Alkan: Organ Music Volume 1

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This disc scores top marks in every department.
Kevin Bowyer displays his customary polish, felicity and technical mastery, playing with an assurance made all the more astounding since this programme... — Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 More…

Release Date: 17th Oct 2005
Catalogue No: TOCC0030
Label: Toccata Classics
Length: 76 minutes

Usually despatched in 3 - 4 working days

Alkan: Benedictus, Op. 54

Work length8:54

$2.00

$2.60

Kevin Bowyer

Alkan: 12 Organ Etudes

Work length18:05

$6.00

$7.80

Kevin Bowyer

Etude No. 1 in C Minor

Track length1:28

$1.00

$1.30

Etude No. 2 in C Major

Track length3:23

$1.00

$1.30

Etude No. 3 in A Minor

Track length2:32

$1.00

$1.30

Etude No. 4 in E-Flat Major

Track length2:45

$1.00

$1.30

Etude No. 5 in A Minor

Track length2:46

$1.00

$1.30

Etude No. 6 in C-Sharp Minor

Track length5:11

$1.00

$1.30

Alkan: 11 Pieces dans le style religieux et un transcription du Messie de Handel, Op. 72

Work length49:11

$12.00

$15.60

Kevin Bowyer

Prelude No. 1 in F Major

Track length1:25

$1.00

$1.30

Prelude No. 2 in D Minor

Track length2:16

$1.00

$1.30

Prelude No. 3 in B-Flat Major

Track length4:06

$1.00

$1.30

Prelude No. 4 in G Minor

Track length4:26

$1.00

$1.30

Prelude No. 5 in E-Flat Major

Track length4:45

$1.00

$1.30

Prelude No. 6 in C Minor

Track length4:36

$1.00

$1.30

Prelude No. 7 in A-Flat Major

Track length3:37

$1.00

$1.30

Prelude No. 8 in F Minor

Track length5:05

$1.00

$1.30

Prelude No. 9 in D-Flat Major

Track length6:51

$1.00

$1.30

Prelude No. 10 in B-Flat Minor

Track length4:19

$1.00

$1.30

Prelude No. 11 in F-Sharp Minor

Track length3:24

$1.00

$1.30

Handel: Messiah, HWV 56: Thy rebuke hath broken His heart / Behold, and see (Arr. C-V Alkan)

Track length4:21

$1.00

$1.30

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In the last three decades the staggeringly original piano music of Charles-Valentin Alkan (1813-88) has emerged from the darkness that had surrounded it over the past century and now it features regularly in the repertoire of some of today’s best young pianists. But Alkan’s organ music – no less powerful and imaginative – has yet to become known, even to a specialist public. This is the first of three CDs presenting all of Alkan’s unrecorded music for organ.

Reviews

2010

This disc scores top marks in every department.
Kevin Bowyer displays his customary polish, felicity and technical mastery, playing with an assurance made all the more astounding since this programme – none of it previously recorded – is hardly standard repertoire, certainly outside France.
By all accounts Alkan's organ technique equalled his command of the piano. In 1834 he gained the premier prix d'orgue at the Paris Conservatoire and he maintained close friendships with César Franck and Lefébure-Wély, dedicatees respectively of the Grands préludes and the Douze études. The first half-dozen of the Etudes – played on the pedals alone – are strikingly original and much more than mere technical exercises. Dupré considered them to be 'the complete and indispensable foundation of pedal technique'. The Grands préludes are equally engrossing and entertaining, especially the fiendish 10th, which Ronald Smith termed a 'Cossack Dance'. As the final notes of the transcription of Handel's 'Behold, and See' hover, teasingly, on a half close, succeeding volumes are eagerly awaited.
Blackburn Cathedral's magnificent Walker/ Wood organ (superbly captured by sound engineer Lance Andrews) combined with Bowyer's effortless artistry and Malcolm MacDonald's masterful notes make this a musthave recommendation.

Alkan: Organ Music Volume 1

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