This performance is really perfect. Hamelin is for me the best pieanist ever! And Alkan was with Liszt, Rachaninoff, Scriabin and Medtner the greatest piano composer and pianist ever. And I really appreciate that this video has 1080p HD quality🤣
Thanks for sharing this live performance. So far my reference point for the Sonatine is one of the earliest: Ronald Smith's fantastic recording from 1971. Although technically astounding and visually awesome in concert, I often find Hamelin plays Alkan too fast. It's a pity because this particular piece, although classical in bent, needs necessary room to breathe. I think Smith captures the music of each movement almost to perfection.
Indeed it is very fast. Personally I don't mind, but I do think the playing is a little, hm, 'simple', or artistically thin. It's a performance you'll remember more for its excitement than its substance.
I generally find everything Ronald Smith ever recorded to be lifeless, and I'm forever grateful that Hamelin took on Alkan. Truly a match made in heaven. However. In this case I believe Smith outshines Hamelin for the reasons you mention. But also because the four chords which open mvt.4, marked "fp", Smith actually plays "fp". It's a very eerie effect, which I've never heard anywhere else.
Even Hamelin might've thought that the tempo indicated in the third movement is way too quick to perfectly execute on the modern piano... as the same as I thought.
I've heard that op.27 actually fits well under the hand and isn't nearly as difficult as it sounds. OTOH, I suspect the Concerto Op39:8-10 is his most monumentally difficult work, by a considerable margin, being that it's as long as all those combined. Having said that, I don't know. I can't play a note of Alkan.
This performance is really perfect. Hamelin is for me the best pieanist ever! And Alkan was with Liszt, Rachaninoff, Scriabin and Medtner the greatest piano composer and pianist ever. And I really appreciate that this video has 1080p HD quality🤣
Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for sharing this live performance. So far my reference point for the Sonatine is one of the earliest: Ronald Smith's fantastic recording from 1971. Although technically astounding and visually awesome in concert, I often find Hamelin plays Alkan too fast. It's a pity because this particular piece, although classical in bent, needs necessary room to breathe. I think Smith captures the music of each movement almost to perfection.
Indeed it is very fast. Personally I don't mind, but I do think the playing is a little, hm, 'simple', or artistically thin. It's a performance you'll remember more for its excitement than its substance.
@@christian-johansson Yes, I agree. Thank you for sharing though!
I generally find everything Ronald Smith ever recorded to be lifeless, and I'm forever grateful that Hamelin took on Alkan. Truly a match made in heaven.
However. In this case I believe Smith outshines Hamelin for the reasons you mention. But also because the four chords which open mvt.4, marked "fp", Smith actually plays "fp". It's a very eerie effect, which I've never heard anywhere else.
Tack!
Even Hamelin might've thought that the tempo indicated in the third movement is way too quick to perfectly execute on the modern piano... as the same as I thought.
ALKAN pieces of misanthropic difficulty: op.34 scherzo focoso , op.76 rondo toccata (hands reunited), op.39 piano symphony no.4 presto, op.61 no.4 tempo giusto, op.41 fantaisie presto 3 mov. op.16 no.3 etude de bravur prestissimo. op.17 le preux , op.27 le chemin de fer.
I've heard that op.27 actually fits well under the hand and isn't nearly as difficult as it sounds. OTOH, I suspect the Concerto Op39:8-10 is his most monumentally difficult work, by a considerable margin, being that it's as long as all those combined.
Having said that, I don't know. I can't play a note of Alkan.