Nocturnes, Impromptus & Zorzicos (Vol. 8)

Description

Since their release, each volume of this exhaustive study of Alkan’s piano music has been eagerly awaited by the specialist press and has drawn enthusiastic reviews. Through his playing, his research and his writings, Mark Viner has become the most eminent modern champion of a composer still widely misunderstood and perpetually underestimated. Volume 8 of this study is organized around Alkan’s treatment of three genres: the nocturne, the impromptu and the zorcico. The austere dignity and restrained classicism of the Nocturne Op. 22 (published in 1844) bring it close to the aesthetic of the father of the nocturne, John Field. Published in 1857, the two Nocturnes Op. 57 explore varied tonalities, the first imbued with a dark and mystical atmosphere, the second soaring away with unusual speed before a conclusion marked by contemplation and dignity. Composed in 1859, the fourth and final nocturne evokes the song of the cricket. Op. 32 No. 1 is a set of four impromptus composed in the second half of the 1840s, each bearing an evocative title: “Charme,” “Amitié,” “Foi” and, in the “Fantasietta alla moresca,” a true musical sketch of North Africa. Op. 32 No. 2 is another set of four impromptus, contemporary with the first volume. Constantly experimenting with musical parameters, Alkan wrote the first three pieces in this set in quintuple meter (five beats per bar) and the fourth in septuple meter, sometimes evoking the mystical world of Erik Satie, several decades ahead of its time. La Réconciliation, petit caprice Op. 42 is another piece in quintuple meter, this time explicitly evoking a Basque dance called zortziko. Moreover, the history of Zorcico, an Iberian dance (in 5 beats), without opus number, is even more complex than usual, as Viner explains in his detailed liner notes: this is the first recording faithful to Alkan’s original manuscript. The volume ends with a musical fireworks display: Une fusée, introduction et impromptu Op. 55, surging across the keyboard with near-toccata energy before exploding into a flamboyant finale in D major. “If Alkan could play it as Viner does here,” Jeremy Nicholas remarked of a piece on volume 6 of this retrospective, “one better understands why he was the only pianist before whom Liszt hesitated to play... Lovers of transcendental piano (beautifully recorded, incidentally) and exuberant virtuosity may be tempted.”