Charles-Valentin Alkan (1813–1888) was a French composer and virtuoso pianist. His music writing covers many genres. His major works are extremely difficult to play and decipher, due to their length and heavy texture. But his collection of miniatures called Esquisses is a hidden treasure. The range of this work is vast: it includes short character pieces in various styles and genres, from pre-Baroque to Impressionism. Alkan showed his mature compositional skill, endless creativity in these pieces. This work can be classified into eight unique styles. I choose one piece from each style to give a thorough analysis of Alkan's musical language and guidance either technical or musically challenging passages. I hope this dissertation can assist both teachers and students in learning this underrated work.

Charles-Valentin Alkan ( 1813-1888 ), French composer and pianist at early nineteenth century, devoted himself to write piano music only as Chopin during his entire life. As a child prodigy, his talent of performing piano was recognized when he was quite young, then, became as an outstanding pianist of his time. However, because of his unsociable personality and strange behavior, Alkan was soon forgotten by the public. His music was discovered in recent decades by scholars and pianists. They started to explore his works; consequently, he became famous again. There are three parts in this study. The first part aims on his mysterious life. The second part seeks to clarify the development of the concerto and the musical environment of Paris at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The last part should focus on music style and structure based on his earlier work Concerto da Camera, No. 10. Hopefully, through the research, the historical significant of Alkan can be defined more precisely.

abstract: Charles-Valentin Alkan’s Grande Sonate Op. 33 ‘Les quatre âges’ is a unique four-movement work for piano solo that programmatically represents a man’s life through four decades, passing from age 20 to 50, with each movement being progressively slower than the previous. Published in 1847, it was destined for obscurity until it was rediscovered and premiered in 1973 by English pianist Ronald Smith. Its absence from the public’s reach can be attributed to multiple reasons including the reclusive nature of the composer during the time of composition and the societal issues surrounding the French Revolution of 1848. Much of Alkan’s music has a reputation for being nearly unplayable because of its complexity and the extremely high level of technical facility a pianist must possess in order to perform it convincingly. Aside from its performance length of nearly an hour, there are many technical issues that prevent Alkan’s Grande Sonate from being performed more frequently. This paper is an exploration of some of these performance and technical issues for consideration by pianists interested in solving the riddle of performing Alkan’s Grande Sonate. The findings explored are based in part on the author’s experience in performing the complete Grande Sonate in recital, as well as on extant research into Alkan’s life and the interpretation and performance of his works. The paper concludes with an appendix and link to the author’s live performance of the work, another appendix renotating the fugato from Quasi-Faust, and a third appendix providing extensive fingering and voice redistribution for Les enfans [sic] from 40 ans. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Music 2018

Charles Valentin Alkan (1813-1888), one of the great genii in music history, was widely misunderstood by his contemporaries because of his highly idiosyncratic ideas. From the perspective of the late twentieth century, his innovations can be better understood, and his music is now gaining wider appreciation. Yet, today many musicians still do not know even his name, much less his achievements. The year 1988 marks the one hundredth year since his death. In commemoration of this centennial anniversary, this thesis is presented as a plea for a greater awareness of the achievements of this important figure in the development of piano music.