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Alkan - Grand Sonata 'The 4 Ages' & Sonatina - Marc-Andre Hamelin

Chopined out? Liszt off your list? If you love the Romantic era but are getting tired of listening to the same music, you will wonder why Alkan's music was unappreciated for such a long time. Perhaps the best introduction is this disc, in particular the Grande Sonata, a splayed by Marc-Andre Hamelin. The music is not only revelatory, it borders almost on the supernatural considering its surpassing difficulty and the ease and control with which Hamelin plays it. The 11 minutes and 33 seconds of the "Quasi-Faust" is without question one of the most transcendent pieces of music ever written, up there with Chaconne from Bach's D-minor Partita or Beethoven's C-minor piano sonata, spanning the entire keyboard almost simultaneously, contrasting pitch, timbre and dynamics in the best Romantic fashion but entirely without bombast or affectation. The 8-part fugue near the end bears listening repeatedly to catch its inner subtleties and nuances. Indeed, once listened to, it will be hard to get it out of your inner ear.

Dank aan originele poster!