Composer: Charles-Valentin Alkan
Performer: Stephanie McCallum
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Toccata
Catalogue: TOCC0157
Release: 2013
Size: 227 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Premier recueil de chants, Op. 38
01. No. 1. Assez vivement
02. No. 2. Serenade: Quasi-allegretto
03. No. 3. Choeur: Allegro
04. No. 4. L’Offrande: Andantino
05. No. 5. Agitatissimo
06. No. 6. Barcarolle: Andante
Deuxieme recueil de chants, Op. 38
07. No. 1. Hymne: Adagio
08. No. 2. Allegretto
09. No. 3. Chant de guerre: Allegro
10. No. 4. Procession-Nocturne: Andantino
11. No. 5. Andantino
12. No. 6. Barcarolle en choeur: Andante
Troisième recueil de chants, op. 65
13. No. 1. Vivante
14. No. 2. Esprits follets: Prestissimo
15. No. 3. Canon: Assez vivement – Assez doucement
16. No. 4. Tempo giusto
17. No. 5. Horace et Lydie: Vivacissimo
18. No. 6. Barcarolle: Assez lentement
19. Une fusee, Op. 55
2013 sees the bicentenary of the births not only of Wagner and Verdi but also of the maverick French composer Charles-Valentin Alkan.
Alkan’s music was little appreciated during his lifetime (1813–83), and in the century which followed, when he was largely lost from sight, but now he is increasingly recognised as one of the most individual personalities in all music.
The five albums he called Recueils de chants – miniature tone-poems which marry Classical constraint to virtuoso Romantic excess – provide an attractive gateway to his freewheeling imagination.
This is the first volume of a two-CD series presenting the first recording of the complete Chants in over twenty years and is accompanied by the first-ever recording of the ‘Introduction and Impromptu’ Une fusée.