Charles-Valentin Alkan, Marc-Andr? Hamelin - Alkan: Grande sonate 'Les quatre ?ges', Sonatine, Le festin d'Esope
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CD Details
Artist: Charles-Valentin Alkan, Marc-Andr? HamelinEdition: Music CD
Format: Import
CD Release Date: 1995-08-22
Music Label: Hyperion UK
Soundtracks:
- Grande Sonate 'Les Quatre Ages', Op. 33: 20 ans. Tres vite
- Grande Sonate 'Les Quatre Ages', Op. 33: 30 ans, Quasi-Faust. Assez vite
- Grande Sonate 'Les Quatre Ages', Op. 33: 40 ans, un menage heureux. Lentement
- Grande Sonate 'Les Quatre Ages', Op. 33: 50 ans, Promethee enchaine. Extremement lent
- Sonatine, Op. 61: Allegro vivace
- Sonatine, Op. 61: Allegramente
- Sonatine, Op. 61: Scherzo-Minuet
- Sonatine, Op. 61: Tempo giusto - Coda
- Barcarolle, Op. 65, No. 6
- Le Festin d'Esope, Op. 39, No. 12
Music reviews of Alkan: Grande sonate 'Les quatre ?ges', Sonatine, Le festin d'Esope
Music Review: A masterpiece in every sense
Rating: 5 Stars
Chopined out? Liszt off your list? If you love the Romantic era but are getting tired of listening to the same music, you will wonder why Alkan's music was unappreciated for such a long time. Perhaps the best introduction is this disc, in particular the Grande Sonata, a splayed by Marc-Andre Hamelin. The music is not only revelatory, it borders almost on the supernatural considering its surpassing difficulty and the ease and control with which Hamelin plays it. The 11 minutes and 33 seconds of the "Quasi-Faust" is without question one of the most transcendent pieces of music ever written, up there with Chaconne from Bach's D-minor Partita or Beethoven's C-minor piano sonata, spanning the entire keyboard almost simultaneously, contrasting pitch, timbre and dynamics in the best Romantic fashion but entirely without bombast or affectation. The 8-part fugue near the end bears listening repeatedly to catch its inner subtleties and nuances. Indeed, once listened to, it will be hard to get it out of your inner ear.
If you become an Alkan fan, you might consider reading about his life from the liner notes (not with this CD) or other sources. His promising career was tragically cut short by politics, war, disease, and bigotry. Fortunately, his astonishing music lives on in these recordings.
Marc-Andre Hamelin has largely based his career on recording works considered "unplayable" such as the Godowsky studies on the Chopin Etudes. His recordings are uniformly superb. If you are a fan of this type of music (which you are if you have read this far) BUY THIS CD! BUY THEM ALL!
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