Why nobody writes music like Chopin anymore

[(poco) Sforzando]

No such thing. Genius doesn't bend to personal taste. Either you see it, or you don't, even if it's "not your thing".

And what if there is genius that you don't see?

[Josquin des Prez]

And what if there is genius that you don't see?

There is no middle ground here. If you can understand genius at all, then you have the power to find it in all of it's manifestations, no exceptions. Indeed, it should be one's main imperative to discover genius wherever it is to be found, what else it's there?

If it helps, i disliked Chopin too at first (to be honest, i disliked all of them at the beginning), so there.

[Josquin des Prez]

You can be aware of it and understand it, but not necessarily be a fan.

If you are a truly aware of it then it is impossible not to become a "fan", or foreseeing becoming a fan eventually. Like i said, what else is there?

[Joe_Campbell]

If you are a truly aware of it then it is impossible not to become a "fan", or foreseeing becoming a fan eventually. Like i said, what else is there?

There's plenty of music I'm not a fan of but understand completely (not Chopin though). You're mistaking your understanding--->liking to an understanding=liking.

[Florestan]

Chopin was the only poet among these.

Right. I see Chopin as Novalis (mystical, sensual, delicate and elusive) and Liszt as Victor Hugo (monumental, dramatic, action-oriented and assertive). Never heard any Alkan so I can't describe him. 

[mn dave]

Never heard any Alkan...

[Josquin des Prez]

There's plenty of music I'm not a fan of but understand completely (not Chopin though). You're mistaking your understanding--->liking to an understanding=liking.

Who said anything about music? I was talking about genius.

[jochanaan]

Right. I see Chopin as Novalis (mystical, sensual, delicate and elusive) and Liszt as Victor Hugo (monumental, dramatic, action-oriented and assertive). Never heard any Alkan so I can't describe him. 

I haven't heard any of Alkan's music either, but the reports I've read seem to indicate that he brought Wagnerian length to the solo piano repertoire. I also read a quote from a Schumann review that was really quite extreme in its distaste; that may only mean that the music was too advanced even for him.  One of these days I'm going to check Alkan's music out--if I can find it.

[Josquin des Prez]

Lots of fingers, little feeling. This quote applies to Alkan more then it does to Liszt. His music isn't necessarily all bad though.

[mn dave]

One of these days I'm going to check Alkan's music out--if I can find it.

Shouldn't be hard to find. Try the etudes.

[Joe_Campbell]

I haven't heard any of Alkan's music either, but the reports I've read seem to indicate that he brought Wagnerian length to the solo piano repertoire. I also read a quote from a Schumann review that was really quite extreme in its distaste; that may only mean that the music was too advanced even for him.  One of these days I'm going to check Alkan's music out--if I can find it.

YHM!

[Joe_Campbell]

Who said anything about music? I was talking about genius.

So it's impossible to not be a fan of someone whom one acknowledges to be a genius? Ok.

[lukeottevanger]

Right. I see Chopin as Novalis (mystical, sensual, delicate and elusive) and Liszt as Victor Hugo (monumental, dramatic, action-oriented and assertive). Never heard any Alkan so I can't describe him. 

Forgive rambling in the following:

My bringing up these three names for comparison is partly based on the idea that they all moved within the same circles in Paris at the same time. Alkan deserves to be discussed in the company of Chopin and Liszt - as pianist he was every bit their equal (he was the only person Liszt was afraid of playing for), but it is as a composer that the comparison becomes interesting. Here, in my mind, we have three great pianist composers, each finding a different and wholly personal direction in exploring the fundamental questions of writing for the piano. For instance, the question of virtuosity, and the poetry of virtuosity. What does it mean for a piece to be overtly virtuosic? Is it simply to impress the public? It's hard, really to find any other justification for virtuosity in itself - but Alkan manages to. He's practically the only composer before a few contemporary figures who makes the relative virtuosity of passages in his music part of the music's form - a parameter as vital to our appreciation of the music as harmonic flow, textural variation etc. I'll save time by quoting what I wrote a few weeks ago on the mystery scores thread, though....:

[Alkan] has a remorseless, hyper-virtuosic style all his own, a bizarre mix of classicism (in matters of proportion, tempo etc) with the most extraordinary flights of Romantic fancy (as in my no 257 and by the title of Sforzando's no 35, an Allegro Barbaro which predates Bartok's by at least half a century). His music shows a very sophisticated understanding of the implications of virtuosity upon form, texture and so on. In fact, it's extremely prescient in that sense: Alkan at his best doesn't use virtuosity for its own sake (or not only that, at any rate) but as a musical parameter in its own right. He's pretty much unique in his time for this, and this attitude to technical difficulty not as something 'outside' the notes which the performer has to deal with but instead as a component equal to harmony, counterpoint etc with which the composer balances his music) inescapably calls to mind the concerns of composers like Ferneyhough, believe it or not! (Chopin occasionally does something similar, e.g in some of the etudes where there is an equation between harmonic complexity/tension and difficulty for the performer; but the audience may not be aware of this, however). Alkan seems to be aware, IOW, that the struggle a performer has to get around the notes is itself a part of the music, that an audience is attentive to its ebb and flow just as they are to the rest of the various more obviously musical aspects of the piece. That's my theory, anyway! 

Alkan's famous Concerto - for solo piano, i.e. no orchestra, which is made up of three of the etudes from his set in all the minor keys which also includes a four movement Symphony - has been called 'the greatest piece in sonata form between Beethoven and Brahms' and I go along with that entirely. The more one studies it, the more impressive it becomes, for its integration of virtuosity into formal matters, as I said, but for all sorts of other things too. A page from its first movement cadenza was an earlier score sample of mine, no 69. What is amazing here is that for what is traditionally the area in a Concerto in which a soloist can indulge in the splashiest, most extravertly impressive virtuosity, Alkan has the insight to thin things right down to a single line of repeated notes - we've heard enough banging and crashing already, especially in the passages where the piano emulates the orchestral tutti. And yet at the same time this passage is perhaps the hardest, most risky thing in this incredibly hard work, fully fitting for a cadenza - ultra fast repeated notes with any mistakes cruelly exposed: Alkan judges degrees of virtuosity perfectly to climax at this point. The cadenza also functions as a kind of eye-of-the-needle - a place where everything is literally squashed into a narrow space, which somehow acts as a kind of catalyst, making the return of the 'orchestra' on the 'other side' all the more effective. The whole piece is an absolute must-hear, one of the very finest works for solo piano in the romantic repertoire, certainly one of the most original. Alkan emphasizes the very extremity of this piece by writing its first movement in an exceedingly odd and extreme choice of key, G# minor. It is also, therefore, by default, one of the very greatest pieces in that key too  Grin

Liszt, OTOH, at least in the works of his high-flown early and middle years, uses virtuosity as a public vehicle, but, coincident with that, he uses the inside knowledge of the professional performer to make the music sound harder than, perhaps, it is sometimes. For instance, Liszt's resourcefulness in inventing new figurations is deployed so that, as piece goes through new keys or more convoluted harmony, the figuration adapts  - the audience remains dazzled, and enthralled by the composer's inventiveness; meanwhile the grateful pianist doesn't have to struggle with a figuration that may suit A major (say) but would be hell in B flat.

Chopin rarely does this - he keeps figuration constant whilst keys and harmonies move around it, and this is one of the things that can make his music exceedingly difficult. But it also means that, somewhat like Alkan, though to a lesser extent, the stresses inherent in the harmony are reflected by the stresses in the pianist's hand. In Chopin, though, virtuosity itself is of comparatively lesser importance...  when it occurs, it may be less dazzling than in Liszt or Alkan (outside the etudes, especially) but its power comes from the restraint with which it is used. This use of virtuosity to 'heighten' moments and thus to delineate form is only vaguely similar to profound formal implications I see virtuosity having in in Alkan - Chopin doesn't deploy virtuosity with the contrapuntal precision that Alkan does, though at times, like the finale of the 3rd sonata, he is working the same vein. Alkan, BTW, takes the remorselessness of figuration seen in Chopin to a much more extreme, almost pathological position - like Ravel he is a monster of the 'sans ralentir'! 

So, we end up with three very different approaches to virtuosity - a very public virtuoso, skilled in effect-making; a private poet who doesn't make concessions, and who uses virtuosity sparingly but all-the-more powerfully; and an eccentric with a demonic vision, the virtuosity of whose music extends beyond simple 'crowd-pleasing' decoration and into the realm of musical aesthetics and musical form. Alkan's music is usually harder than Liszt's, but is, generally speaking, less instantly pleasing as public concert music - a sign that his virtuosity is transmuted into something other than the usual.

[Drasko]

Great post, thanks!

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Great post, thanks!

Seconded.

[Josquin des Prez]

So it's impossible to not be a fan of someone whom one acknowledges to be a genius?

Precisely.

[Josquin des Prez]

One of these days I'm going to check Alkan's music out--if I can find it.

Alkan's major work is his set of etudes dans tous les tons mineurs (opus 39), a monolithic collection of various pieces for solo piano, structured as such:

Part I (three etudes)
Part II (a symphony in four movements)
Part III (a concerto in three movements)
Part IV (overture)
Part V (Le Festin D'Esope, a large etude)

I own the complete set by Jack Gibbons which is ok, but i generally prefer the one by Ronald Smith, though it isn't complete. Haven't tried Hamelin yet, but his playing is usually so refined and ethereal i'm not expecting too much. Alkan was an absolute cruncher and he requires a rather heavy approach. 

Other notable recordings are two sonatas by Pierre Reach (opus 33 and 61), various pieces (including several large etudes) by Lauren Martin, a group of 48 esquisses (sort of small preludes in the vein of Chopin's opus 24) also by the former, and a set of major key studies (opus 35) performed by Bernard Ringeissen.

That's pretty much all i have. I'm going to have to disagree with Luke on some of his comments. Alkan's virtuosity does become gratuitous every so often and his inspiration is very uneven, often even pedestrian. Alkan seemed to be more intelligent than he was gifted, a dangerous situation for an artist.

[Don]

That's pretty much all i have. I'm going to have to disagree with Luke on some of his comments. Alkan's virtuosity does become gratuitous every so often and his inspiration is very uneven, often even pedestrian. Alkan seemed to be more intelligent than he was gifted, a dangerous situation for an artist.

Oh, I don't think there's anything dangerous going on here.  For anyone who loves Chopin's music, Alkan is a winner.

[lukeottevanger]

Alkan's major work is his set of etudes dans tous les tons mineurs (opus 39), a monolithic collection of various pieces for solo piano, structured as such:

Part I (three etudes)
Part II (a symphony in four movements)
Part III (a concerto in three movements)
Part IV (overture)
Part V (Le Festin D'Esope, a large etude)

I own the complete set by Jack Gibbons which is ok, but i generally prefer the one by Ronald Smith, though it isn't complete. Haven't tried Hamelin yet, but his playing is usually so refined and ethereal i'm not expecting too much. Alkan was an absolute cruncher and he requires a rather heavy approach.

Hamelin 's neither ethereal or refined in the Alkan Concerto, don't you worry! For once, one can actually hear Hamelin wrestling to keep the notes under control - and the recording is all the better for it.

I'm going to have to disagree with Luke on some of his comments. Alkan's virtuosity does become gratuitous every so often and his inspiration is very uneven, often even pedestrian. Alkan seemed to be more intelligent than he was gifted, a dangerous situation for an artist.

Alkan certainly wrote some clunkier pieces. But so did Liszt, and so - even! - did Chopin. I'm not really concerned with that, and I didn't and wouldn't claim that every note of his is golden. The point is that in his best, biggest works - of which those op 39 etudes stand at the top of the pile, as one of the great 'sets' of piano music - this is supreme music-making like no other. I was thinking again about that extraordinary cadenza to to solo Concerto after my last post - what other composer would have had the daring or indeed the imagination to do what Alkan does here? And yet this bizarre idea is a masterstroke, unequivocally the right thing to do here. It is the ability to go way beyond the norms and yet make it seem remorselessly logical and utterly convincing that makes Alkan at his best unique.

[Josquin des Prez]

Alkan certainly wrote some clunkier pieces, and so did Chopin.

Alkan's are infinitely more clunkier then Chopin.

The point is that in his best, biggest works - of which those op 39 etudes stand at the top of the pile, as one of the great 'sets' of piano music.

Perhaps, but i think it's only fair to warn people about what they are getting into. After all, i'm the self-proclaimed boor of GMG, i have an image of negativity to maintain!

Alkan was a superior craftsman, but not a genius. The distinction is important enough to stress, at least as far as i'm concerned. Others may decide not to care.