sensitivity and imagination.’ The series looks set to claim definitive status.
Sound/Video
Paused
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1Petit Conte
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2Pour Monsieur Gurkhaus
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3Jean qui pleure et Jean qui rit, due fughe da camera: 1. Jean qui pleure
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4Jean qui pleure et Jean qui rit, due fughe da camera: 2. Jean qui rit
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5Toccatina, op.75
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6Désir, fantaisie
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7Capriccio alla-soldatesca, op.50
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8Le Tambour bat aux champs, esquisse, op.50bis
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9Fantasticheria
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10Chapeau bas!, 2nd fantasticheria
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112 Petites Pièces, op.60: 1. Ma chère liberté!..
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122 Petites Pièces, op.60: 2. Ma chère servitude!..
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13Quasi-Caccia, caprice, op.53
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14Le Chemin de fer, étude, Op. 27
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153 Petites Fantaisies, op.41: 1. Assez gravement
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163 Petites Fantaisies, op.41: 2. Andantino
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173 Petites Fantaisies, op.41: 3. Presto
Europadisc Review
As the northern hemisphere steadily approaches its longest nights, what better way to counter the pervading darkness than some sparkling pianism? For the sixth volume of his ongoing survey of Charles-Valentin Alkan’s complete solo piano music, British pianist Mark Viner presents a series of shorter works under the collective title ‘Character pieces & Grotesqueries’. These 10 short pieces, plus two pairs of contrasted miniatures and a concluding trio of fantasies may seem a long way from the grandiose splendours of Alkan’s more celebrated cycles of Études, yet there are fireworks aplenty, bursting with staggeringly demanding keyboard writing from Liszt’s rival for the title of foremost 19th-century piano virtuoso.
If you’ve yet to fall under Alkan’s slowly reemerging spell, this is an ideal place to start. Viner beckons the listener in gently with the Mozartian gracefulness of the Petit Conte (‘Little Tale’), which evokes childhood memories glimpsed from the vantage point of sophisticated maturity. Its opening classical innocence gradually takes on a more knowing salon manner à la Chopin (Alkan’s one-time neighbour in Paris), and Viner’s seemingly effortless pianism ensures that the transition from simplicity to more complex writing is wonderfully smooth.
The short character piece entitled Pour Monsieur Gurkhaus is a canonic perpetuum mobile with grounding bass notes, and Viner gives it three spins of the wheel before concluding with a full stop on the tonic. Alkan’s fascination with counterpoint is in further evidence with the two ‘chamber fugues’, Jean qui pleure et Jean qui rit, published in 1840, their collective title (‘Jean who weeps and Jean who laughs’) likely taken from a 1772 poem by Voltaire. They may initially have been conceived for a chamber ensemble; the first is suitably grave, but the second – which takes as its subject a necessarily slowed-down version of the ‘Champagne Aria’ from Mozart’s Don Giovanni – makes inordinate demands of the pianist, with a moment of sober reflection before the final splashy assault, all of which Viner takes in his stride.
More staggering still is the mercurial virtuosity of the helter-skelter Toccatina, op.72 (originally published around 1872), which leaves the listener quite breathless and ready for the almost hymn-like tread of the little fantasy Désir (shades of ‘Onwards, Christian soldiers’ in its main theme). Most definitely falling under the generic title of grotesquerie is the Capriccio alla-soldatesca (published in 1859), originally headed with a stanza of verse which recalls J.C. von Zedlitz’s poem The Night Parade, describing a phantom Bonaparte summoning his fallen soldiers to one last ghostly campaign. Alkan’s piece is both evocative and bitingly sardonic, and it is followed here by a companion piece in similar battle-music vein, Le Tambour bat aux champs, whose quasi-orchestral textures and underlying steady tread are vividly realised by Viner.
There follow two fantasticherie (daydreams or reveries), both in loose rondo form, the first incorporating another Alkanesque canon and building to an imposing climax. The second, entitled Chapeau bas! (‘Hats off!) has an insistent, march-like gait, but the closing pages bring brilliant cascades before a typically forthright final cadence. Another pair of opposites presents itself in Ma chère liberté et Ma chère servitude, the first a brilliant piece in F sharp major, the second in a mournfully reflective A minor.
Then comes a fast-paced hunting scene in the caprice Quasi-Caccia, its moments of calm barely offsetting the frenzy of the chase; yet Viner’s delineation of both extremes, and the translucency of the textures he creates at his Steinway D, ensure that the overall poise is never lost. From the ancient world of the hunt, we then launch headlong into the age of steam with the well-known dazzler Le Chemin de fer, op.73, once championed by Egon Petri. Here it gets a simply staggering performance, complete with its cartoon-like right-hand octaves. As perhaps the first piece of ‘machine music’ for piano, it has a unique place in the repertoire, and this quickfire performance is certainly one of the disc’s highlights.
Viner closes with the Trois Petites Fantaisies (published in 1859). The first has a steady tread whose rhythmic tics suggest southern climes of the Mediterranean. The central G major Andantino recalls Beethoven’s Sonata op.31 no.1, and the set concludes with a thrilling Presto whose forceful brilliance gives way momentarily to a passage of exquisitely crystalline delicacy before insistent bass rumbling force a re-entry to the fray. As Viner observes in his extensive, detailed and thoroughly researched booklet essay, these fantasies ‘rank among Alkan’s finest consistently even sets of pieces’, and they make a fabulous end to an absorbing disc. Expertly recorded in November 2021 and October 2022 in Westvest Church, Schiedam in The Netherlands, this would make the ideal Christmas gift for all pianophiles out there. Need we say more?
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