Alkan, Charles-Valentin - Assez Vivement for Harp Opus 38 No. 1 Harpe |
Compositeur : | Alkan, Charles-Valentin (1813 - 1888) | ||||
Instrumentation : | Harpe | ||||
Genre : | Romantique | ||||
Arrangeur : Editeur : | MAGATAGAN, MICHAEL (1960 - ) | ||||
Date : | 1857 | ||||
Droit d'auteur : | Public Domain | ||||
Ajoutée par magataganm, 17 Aoû 2012 Charles-Valentin Alkan (1813 ? 1888) was a French composer and one of the greatest pianists of his day. His attachment to his Jewish origins is displayed both in his life and his work. He entered the Conservatoire de Paris at the age of six, earning many awards, and as an adult became a famous virtuoso and teacher. Although early in his life he was socially active and good friends with prominent musicians and artists including Eugène Delacroix, Franz Liszt and Frédéric Chopin, he gradually withdrew from the concert platform after 1848, and he lived a reclusive life in Paris until his death in 1888. His compositions for solo piano include some of the most fiendishly difficult ever written, and performers who can master them are few and far between. "Trente Chants" was published in 1857. and included the romantic first piece: "Assez Vivement" (Deeply enough). The sweeping Assez vivement that opens the first collection of Chants would seem to be Alkan at his most straightforward -- peremptory, soaring, lyrically arresting -- until a certain nagging similarity to the first piece of Mendelssohn's first set of Lieder ohne Worte (songs without words), Op. 19, is identified, though it is more apparent to the performer than to the listener. If both place an evenly spaced melody over an accompaniment of distinctively purling arpeggios, their effects are very different; Mendelssohn's little piece is an invitation to domesticity, while Alkan's elaborately justifies his direction for playing avec grande passion. There can be no doubt of Alkan's admiration -- he is found performing Mendelssohn's works early and late. Perhaps their similarity of temperament, tokened by a certain primness, briskness, and fastidious elegance, led Alkan to delineate his own characteristic features by direct, occasionally pathological, comparison. The first and second collections of Chants, sharing opus number 38, were published by Richault in 1857 for piano (in E Major) however, I created this arrangement for Concert (Pedal) Harp in Eb Major. Partition centrale : | Recueil de Chants (2 partitions) | |
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