Exposition

Alkan's Concerto op. 39 (2018)

Gerard Bouwhuis

About this exposition

The French composer Charles Valentin Alkan (1813-1888) was a major pianist and composer. Alkan’s life was characterized by long periods of isolation and, when combined with his modest and rather shy nature, is probably the reason why his music, right up to the present day, has never gained much recognition. I chose to conduct my research using the longest and most challenging piece he wrote for piano as regards musicality and technique: the Concerto Op. 39, étude 8 from The Twelve Etudes in Minor Keys. The main question I asked in my research was: how can I best perform this piece? 
Alkan narrowly missed being appointed head of the piano department of the Conservatoire in Paris and, although he had many private pupils, very little remained about how his work should be performed. The objective of my research is twofold. 
First, I wanted to study the piece, and I also wanted to perform it. I have submitted my registration of a performance of the piece as part of this research. 
The second objective was to devise something akin to a ‘manual’, which could help other students learning how to play this piece, and which would give insight into the way I approached playing it. The manual shows the score in its entirety with annotations visible in certain places, which contain relevant information. This information consist of audio recordings, video clips, texts or exemplary notes and is related to everything in the context of the performance.

typeresearch exposition
keywordsResearch by teachers of the Royal Conservatoire, Charles Valentin Alkan, Piano
date28/09/2016
published19/09/2018
last modified19/09/2018
statuslimited publication
share statusprivate
licenseAll rights reserved
urlhttps://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/298586/298587
published inKC Research Portal
portal issue3. Internal publication


Copyrights


Comments are only available for registered users.