Hamelin plays Alkan - Barcarolle, Mad Woman Prelude & Le Festin d'Esope Audio + Sheet music
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- Опубліковано 26 лис 2024
- Happy 199th birthday, Chuck! :D
Marc-André Hamelin performs 3 more famous pieces by Charles-Valentin Alkan: Barcarolle, Prelude op. 31 No. 8 "Song of the Mad Woman on the Seashore" and Le Festin d'Esope, right before Ronald Stevenson's frenetic "Le Festin d'Alkan" (also on my channel).
Barcarolle, op. 65 No. 6: 0:00
Prelude op. 31 No. 8 "Song of the Mad Woman on the Seashore": 4:00
Etude op. 39 No. 12 "Le Festin d'Esope": 8:46
From a theoretical and analytical standpoint, Alkan's music provides an impressive example of mastery in harnessing form and craftsmanship. Musically, I find his pieces very satisfying.
The performance Le Festin d'Esope here is the most energetic and explosive I've ever heard. It really captures something bold and terrifying about the composition.
Well, someone doesn't understand modernism.
Alkan is the grandfather of impressionism and modernism: he's more influential than a great deal of composers who were far more well known.
He just came into being too early to gain that recognition.
I'm not bored by his music at all, nor am I "dazzled by all the notes." Any professional with the time can learn those pieces.
I love his music for his music. It is so unique and imaginative, and he uses so many devices that are far ahead of his time.
"Alkan is the grandfather of impressionism and modernism"
lol, no. You'll find more modernism in Beethoven's Grosse Fuge than all of Alkan, and more impressionism in Chopin and much, much more in Liszt than you would find in Alkan.
@@Manx123 lol, no. Chopin's impressionism pales in comparison to Alkan's.
@@therealrealludwigvanbeethoven Yeah, fuck off, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Consider how many Chopin pieces are given popular nicknames by people because of how strongly they associate them with various ideas, when with Alkan, this is mostly relegated to his Esquisses, which aren’t even that popular, (though they should be),
@@Manx123 Impressionism is a broad category. Alkan is a noted influence on people like Debussy and Ravel (who hated the term impressionism for its connotations of the painting style, which is not really at all what his music is intended as).
@@hellomate639 Utterly delusional to think Alkan was more of an influence than Chopin was on Ravel and Debussy, (especially the latter).
Well, I only just discovered Alkan, through his Symphony for Piano, which blew me over. A magnificent piece. I then listened to his Concerto for Piano, which I found over-rhetorical and cluttered. These pieces here are fantastic. At times Alkan sounds like Mozart, at times like Liszt and Chopin, at times like Faure or Ravel or even Messiaen, and at times like Keith Jarrett. Yet he is always himself, at the same time. A remarkable composer, in a time all of his own, looking back, looking forward, and gifted with a huge sense of humour and free of excessive sentimentality.
he is always himself, but nowdays we greatly disregard him that's why we find his music in every bit of music era and some composers and their works like reminiscence of one great Romantic genius who was in past present and future with his music but overloked due to his own isolation from the society and nowdays mistakenly described just as composer of virtuosity without and musical significance which is sad that nowdays 'modern' research in music world doesn't do actual research but rather stay on the known ground which has been promoted by mainstream classical history.
@@SamuraiSx19 well said
Timestamps:
0:00 - Barcarolle, Op. 65, No. 6
A melancholy piece that in some ways reminds me of the Barcarolle from Tchaikovsky's Seasons. Cold, windy, and only occasionally is there a spot of sunshine to penetrate the clouds until the end, where it seems the clouds finally recede and it's nothing but warmth and comfort the rest of the way.
4:00 - Prelude Op. 31 No. 8 (The Song of the Mad Woman on the Seashore)
The most well-known of the Op. 31. A collection of 25 preludes that cover all 24 major and minor keys (with an extra C Major prelude, a sweet, solemn piece titled "Priere" ).
Perhaps the eeriest piece of classical piano music ever concieved, here is Alkan at his most eccentric. The dark, thunderous, left hand ostinato in the lower register represent waves crashing onto the shore as the lonely, frenzied singing of the titular woman is represented in the higher register.
8:46 - Le Festin D'Esope
Song of the madwoman is absolutely magnificent piece. Beautiful....
Nice selections. The Mad Woman is quite a gem. You can really imagine how a mad woman's thought process is so muddy and goes into these shifting moods while having an extreme episode in the middle. I like it.
The simplicity and repetition of the figures likewise represents such a paradox- the elegance and freedom of a woman, but the caged madness of being stuck within one's own thoughts.
Alkan was certainly not copying anyone else.
Woah.. The second one is something you'd see in a horror movie like the ring. Love it - especially the speeding up part of that piece. Its very madwoman-y :)
13:54 Variation 22 is hilarious.
Very nice but the volume could get a small boost, it's super quiet. Can barely hear it at max volume...
Wow, shock seeing you here!
12:10
@Schuyler Bacn brother please un-time me out i am desperate
The technique is demanding and that aspect is impressive, but what I like about Alkan's music is that it still has musical meaning to my ears and the technical depth extends the range of expression. I find his music emotional and at the same time interesting because of his innovative approach to composition. I find Chopin and Liszt pretty technically challenging as well.
At 4:34 and 5:39 Hamelin changes the melody! Middle of bar 7: semitone step to F-flat instead of fourth leap to A-flat. The score has what Hamelin has played as a fragment at 7:29 - maybe Hamelin preferred it to what Alkan wrote earlier, I wonder whether it was a conscious choice on his part.
An astounding pianist channeling the astounding genius of Alkan! Thanks for sharing this, Bálint!
Happy 200th Birthday!
The Festine D' Esope had been used as example in the italian youtube cultural video "Lezioni di Musica - Survivorship Bias" of the channel "musicamonteverde". A really very very interesting video.
Alkan - A pianist of great tallent as he is known! Probably the best on the piano of all time! Very few are able to even match what this man was cappable of!
What beautiful and ethereal music.
Thanks Ethan, that's nice of you :) But don't worry about that at all; someone who's maintained such a channel for a long time (plus lives in Hungary and follows its political life extensively) is very much used to trolls and knows Antal Szerb's eternal saying (too) well: "every almsdeed gains its worthy punishment". :) However, it's always a great joy, in every walk of life, to have people who really appreciate your work, especially if it's for something as indeed brilliant as this is ;) Enjoy!
I love this video
Joyeux anniversaire, cher Charles-Valentin! ^____^
I'm pretty picky about emotional meaning and I do hear it in Alkan's music. As I often don't get what other people like in various other pieces of music, maybe some of us just enjoy different approaches more than others, and maybe Alkan just doesn't suit your tastes. I've been impressed with how expressive some of Alkan's stuff is, like you hear it and are almost watching a film, and yet it's dynamically and creatively constructed. Maybe you haven't yet found the piece which speaks to you.
I'm fascinated with his overture op39 no11. The ending makes me smile
That's true
Astonishing performance!! Thank you!!
Yes. Look up Charles-Valentin Alkan on sheetmusicplus . com
You'll find many sheet music books of Alkan.
Wow...he is mad
Alkan did retire from the stage quite early but he was almost as fashionable a teacher as his friend Chopin (who thought enough of Alkan to remember him on his deathbed). Liszt (also a good friend) thought Alkan had the finest technique he had ever encountered. But despite many people promoting his music it was considered too unorthodox and definitely unplayable.
so ignored as a composer, KDFC the classical station ignores my request of playing Alkan' music and they keep playing the old war horses to bore us all.
Jorge Saucedo his Barcarolle is beautiful, wow. Liszt admired this guy, and people like Rubinstein. The old war horses indeed. even only a portion of Beethoven's Sonatas are really in the popular repertoire.
Too much Mozart, not enough Scriabin. Too much Bach not enough Alkan. Some people would melt like wax if they listened to this music haha
all classic stations play warhorses they don't really have a classic lovers audience just snobs who think it they have culture and listen to mozart or bach all day secretly hating it
i iike finding the hardest pieces probably like hamelin does although he would never admit it
It's the same thing on any music radio station. Classic rock-which I sometimes enjoy-our station plays the same twelve songs overnadovernadovernandover and then they'll squeeze in something new once in a while. It's been like that for as far back as I can remember.
The Barcarolle reminds me of Chopin's nocturnes.
CloudySunrise And Prelude No. 15.
+CloudySunrise The 2 composers were friends, surely this is no coïncidence :)
Really? The writing is *really* unlike Chopin.
@@AshishXiangyiKumar The figurations are very like the first Chopin Nocturne and elsewhere and so are the harmonic transitions.
Structurally though, Chopin would however tend to introduce more contrasting sections and configurations even in a short lyrical piece like this (eg: an ABA structure).
@@AshishXiangyiKumar will you consider to upload to your channel some alkan?
I love this slowly interpretation of barcarolle, it gives some mysterious and melancholy way to this
Such menace, enough to instill the fear of the devil. Spectacular!!
Alkan is the most important technician to ever write a piece of music in my uneducated, unimportant opinion. Nevertheless, I find it quite entertaining to find that there are but a handful of people, and a small one at that, willing to attack pieces like Hands Reunited [Opus 76 #3] and The Railway [Le Chemin De Fer]. Those two pieces are incredibly demanding and technically frightening to everyone who attempts them. Vincent Maltempo does a wonderful job with Hands Reunited, which is monumentally difficult to simpy play at speed, never mind making it sound musical. Jack Gibbons is obsessed with Alkan, and plays a huge selection of his works, including his symphony for solo piano and Schertzo Diabolico. Both of these pianists are more than worth an hour or three of listening, as you will not hear a better performance of Alkan.
I only wish Cziffra would have attacked this composers music. It's like Czerney on steroids.
Valentina Lisitsa, Marc Hammelin, Yuja Wang and Evegny Kissin are all virtuoso pianists quite capable of playing this work, so we can always hope they decide to grace us with a rendition of his work[s].
Alkan was the only person Franz Liszt was afraid to play to!!
M. Ancona I've got good news for you: Hamelin already plays a lot of Alkan. His is my favorite recording of Concerto for Solo Piano.
M. Ancona Actually he's even the one playing in this video :P
M. Ancona Actually, Cziffra did play Alkan, but they were mostly never recorded.
+M. Ancona - I WAS GONNA ASK YOU WHY YOU THINK NONE OF THOSE GREAT PIANISTS HAVE TACKLED ALKAN YET, THEN I NOTICED YOU HAD HAMELIN ON YOUR LIST, SO I GUESS YOU COULDN'T ANSWER MY QUESTION, IF YOU DON'T ALREADY KNOW THAT HAMELIN IS, BY FAR, THE FOREMOST ALKAN PLAYER.......BUT KISSIN AND LISITSA I KNOW HAVEN'T TOUCHED HIM YET, NOT SURE ABOUT WANG BECAUSE SHE IS STILL KIND OF NEW TO ME, BUT I DON'T THINK SHE HAS TOUCHED HIM YET EITHER............
BUT THAT IS ONE OF THE GREAT MYSTERIES OF MY LIFE, WHY KISSIN, WHO I CONSIDER THE GREATEST PIANIST IN THE HISTORY OF THE RECORDING AGE, NOW IN HIS 40's, JUST WILL NOT TAKE ON ALKAN, BUT HAS EVEN TAKEN MANY MANY LESSER COMPOSERS, QUITE STRANGE INDEED......
Hell yeah dude!
Can anyone tell me why Mad Woman is writen in an E flat minor key signature despite the whole piece is in a flat minor (with a brief episode in a flat major in the middle)?
+Francisco Cabrita It's difficult to say why, unless there is a documented statement on this somewhere, which I have never come across. It just seems to be a fact that composers occasionally use a wrong key signature, for unknown reasons; Beethoven similarly used 6 flats for Ab minor in his Sonata no. 31 in Ab major, where he should have used 7. He has used 7 flats elsewhere, so it doesn't seem that he considered 7 flats too hard to read, and thought 6 might be slightly better - and Beethoven doesn't seem to have been inclined to change things in his music anyway because it might be too hard for performers.
I have seen an edition of this piece by Alkan in 7 flats, but quite possibly that was done by an editor. I personally prefer the key signature to be always correct, even if that makes it bigger.
I know this is a late reply, but it is most likely in a mode like mixolydian, and the majority of the time the base has a e flat as the root
Modal writing
And that's just how I like my music: rigid and fairly morbid. Don't get me wrong, I like Chopin and his sheer emotion, that's where I take some of my composing inspiration from, but sometimes you gotta have a bit of repetition to get the certain emotion you're looking for.
Anyone else suspect that the second piece's low notes may have sounded more consonant when played back in the day on an older piano, tuned less strictly to equal temperament? I'd like to hear it that way.
Interesting
I think Alkan had a great sense of humour. I hear it in quite a few of his pieces.
Well, maybe nowadays any professional with time can learn those pieces, but I doubt that was true in his day. I suspect the frightening technical difficulty of his music -- Liszt considered Alkan to be the greatest pianist he had ever heard -- long presented a barrier to its being played, and therefore accepted. We are lucky to have artists like Hamelin around.
chuck. good one.
No one:
Alkan: **C H O R D S**
15:58
alkanshit singh
Same as the other pieces' (and that of Stevenson's Le Festin d'Alkan, actually): live concert in Blackheath, 1998.
8:45 12:02 15:38 16:22
Well, it certainly looks impressive.
Last chord. Piano collapses.
This description. “Hamelin plays 3. ‘Famous’ pieces by Alkan.” Are you kidding me? These are anything but famous (but they deserve to be)
Does anyone know the exact year Alkan composed Song of the Mad Woman on the Seashore?
I have GOT to hear this on a Bosendorfer with the extra keys...
とても効果的な組み合わせだ...
gesang der wahnsinnigen am meeresgestade
no comments about the music???
Nice...
Oh man... I think that we have listened a different "Barcarole"
I don't really get the madwoman song. Can someone explain?
What is there to explain? If you don't like it you just don't like it. It's the same with bananas.
Viktor, what a horrible comment. To the original commenter, what I was able to take away from the Mad Woman Prelude is Alkan's musical interpretation of a woman going crazy and the progressive steps in her nature leading up to that. For example, the bass kinda reflects her inner demons kinda gnarling, while the treble voice is her steady progression of increasing craziness, eventually exploding, and then quieting down shortly thereafter.
TheExarion Thank you for the good answer! Now i kinda get what Alkan was going for.
TheExarion Why do you find it so horrible? Music can be considered just as impactful without any context in my opinion. I find that the fact that a piece of music can instil these kinds of emotions without the need of any interpretation is exactly what makes it so beautiful. You don't have to agree with me and you are entitled to your own interpretation, however, yours is merely based on the title of the piece. I find that somewhat shallow and I am certain that the kind of emotions engendered in this piece are different to whoever the listener is. It's all eye of the beholder (or here in the ear of the audience), and Alkan might as well have composed this piece and named it from the associations it gave him personally. Whether you 'understand' it or not is not what is important here in my opinion.
Nikitotter SAS No problem! :)
well said ^^
In the mad woman prelude isn´t the pianist doing whatever he wants to with his left hand?
nope
What's the source of Hamelin's performance of the prelude?
Inimitable MAH
I guess this is what I get for searching up "easiest alkan piece."
14:34 POWER!!!!! UNLIMITED POWER!!! Haha
Real uncanny mad woman😬
I much prefer Jack Gibbon's recording of the Festin d'Esope.
Gotta keep in mind, this is a live performance. Hamelin seems to have a liking for shaking thing up in his live performances (for example, compare this version of the Barcarolle to another studio recording he's done for it. Very different.)
I prefer Maltempo's live recording
@@dhu2056 maltempo isn't that good imo
i prefer ringeissen recording
8:45
the first 2 are exellent but the Festin is played too fast in my opinion
According to Wikipedia, he was top dog pianist in Paris, along with Liszt and Chopin. He'd have to be, if he ever played this!
Do theme and variations usually have that many? It's a very ADHD style, with a few measures of "slow, lovely," then "wait! here it is, but Russian!" or "here it is with lots of dissonant grace notes that anybody else could never play." :P
You're right, I don't understand the Alkan fans.
Song of the Mad Woman... lmao
Tempo too hurried thru Le Festin
horrible recording but amazing music anyway, thx
I can't help but feel that Alkan's obscurity is at least partially due to all of the editions of his music being so ugly.
I don t liked the barcarolle... :,( But all composers have pieces we don t like.
Music could be gorgeous ....but sound is terrible
They're all rather empty. A technical demon but musically simplistic and ungifted.
Sad you think like that. It's known that this is not for everyone and thats ok.
Alkan's music is morbid, rigid, mechanical, lifeless, depressed, repetitive - no idea hidden by a lot of notes, a lot of noise : tiring and meaningless as the noise of trafic
-- to each his own.......🙏
Arrant nonsense. Obviously you are deaf.
RUBBISH
6:50