Musical questions and answers thread

[ahinton]

I know I'm in trouble here but Alkan's music always seems pre-occupied with technique and display.

If you'll pardon my saying so, I think that you are referring here only to certain of Alkan's works, not including, for example, the Esquisses, Préludes and various other miniatures that do not demand the ultimate in virtuosity.

His melodic gifts are not the equal of Chopin or Liszt

Indeed not; no more were Chopin's the "equal" of Liszt's. All three had - and explored - quite distinctly different melodic gifts, although at times there were some points of confluence.

as for Chopin as wallpaper, I wish mine was as tuneful or as well structured.

Moi aussi!

[ardcarp]

Ferney,

Sorry! Silly me.

a.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

- it's Christmas: if you can't be silly now, when can you?

[Alison]

Next question: has Pierre Boulez retired ?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I don't think so - officially, though his failing eyesight has prevented him from conducting for almost 2 years. Furthermore, his shoulder injury has delayed a possible return to th podium still further.

[MrGongGong]

Next question: has Pierre Boulez retired ?

NO

But (an old question ) If Boulez was so good , why isn't he on X-Factor ?

[Alison]

I see Pierre was due to conduct the Chicago SO in February but has had to withdraw for unspecified health reasons.

[kea]

Nice question. The highest one I've ever come across is Mozart's concert aria Popoli di Tessaglio which goes up (twice!) to a high G - a tone higher than the Queen of the Night. Can anybody go higher still?

There's the part of Ariel in Adès's The Tempest which also goes up to that high G a few times—technically higher since Mozart didn't use A = 440. Almost all of the part lies above the high C. Can't imagine the sopranos will be lining up to sing that one anytime soon.

[EdgeleyRob]

I know I'm in trouble here but Alkan's music always seems pre-occupied with technique and display. His melodic gifts are not the equal of Chopin or Liszt, and as for Chopin as wallpaper, I wish mine was as tuneful or as well structured.

If you'll pardon my saying so, I think that you are referring here only to certaion of Alkan's works, not including, for example, the Esquisses, Préludes and various other miniatures that do not demand the ultimate in virtuosity.

When it comes down to it, what makes Alkan's music so attractive to listeners is not the virtuosity of the piano writing, though that can be exciting, nor the cleverness of the construction, though that might be impressive. No, what grips listeners is the sheer passion of Alkan’s music and the strength of his musical personality (Jack Gibbons).

There is so much more to Alkan than finger breaking virtuosity IMVHO.
I'm no expert in the finer points (or indeed any points)of piano writing,but surely he is a least on the same level as Chopin and Liszt.
Having said that the young up and coming pianists don't seem keen to play him,so maybe I'm wrong

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

[Beef Oven!]

When it comes down to it, what makes Alkan's music so attractive to listeners is not the virtuosity of the piano writing, though that can be exciting, nor the cleverness of the construction, though that might be impressive. No, what grips listeners is the sheer passion of Alkan’s music and the strength of his musical personality (Jack Gibbons).

There is so much more to Alkan than finger breaking virtuosity IMVHO.
I'm no expert in the finer points (or indeed any points)of piano writing,but surely he is a least on the same level as Chopin and Liszt.
Having said that the young up and coming pianists don't seem keen to play him,so maybe I'm wrong

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

Nicely brought into focus

[Ferretfancy]

I'm obviously not quite on the Alkan wavelength. That said, I have enjoyed a few memorable Alkan occasions, including the appearance of Raymond Lewenthal complete with scarlet lined cloak and candelabra on the piano. It's just that the music does not stay with me. Even bad Liszt ( and there's quite a bit of it ) stays in the mind for me, where Alkan does not. Never mind, there's a world of music out there.

[ahinton]

When it comes down to it, what makes Alkan's music so attractive to listeners is not the virtuosity of the piano writing, though that can be exciting, nor the cleverness of the construction, though that might be impressive. No, what grips listeners is the sheer passion of Alkan’s music and the strength of his musical personality (Jack Gibbons).

There is so much more to Alkan than finger breaking virtuosity IMVHO.
I'm no expert in the finer points (or indeed any points)of piano writing,but surely he is a least on the same level as Chopin and Liszt.
Having said that the young up and coming pianists don't seem keen to play him,so maybe I'm wrong

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

Thank you for posting this link, which I should have done myself earlier.

Gibbons talks a good deal of sense here. Curiously, one of the few composers, writers and critics actively to promote the music of Alkan in the years between his death and the beginning of the Alkan renaissance (or, more properly, just "naissance", peut-être?) in the 1950s and 1960s was Sorabji, whose own reclusivity and distancing from the musical milieu (albeit for different reasons to Alkan's) kept his music at bay for decades and a series of equally absurd myths and legends began to be attached to him during his lifetime as happened to Alkan during and after his.

Alkan's friendship with Chopin - something which it is clear that both composers valued greatly - is itself interesting for a number of reasons, not least the fact that the anti-semitism that was rife in Paris in the 1830s and 1840s would have been known to Chopin whose own views on Jews, whilst by no means as trenchant or vociferously expressed as Wagner's, were often well less than positive (witness some of his remarks about Jewish music publishers, for example). Clearly, however, this was no obstacle to Chopin's deep respect for Alkan's musicianship and pianism and did not stand in the way of his ability to share Alkan's wacky sense of humour; Chopin enjoyed discussing all manner of subjects with Alkan besides music and he sat next to Liszt in the audience when Alkan premièred his 25 Préludes for piano (can anyone imagine what that must have felt like - to perform one's piano music before an audience that included Chopin and Liszt?!).

The only point at which I depart from Gibbons is his suggestion that Chopin's études are harder to play than Alkan's; they're very different, of course, they each have their fair share of difficulties and, for all that Chopin's are performed by the vast majority of pianists and have been ever since they were first published (unlike Alkan's), they remain one of the pinnacles of piano literature, with all the challenges that this unsurprisingly entails (and today some pianists are also exploring the performance of this material on pianos of Chopin's own time, which is another layer of discipline again). Alkan's Op. 39 cycle contains some fearsome difficulties that I suspect even Chopin would have balked at had he lived a few more years to witness their emergence.

The B major nocturne on Gibbons' CD is probably the closest that Alkan ever got to writing a Chopin Nocturne!

The "problem" of Alkan is one which risks occurring whenever any kind of performing tradition in a composer's work begins to take flight only some time after he/she has died; that this has notably affected Alkan, Godowsky and Sorabji (and to a lesser extent also Medtner) might suggest that it is a particularly acute issue where piano composers are concerned!

[EdgeleyRob]

Thank you for posting this link, which I should have done myself earlier.

Gibbons talks a good deal of sense here. Curiously, one of the few composers, writers and critics actively to promote the music of Alkan in the years between his death and the beginning of the Alkan renaissance (or, more properly, just "naissance", peut-être?) in the 1950s and 1960s was Sorabji, whose own reclusivity and distancing from the musical milieu (albeit for different reasons to Alkan's) kept his music at bay for decades and a series of equally absurd myths and legends began to be attached to him during his lifetime as happened to Alkan during and after his.

Alkan's friendship with Chopin - something which it is clear that both composers valued greatly - is itself interesting for a number of reasons, not least the fact that the anti-semitism that was rife in Paris in the 1830s and 1840s would have been known to Chopin whose own views on Jews, whilst by no means as trenchant or vociferously expressed as Wagner's, were often well less than positive (witness some of his remarks about Jewish music publishers, for example). Clearly, however, this was no obstacle to Chopin's deep respect for Alkan's musicianship and pianism and did not stand in the way of his ability to share Alkan's wacky sense of humour; Chopin enjoyed discussing all manner of subjects with Alkan besides music and he sat next to Liszt in the audience when Alkan premièred his 25 Préludes for piano (can anyone imagine what that must have felt like - to perform one's piano music before an audience that included Chopin and Liszt?!).The only point at which I depart from Gibbons is his suggestion that Chopin's études are harder to play than Alkan's; they're very different, of course, they each have their fair share of difficulties and, for all that Chopin's are performed by the vast majority of pianists and have been ever since they were first published (unlike Alkan's), they remain one of the pinnacles of piano literature, with all the challenges that this unsurprisingly entails (and today some pianists are also exploring the performance of this material on pianos of Chopin's own time, which is another layer of discipline again). Alkan's Op. 39 cycle contains some fearsome difficulties that I suspect even Chopin would have balked at had he lived a few more years to witness their emergence.

The B major nocturne on Gibbons' CD is probably the closest that Alkan ever got to writing a Chopin Nocturne!The "problem" of Alkan is one which risks occurring whenever any kind of performing tradition in a composer's work begins to take flight only some time after he/she has died; that this has notably affected Alkan, Godowsky and Sorabji (and to a lesser extent also Medtner) might suggest that it is a particularly acute issue where piano composers are concerned!

Fascinating post AH,many thanks.

The thought of FC and FL sitting next to each other listening to Alkan playing his own music gives me goosebumps,brilliant.

That B Major Nocturne is as beautiful as any by Chopin to my ears.

[ahinton]

Fascinating post AH,many thanks.

The thought of FC and FL sitting next to each other listening to Alkan playing his own music gives me goosebumps,brilliant.

That B Major Nocturne is as beautiful as any by Chopin to my ears.

It's quite something, isn't it?! To me, it's one of the more obviously telling illustrations of the regard in which he held Chopin; in more general terms, what strikes me as one of the most remarkable aspects of the pianistic triumvirate that was Chopin, Liszt and Alkan is how very different from one another their works are - much mutual admiration between the three but never at the expense of the individuality of matter or manner of any one of them.

[Petrushka]

Time for a fresh question.

Why did Herbert von Karajan never record or perform the Sibelius Symphony No 3? It is no lesser a work than any of the others yet, given Karajan's enormous affinity with Sibelius and the fact that he set down the other symphonies more than once, it is puzzling that he never recorded the 3rd. Is he on record (no pun intended) as saying anything about it? Did he have an expressed antipathy to it or did he just never get round to it?