# Why isn't Alkan as famous as his contemporaries?



## Samuel Kristopher (Nov 4, 2015)

It took me all of 3 years of being passionately and ever more academically interested in classical music to finally come across Alkan, whom I never heard about back in school, nor among any of my friends who also enjoy listening to classical music. I mentioned him to some of them recently, and at best I got "oh yeah, I know of that guy, but I don't know any of his pieces."

Which is a shame, because the more I listen to him, the more I feel his quality, uniqueness, and artistic stamp on musical history deserves more than what it is. 

Now of course I'm no musicologist and neither are my friends - maybe he's dime a dozen in the academic world. With my amateur senses, I feel that there are certainly strong elements of Chopin coming through in his work, which makes sense if they were rubbing shoulders (they were both in Paris at the same time, right?), but whenever I start to get comfortable, he does something so unusual and remarkable that I can easily forget I'm listening to a piece composed in the mid-19th century. Sometimes he settles into a lilting romantic melody, sometimes he fires into a quirky number that sounds like something out of a jazz bar. 

In any case, I feel he deserves more solo piano stage time with greats like Chopin, Rachmaninoff, and Liszt. I'm sure many of you have more informed opinions than me, though


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

If I remember correctly, he was a bit of an eccentric, and just about when his career as a traveling virtuoso concert pianist would have take off, he instead stayed in Paris and lived as a recluse. So his works were forgotten.

Why they're not popular now, I'm not sure. I remember when I first heard him I was impressed by a lot of his music. But, my own personal opinion of course, few have had lasting impressions on me. I like his Marche Funebre, Solo-Piano Concerto, a Barcarolle, and his violin sonata.

I could guess that he's not very popular because his music is pretty difficult, and I'm sure pianists would prefer to spend time on more well known, esteemed, or popular composers.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

As Comsos says, he eventually eschewed publicity and unlike, say, Liszt wasn't keen on going through the necessary hoops in order to get his work noticed. At least he had the foresight to have his works published rather than simply let the manuscripts gather dust in a cold attic - it would have been a real shame if some of the more illustrious works would have remained undiscovered.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

There seems to be universal agreement that his piano music is difficult to perform. Maybe so much so that most pianists who can play the notes have little left over for 'interpretation'. Mr Hamelin has enough left over; at least two pianists before him (Mr. L and Mr. S) had the wisdom to give interpretation a chance when technique was stretched thin. Many of the piano works reveal a sardonic sense of humor, sometimes black. None of it is noise unless the listener allows it to be.

A short piece, loosely translated as 'Song of the Mad Woman By the Sea Shore", was beautifully presented by Mr. Smith. His recording can be heard three times on successive days, with different 'readings' by the listener each day.

As you may have guessed by now, I am among the Alkan admirers.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

I always liked the "death by falling bookcase" story, even if it proved false.


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## Samuel Kristopher (Nov 4, 2015)

Thanks for the comments guys, it's really nice to be able to ask all the questions about music I've always wanted to ask! 

I suppose it's not an uncommon story in the world of art, to hear of a conflict between being an uncompromising artist and opening oneself up to the world. I used to think that the most famous and popular artists were the ones who eschewed society entirely for the sake of their art, but although some of these may indeed earn fame, it seems that the ones who did their duty to the public were more likely to go down in history. 

I heard his music was difficult to perform, and I mean, one can often tell by listening (I've only heard Hamelin's portrayal of the work so far). I quite like his Grand Sonata, but I look forward to sampling the rest of his works.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

The other 'big' piano works are the concerto and the symphony (both for solo piano) and the Four Ages of Man, also for solo piano and given full sardonic expression by Hamelin. He claimed to have been straight arrow when composing the sonata for cello and piano; well, maybe.

The Funeral March for a Parrot was apparently composed for his children (? I read another story once). Mr. L staged it for a recording, to hilarious effect.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

The problem with Alkan (and I have Hamelin's performances of some of his music) is that it is fiendishly difficult without quite sounding as virtuosic as (say) Liszt. Herselt's piano concerto is another example, which is why it might be avoided. Liszt actually sounds fiendishly difficult to start with which gives the player far more credence as a virtuoso with an audience.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

This topic inspired me to listen to Alkan again.
A somewhat similar case might be Adolf von Henselt, who was apparently also a very skilled pianist and who also retreated at an early age. His music is even more obscure and can also be extremely difficult. I really love some of his etudes and I recommend the Etudes by Piers Lane.


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## LHB (Nov 1, 2015)

In addition to his reclusive lifestyle later in his life, he also did not leave behind any students to carry on his legacy. I agree wholeheartedly with you that he should be regarded on the same level as Chopin and Liszt.


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## Truckload (Feb 15, 2012)

There seems to be a preference in the annals of fame for orchestral composers.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

DavidA said:


> The problem with Alkan (and I have Hamelin's performances of some of his music) is that it is fiendishly difficult without quite sounding as virtuosic as (say) Liszt. Herselt's piano concerto is another example, which is why it might be avoided. Liszt actually sounds fiendishly difficult to start with which gives the player far more credence as a virtuoso with an audience.


I've always heard that was a problem with the Brahms Second -- if it weren't such a terrific piece of music, pianists would hate it because its very real difficulties are neither particularly audible _nor _visible -- so you can't vamp.


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## Guest (Aug 27, 2019)

I really enjoy listening to his variations based on Aesop's Fables.


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## classical yorkist (Jun 29, 2017)

One of my favourite composers. I found him through my love of Erik Satie, similar in outlook but very different too. His music is challenging and requires thinking about. Like Satie he is, what I like to call, a 'conceptual' composer, not as pretty as Chopin or as 'rock star' as Liszt. His Esquisses are a marvellous set of works and I also really rate his nocturnes.


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## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

DavidA said:


> The problem with Alkan (and I have Hamelin's performances of some of his music) is that it is fiendishly difficult without quite sounding as virtuosic as (say) Liszt. Herselt's piano concerto is another example, which is why it might be avoided. Liszt actually sounds fiendishly difficult to start with which gives the player far more credence as a virtuoso with an audience.


Good point. This is even more true of Schumann, who never wrote a single virtuosic (i.e., easier than it sounds) passage in his entire life. His piano works are often more difficult than the standard works of Liszt and yet they sound much easier.

Alkan and Schumann wrote for themselves and not for others. They wrote to express their own personal emotions instead of pleasing audiences, as Liszt would also come to do in his later years.


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## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

Simple, his music is not as good as his contemporaries.


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## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

Truckload said:


> There seems to be a preference in the annals of fame for orchestral composers.


Right, but the question is more akin to "Why isn't Alkan as famous as Liszt or Chopin?"

I suppose part of the answer would have to do with Alkan's tendency towards overemphasizing difficulty over musicality- the same can be said of Liszt but to a lesser extent. However, Liszt's works are much easier to grasp overall while Alkan's easier works (like the Esquisses) are often too unconventional for the general public.


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## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

I have found many of Alkan's works to be bombastic and rather lacking in musical value. This could be the answer that you're looking for, but it isn't as simple as "his music is not as good as his contemporaries." Most of Alkan is not very good, but what is good is absolutely amazing.

For the Alkan lovers out there, here is what I consider to be a ranking for Alkan's piano works:

*Great:*i.e., equal or superior to the great works of Liszt and Chopin
Op.76 _Trois Grandes Etudes_
Op.33 _Les Quatre Ages_
Op.39 _Symphony_
Op.63 _Esquisses_

*Good:* i.e., comparable to the standard repertory found in Liszt and Chopin
Op.15: _Trois morceaux dans le genre pathétique_
Op.39: _Concerto_
Op.10: _Concerto da camera_
Op.39 _Le festin d'esope_
Op.34 _Scherzo focoso_
Op.61 _Sonatine_

*Average or poor:* i.e., lower in quality or appeal to the standard repertory found in Liszt and Chopin
Almost everything else, including the rest of Op.39, almost all of Op.35, Op.17, and his other more popular works. This is coming from myself as a pianist who practices etudes from Op.35 and Op.39 daily. I don't know about the works that are not yet recorded but something tells me that the majority of them are not that good.

In that case, I suspect that his ratio of great/good vs. average works is much lower than Liszt or Chopin.


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## Dimace (Oct 19, 2018)

I have all Alkan's works, due to respect and admiration (and some fear) my master had to his person. It is fact that Liszt was avoiding to play piano in front of him. Such was Alkans pianistic dexterity. Despite this fact, I find his music a somehow naked or not properly dressed. Like a beautiful woman, who is dressed not with top taste. There are also all these acrobatics, many times without purpose, which often tantalise his music. Nevertheless his is a GOOD composer and one of the GREATEST ever played our instrument. Full respect, but Chopin, Liszt and Rach, who mentioned above, are better composers but not better pianists than him.


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## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

Dimace said:


> I have all Alkan's works, due to respect and admiration (and some fear) my master had to his person. It is fact that Liszt was avoiding to play piano in front of him. Such was Alkans pianistic dexterity. Despite this fact, I find his music a somehow naked or not properly dressed. Like a beautiful woman, who is dressed not with top taste. There are also all these acrobatics, many times without purpose, which often tantalise his music. Nevertheless his is a GOOD composer and one of the GREATEST ever played our instrument. Full respect, but Chopin, Liszt and Rach, who mentioned above, are better composers but not better pianists than him.


Reports about Alkan's playing are conflicted. Some say that Liszt was afraid to play in front of him. Others say that after Alkan heard Liszt's playing, he wept for his own! And still others will say that Alkan's playing was not as technically flawless but much more emotional and sensitive than Liszt. Regardless, the consensus is that Alkan was a superb pianist but if better than Rachmaninov, Liszt, etc., we will never know because Alkan never recorded anything.

Not that any of this is relevant to his quality as a composer. I do agree that much of his music seems "undressed" and contain an overemphasis on technique over musicality. Too much of his music is boring through unnecessary repetition and boring big chords. With that being said, he does possess a few works that are superb by any degree.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

I've rarely listened to Alkan, and gave it another go just now. I feel his music isn't very memorable, and at the same time not that forward looking in terms of harmony. Another thing is the myth of his music being impossibly difficult to play actually hurt his chances of being heard. This article sums it well I thought.

http://www.jackgibbons.com/alkanmyths.htm


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## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

Phil loves classical said:


> I've rarely listened to Alkan, and gave it another go just now. I feel his music isn't very memorable, and at the same time not that forward looking in terms of harmony. Another thing is the myth of his music being impossibly difficult to play actually hurt his chances of being heard. This article sums it well I thought.
> 
> http://www.jackgibbons.com/alkanmyths.htm


Well, Alkan's innovations are that he was the first to write a real concert piece for one hand alone (studied extensively by Ravel for his left-hand concerto) 





and that he infused Jewish folk music into his piano music






and he was indeed forward looking in harmony if you know what to look for (he was the first to use tone clusters on the piano)











On top of that he represents perhaps the first musical renditions of a locomotive and a rocket.

But it is true that there is so much average/mundane Alkan out there that it is easy to lose the gems Try the above pieces if you haven't already and also check this out:






This one is indeed impossibly difficult.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I have an extensive amount oif Alkan in my collection. Unfortunately, I find a lot of his music to be self-consciously difficult and more than a bit dry -- no "juice" so to speak.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

I really enjoy Alkan but I think appreciating him requires a different temperament than that which appreciates Liszt and Chopin. The latter were typically very romantic, Chopin especially could be rapturously lyrical, both could be extremely beautiful, Liszt, at his best, could be transcendental in that way that was typical of grandiose 19th century aesthetics. Alkan is rarely any of that. I once had a good online friend who was a Stanley Kubrick fanatic and also a fan of Alkan who felt a kinship between them, namely that they were both distant, detached, cynical, and virtuosic in ways that invited intellectual thought more than indulging our superficial emotional desires. The more I've listened to Alkan, the more I've come to think that he was dead on. Alkan is full of surprises, full of impressive moments and passage, but he never wallows in a melody or a harmony because it's pretty or beautiful, and there's a much harder edge to him than his contemporaries. Essentially, I think Alkan eschews much of what most listeners go to classical music for, and while it's easy to say that's to his detriment, I also think it makes him a rather unique composer, especially given the period in which he was composing.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

He must have put fear into the hearts of other pianists of his era because he could be a titan at the keyboard. But he has one glaring weaknesses that lessens his interest to me: The basic triadic chord voicings that he constantly uses (c-e-g, for instance, rarely breaking up his voicings over an octave like Chopin did so brilliantly) can sound boring, bland and ordinary. I believe he's far more famous as a pianist than as a composer, but of course he did some memorable works too or no one would be playing him now.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> distant, detached, cynical, and virtuosic in ways that invited intellectual thought more than indulging our superficial emotional desires.


That's pretty much it, but I'd leave out the word "superficial." Alkan's music has never moved me at all. Still, it's well-composed and can be cerebrally entertaining.


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## BiscuityBoyle (Feb 5, 2018)

chu42 said:


> Alkan and Schumann wrote for themselves and not for others. They wrote to express their own personal emotions...


Only one was an intensely imaginative poet with a sublime gift for melody, character and atmosphere while the other a train-obsessed autist who apparently thought of music in quantitative terms...

Alkan's recent popularity among (esp American) piano students makes profound sense to me when you look at who studies the piano these days. I swear, if you click through to the channels of most of the people who upload their own piano playing to YT, all you ever find among their likes or favorites is trains and chess.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

For seeking out a bit more varied picture of Alkan sound-wise, there is also the _Piano Trio _and the_ Cello Sonata,_ besides the miniature _Concertos da Camera._


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## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

BiscuityBoyle said:


> Only one was an intensely imaginative poet with a sublime gift for melody, character and atmosphere while the other a train-obsessed autist who apparently thought of music in quantitative terms...
> 
> Alkan's recent popularity among (esp American) piano students makes profound sense to me when you look at who studies the piano these days. I swear, if you click through to the channels of most of the people who upload their own piano playing to YT, all you ever find among their likes or favorites is trains and chess.


Of course, Alkan wasn't actually autistic so that is in fact quite a demeaning and uncalled-for insult. Schumann is my 3rd favorite composer of all time and Alkan isn't even close, but he wrote for himself and that's a fact, like it or not.


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## BiscuityBoyle (Feb 5, 2018)

chu42 said:


> he wrote for himself and that's a fact, like it or not.


I like the idea that what we think we know about the innermost motivations of an artist could be described as a "fact."


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Larkenfield said:


> He must have put fear into the hearts of other pianists of his era because he could be a titan at the keyboard. But he has one glaring weaknesses that lessens his interest to me: The basic triadic chord voicings that he constantly uses (c-e-g, for instance, rarely breaking up his voicings over an octave like Chopin did so brilliantly) can sound boring, bland and ordinary. I believe he's far more famous as a pianist than as a composer, but of course he did some memorable works too or no one would be playing him now.


Sounds like variations on "The Itsy Bitsy Spider." 

(It also sounds like virtuosity for vistuosity's sake.)


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## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

BiscuityBoyle said:


> I like the idea that what we think we know about the innermost motivations of an artist could be described as a "fact."


So a once-renowned-turned-highly reclusive composer who in his later life ended up writing music that was neither performed in public by himself for anyone else; nor sold for profit or reviewed by contemporaries....

For what did he write for if not personal reasons?


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

I object that Alkan didn't write music of depth, or pretty melodies.
6:08 is both





This melody is hard to hear in its full expressiveness in any solo piano interpretation I could find on Youtube, but try Klindworth's arrangement 22:00




"real happiness is a serious business"



chu42 said:


> I have found many of Alkan's works to be bombastic and rather lacking in musical value. This could be the answer that you're looking for, but it isn't as simple as "his music is not as good as his contemporaries." Most of Alkan is not very good, but what is good is absolutely amazing.
> 
> For the Alkan lovers out there, here is what I consider to be a ranking for Alkan's piano works:
> 
> ...


This is pretty much spot on to me.


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## Silas (Dec 4, 2021)

Alkan was known for having long retreats from the public. So never went on large tours as Liszt did. He never really put himself out there much as Liszt. At least Chopin gave private performances.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

*Charles-Valentin Alkan (30 November 1813 – 29 March 1888)*












Op.35 No.5


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

MarkW said:


> Sounds like variations on "The Itsy Bitsy Spider."
> 
> (It also *sounds like virtuosity for vistuosity's sake*.)


I suppose. But Yeol Eum Son approaches it with panache and humor and really pulls it off. It's absurd on one level, but for me delightfully so when played this well. Normally I wouldn't even sit through a superficial show piece like this but I wasn't bored for a second with this performance.

And for the Alkan fans out there: Has anyone orchestrated the Symphony for piano?


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## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

I always like what I sometimes call the "piano nerd repertoire" which are composers who are mainly famous for people who play or are interested in a particular instrument, and Alkan is probably the best example of that. Though maybe not to the extent of someone like Sorabji.


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