ADDICTED TO ALKAN

t’s a fairly simple story. When I was a pupil at the Purcell School of Music, every year there was a spring piano course focusing on a particular area of the repertoire. Each student was assigned a piece and participated in masterclasses given by a distinguished visiting pianist. At the end of the course, we presented our pieces in a joint concert. The first year I was in school, it so happened that the focus was the music of Alkan and Chopin: more specifically, the Op 35 of the former presented alongside the Op 25 of the latter together with a shoal of miscellaneous pieces by both composers. Initially, I was given the eighth number of the Op 31, , so I can say that this was the very first piece of Alkan’s music I ever played. But Op 75 which was something of a baptism of fire! Bear in mind, I was 13 at the time and only began playing when I was 11, so I had to work tremendously hard and, at the time, I confess, I disliked the piece intensely.