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Charles-Valentin Alkan: Concerto For Solo Piano

 Rating 4
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80% Recommended by our customers.
Label: Music & Arts Program
Catalog: Music
Release date: 2001-03-27
Media: Audio CD
discs number: 1
Format: Original recording reissued
Ean: 0017685072420
Upc: 017685072420
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Artist:
Marc- Andre Hamelinsee more Popular Music by Marc- Andre Hamelin

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Album tracks: (3)
 Allegro assai
 Adagio
 Allegretto alla barbaresca

User Reviews:
 Rating 5   Written on March 1, 2003
   Summary: BEYOND 5 STARS!
There is no true words or explanations of the radical difficulty of this luminous and freakishly complex work for piano. Hamelin is simply gifted beyond human description. His Hands must be made of Adamantium and his memory and facility must be just this side of God-Like. Happily able to hear him play Live with with DSO (Detroit Symphony) i know that his musicianship and tecnique are no fluke or Studio wizardry, the man is a Fabulous Quirk of nature and God bless him for it! This Recording is by far one of my Number one Recordings (along with Hamelin's Performance of the REMARKABLE Alkan Concerti and Henselt Concerto on Hyperion.) I think in Facility no other Pianist Matches him, he has no Equal and as a Composer, Alkan is without peer, Even Chopin's Etudes seem like exercises in childlike pedancy compared to Alkans Inspired and Incendiary Genius! LOVE THIS RECORDING! YOU MUST BUY! YOU MUST OWN! JUST BUY IT! NOW!!

 Rating 4   Written on August 23, 2002
   Summary: Perhaps Hamelin is a cyborg
Oscar Peterson, the legendary jazz pianist, once said (and I paraphrase) that he would like to do everything that could be done on a piano. It's quite possible that Charles-Valentin Alkan accomplished this in the fifty minutes of his Concerto for Solo Piano. This beyond difficult piece is played with inhuman awe-inspiring aplomb by Hamelin; however, we don't hear much of this piece today not only because of its difficulty, but also for all its overwrought extravagance, the music is not that memorable. The concerto will certainly please the technician and pedant. Those looking for more lyric Romanticism should look elsewhere. *UPDATE 07-31-04* Having pontificated earlier, I wish to mention that upon the urging of a true Alkan afficionado, Luis Felipe, that I again listened to this concerto - this time played far more sensitively by Jack Gibbons. I can only hope that Mr. Gibbons gave his fingers a vacation after this recording - a nice beach perhaps.

 Rating 5   Written on June 1, 2002
   Summary: Incendiary piano playing
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.


 Rating 5   Written on October 9, 2001
   Summary: Wow
This is possibly the greatest piano recording of the 20th century. A stunning achievement!

 Rating 5   Written on April 19, 2001
   Summary: Incredible composing, Incredible playing
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.


This product can also be found under:
  • Popular Music > Styles > Classical > General
    This website will be shutdown on 2008-04-01.
  • Popular Music > Styles > Classical > Chamber Music > General
    This website will be shutdown on 2008-04-01.
  • Popular Music > Styles > Classical > Featured Performers, A-Z > ( H ) > Hamelin, Marc-André
    This website will be shutdown on 2008-04-01.
  • Popular Music > Styles > Classical > Forms & Genres > Concertos > General
    This website will be shutdown on 2008-04-01.
  • Popular Music > Styles > Classical > Historical Periods > Classical (c.1770-1830) > Forms & Genres > Chamber Music
    This website will be shutdown on 2008-04-01.
  • Popular Music > Styles > Classical > Instruments > Keyboard > Piano
    This website will be shutdown on 2008-04-01.

 
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