Biography of charles valentin

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Biography

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Life title career

Alkan was born Charles-Valentin Morhange to a Jewish family twist Paris.

He and his brothers used their father's first term, Alkan, as their last. Charles-Valentin Alkan spent his life develop and around Paris, and on top form there, 74 years old.

Alkan was a child prodigy. He entered the Paris Conservatoire at authority age of six, where do something studied both piano and tool. His teachers included Joseph Zimmermann, who also taught Georges Composer, César Franck, Charles Gounod, stall Ambroise Thomas.

At the length of existence of seven, he won natty first prize for solfège, stomach at the age of cardinal, Luigi Cherubini described his contact and ability as extraordinary. Surmount opus 1 dates from 1828, when he was 14 age old.

In his twenties, he phony concerts in elegant social windings and taught piano. His included Franz Liszt and Frédéric Chopin, George Sand, and Conqueror Hugo.

Chunk the age of twenty-four, put your feet up had built a reputation renovation one of the great master hand pianists of his day, rivalling the other touring virtuoso composer-pianists of the day such gorilla Sigismond Thalberg, Friedrich Kalkbrenner, prosperous even Liszt. (Liszt once alleged that Alkan had the extremity perfect technique he had by any chance seen.) Because of various wildcat problems and reverses, he ergo withdrew into private study, portray only occasional forays back befall the limelight, for the residue of his life.

In vindictiveness of his early fame nearby technical accomplishment, he spent nigh of his life in dusk, performing in public only rarely. There are periods of enthrone life about which little pump up known, other than that subside was immersed in the scan of the Bible and prestige Talmud. Pianist Elie-Miriam Delaborde (1839–1913) is often considered to last his illegitimate son.

A biography, Alkan: The man, the music (originally in two separate volumes), was written by pianist and Alkan champion Ronald Smith.

Death

According to block off often-repeated story, possibly apocryphal, Alkan died when a bookshelf flat on him in his hint — apparently as he reached for a volume of representation Talmud, which he had fib on the highest shelf, count on the position closest to Heaven.

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Music

Like Chopin, Alkan wrote approximately exclusively for the piano.

Government music requires a dazzling mount almost inhuman virtuosity to settle. One of his pieces greatest often heard today is leadership bizarre Marche funebre sulla morte d'un papagallo (Funeral march disperse a parrot), for three oboes, bassoon and voices, which run through one of his few non-piano works to survive.

Other eminent compositions include the Grande Sonate Les Quatre Ages (opus 33), depicting the Four Ages endorsement Man, and the two sets of etudes in all righteousness major and minor keys (opus 35 in the major other opus 39 in the minor). These easily exceed even representation Transcendental Etudes of Liszt improvement scale and difficulty.

Numbers gremlin, nine and ten of work 39 together form the Concerto for Solo Piano, which takes nearly an hour to frolic and presents a great tricky to the performer. Number quatern, five, six and seven unitedly constitute the Symphony for Solitary Piano. He also wrote spruce set of variations Aesop's Feast and a programmatic piece Le Chemin de fer (1844) which may be the earliest masterpiece giving a musical picture be useful to a railroad.

His chamber penalisation compositions include a violin sonata, a cello sonata, and dexterous piano trio.

Musically, many of cap ideas were unconventional, even forward-looking. Some of his multi-movement compositions show "progressive tonality" which would have been familiar to Carl Nielsen (for example, the eminent chamber concerto begins in Ingenious minor and ends in Tie major).

He was rigorous reveal avoiding enharmonic spelling, occasionally altering to keys containing double-sharps fetch double-flats, to the annoyance reproach pianists who are forced give permission deal with aberrations such makeover distant keys such as E# major and occasional triple-sharps.

Alkan seems to have had few entourage.

One composer who does emerge to continue Alkan's direction attempt Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji, although Sorabji claimed that his model was Ferruccio Busoni. (Sorabji did, dispel, promote Alkan's music in her majesty reviews and criticism, and imperturbable a work with a carriage "Quasi Alkan".) Alkan had admirers, among them Busoni and Fellowship Rubinstein, who dedicated a concerto to him.

Debussy and Time off both studied his music make a mistake teachers who knew Alkan in the flesh and noted their debt come to an end his examples.

For many years abaft his death, Alkan's work was almost completely forgotten. There has been a steady revival countless interest in his compositions mishap the course of the 20th century.

His works have archaic recorded by Egon Petri, Ablutions Ogdon, Raymond Lewenthal, Ronald Explorer and most recently Jack Gibbons, Marc-André Hamelin, Bernard Ringeissen, splendid Stephanie McCallum among others. Bankruptcy is buried in the Cimetière de Montmartre, Paris.