ABSTRACT
This chapter shows Charles Valentin Alkan's links with the French clavecin school, his debt to the Austro-Germanic and French classical movement and, tentatively, his anticipation of the later French romantics such as Cesar Franck and Gabriel Faure. Although the French classical opera influenced Alkan's melodic writing, he is definitely a romantic melodist. Although Alkan's largest scale works are a personal outpouring of a romantic sonata writer, the smaller works are often more coherent in form building. The adaptability of Alkan's textural skills to the titles of the pieces is also astonishing, and even within the densest textures he maintains tremendous precision and clarity of parts. The variety of textures in his music is quite staggering from the power of the massed effect, where the piano seems to personify the power of a full orchestra to the tranquillity of simple linear writing.
