Charles-Valentin Alkan was undoubtedly one of the great composers of his day. Chopin, his friend and one-time nextdoor neighbour, was an enthusiastic admirer, while Liszt cited Alkan as the only person in whose presence he felt nervous performing. Many of his keyboard works are notoriously difficult to play, yet all are immaculately crafted. Nevertheless, his music has stubbornly refused to enter the mainstream.
Joseph Nolan, who has recorded Alkan’s complete organ works, is convinced of his genius, comparing the music to “Widor on steroids”. Listening to this first volume, performed on the breathtaking organ of Église Saint Martin in Dudelange, Luxembourg, that seems an apt description. Not only does Nolan’s playing exhibit a death-defying virtuosity, Signum’s richly spacious recording is guaranteed to put the swankiest of speaker systems through its paces.
Much of this first volume is given over to the kaleidoscopic 11 Grands Préludes and one transcription of Handel’s Messiah. These are extraordinary – and extraordinarily complex – works, full of harmonic ticks and quirks and seething with quasi-orchestral colour. Nolan’s imaginative choices of palette here are exhilarating, his thunderous instrument roaring with an operatic frenzy one minute before dropping to a pianissimo whisper the next. Try the fourth prelude with its perky marching tune, or the sublimity of the Brucknerian ninth, or the bacchanalian 10th, which exudes a heady whiff of the exotic.
The recital ends with Alkan’s majestic Impromptu on Luther’s A Mighty Fortress Is Our God. It’s a true Everest of the organ repertoire and given a towering workout by the indefatigable Nolan.
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