Search - Marc- Andre Hamelin :: Charles-Valentin Alkan: Concerto For Solo Piano

Incendiary piano playing

Steven Eldredge | New York, NY USA | 06/01/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This astonishing performance is the one that first brought the playing of Canadian super-virtuoso Marc-Andre Hamelin to my attention. In the years since then I have purchased just about everything he has recorded, and heard him play five recitals, one of which featured the Alkan Concerto.If you have never heard this piece you owe it to yourself to do so. The first movement alone is one of the most unusual and fascinating things I know from the earlier half of the nineteenth century. Cast in alternating 'orchestral' and 'solo' passages like a piano concerto, it is a gigantic work of relentless pianistic fireworks. To see it on the printed page is eye-popping and to hear it played is absolutely hair-raising. There have been previous magnificent readings of this music, by pianists such as John Ogdon and Ronald Smith, but Hamelin easily surpasses them in his command of the architecture of the piece, in the clarity and dryness of his articulation, the unbelievable ease with which he tosses off supremely difficult and thick figurations, and the scorching, almost diabolical energy he produces on every page.This is truly one of the great piano recordings of all time. If you love fantastic piano playing, make certain to add this to your library."

Incredible composing, Incredible playing

Deborah M. Lisle | Salem, OR United States | 04/19/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is an incredible piece of music performed with style and flair. Rarely do you find a piece of such power, brilliance, beauty, and technical complexity. Alkan's Concerto for Solo Piano is among the most awe-inspiring pieces in the piano repertoire, and Hamelin plays it perfectly. I had never heard of Alkan until I saw Mr. Hamelin perform this. My jaw hit the floor when he started playing and didn't recover itself until the conclusion of the third movement, an hour later. The recording does the live performance credit (though a recording can never truly capture the energy of a live performance). The only qualms I have are that the recording is not always perfect, and the Concerto is the only piece on the CD. However, this does not detract enough to make it not warrant five stars and you will be hard pressed to find someone play this better than Hamelin."

One of the best

T. Herion | Philadelphia, PA | 12/31/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Hamelin or Alkan fans shouldn't bother reading the rest of this review. This is an essential disk. Buy it.



If Hamelin receives any negative criticism at all, it seems to follow a regular formula: his technique is divine, but the interpretation is too rigid, fake, almost inhumane. In nearly every case I simply think the exact opposite. Yes, Hamelin's technique is divine, perhaps the greatest ever recorded, and yes, his interpretation sometimes sounds almost too perfect, but I cannot see this as a fault. If anything at all, his interpretations are sublime-- he is able to take music which may seem mundane and commonplace and create sound so beautiful, sometimes I struggle to take it all in. In practical words, his understanding of long form compositional structure (as the first movement clearly demonstrates- almost 30 minutes of sonata-allegro form) is so precise that each note maintains its excitement and importance from the very first to the last. His control of color is exhibited both in the slow lyrical parts as well as the places of incredible technical challenge (something you will not hear on ANY other recording). This disk has only one minor (minor minor minor) drawback - it was not recorded on Hamelin's present label, Hyperion and therefore cannot benefit from the tremendous sound quality Hyperion has consistently engineered. I do hope Hamelin re-records this as he has a number of other pieces so that it is included in the Hyperion catalogue.



And a bit on Alkan: the man was a master. If you wonder why you haven't heard of him, google his name and read a bio, its a fascinating story. Compositional revelations aside, his music is honest and soulful, often ironic, and always strangely familiar. There was a lot to this man and his music has much to say."