"Morte" from Trois morceaux dans le genre pathetique Op. 15 (1837)

Marc-Andre Hamelin, piano

Quoted from Ronald Smith's Alkan, The Man, The Music:

"Morte, the last piece from op. 15, is the most prophetic of all Alkan's early compositions. Its form is simple; prologue - allegro - epilogue; its content, harrowing. The introduction of the plainsong Dies irae in the works of Berlioz and Liszt is explicit; with Alkan it remains veiled. In Morte it only appears twice, introducing both prologue and epilogue, yet it casts its spiritual shadow across the entire work, shaping its motifs and menacing its harmonies. Note how Alkan detaches the last three notes of the plainsong, planting indelibly in our minds that cogent descent through a minor third to the tonic that lends such dark power to the theme itself... The irregular tolling of a church bell in melancholy anticipation of Le gibet by Ravel, completes a vision of Mussorgskian power and Ives-like daring.

Despite the concentrated discipline of these opening passages the impression remains improvisatory and introductory. Soon the oppressive minor third starts to vibrate, signalling action; a jagged fragment rises from the bass forming itself into the principal motif that is to dominate the central core of the work. On first acquaintance the agitated allegro seems blighted by its main subjects; the one short-winded and repetitive, the other a static melody that sits heavily on its main beats. Their common plainsong parentage adds a degree of unity to a scheme that with all its romantic fervour seems somehow incapable of generating true organic growth.

Liszt may well have realised this when he singled out two transitional developments for criticism as 'a bit careless.' Despite its weaknesses the movement accumulates an unsuspected, demonic energy as it sweeps headlong to its climax. The final phrase, with its tightened confirmation of the prologue, its ghostly recollection from Aime-moi and an astonishingly prophetic short-circuiting of its harmonic resolution is, in the words of Sorabji 'as weirdly uncanny as it is original and daring'. The closing bars are vividly orchestral suggesting the sombre majesty of Sibelius just a generation before he was born. In this piece, for the first time, the twenty-three-year-old composer taps a source of necromantic fantasy that he was later to harness to sinister effect in such works as Chanson de la folle, Le tambour bat aux champs and in the chilling finale of his Grande sonate." (less info)