Alkan - Grand Sonata Op. 33- IV 50 ans: "Prométhée enchaîné"

"Prométhée enchaîné" (Prometheus Bound) final movement from the Grand Sonata: The Four Ages Op. 33.

For Reaper978

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

"[Alkan's] final movement 50 ans is prefaced by seven lines from Aeschylus's tragic poem Prometheus Bound (verses 750-754, 1051 and 1091):

'No, you could not endure my suffering.
If only destiny allowed me to die.
To die. That would be the deliverance from my torment.
There will be no limit to my woes while Jupiter's power remains.
I shall live...
Look and see if I deserve these torments which I endure'.

The whole legend of Prometheus, the bringer of fire, chained to a rock and enduring exclusion and torture for his gift to mankind must have struck a particularly sympathetic chord in Alkan himself, already set on a lonely path which would ultimately lead him to social and artistic isolation. It generates a rondo of uncompromising severity, harsh as granite, implacable as fate, in which ideas from previous movements are reduced to their very essence. the tempo 'extrement lent' is equally uncompromising. It exacts an unusual degree of courage and faith to launch and maintain its momentum.

The main subject, a sombre augmentation of the Faust motif, appears three times. It is harshly interrupted by a funereal dotted figure with stabbing accents. A hymn-like second subject in the relative major is distilled from that 'victorious' gesture which links the opening movements. It is now strangely transmuted, as though in supplication. This tenuous shaft of hope is cruelly betrayed when the subject returns in the fateful key of G sharp minor, dwarfed and cowed by its surroundings. At the heart of the movement looms a development of granitic power in which a further variant of the Faust motif grinds slowly downwards beneath the inflexible insistence of the dotted rhythm. A passage of equally austere grandeur concludes the work as the Faust theme, which has played so vital a part in the whole drama, is finally made to melt into a slowly rising scale. As it mounts, inexorably, through three-and-a-half octaves, smouldering trumpets repeat the funereal rhythm. Implacable, it reaches its apex as two giant chords followed by three quiet ones, all perfectly spaced, end the work in a spirit of mingled defiance and resignation."

Category:

Music

Tags:

• alkan
• liszt

[eethove]

Am I the only one to keep hearing the slow theme from Liszt's Hungarian rhapsody several times over from about 4:08 to 4:30?

Does anyone else hear it?

[Hexameron]

If you mean the more famous No. 2 (he wrote 19), yes, there is some resemblance. From that timestamp you indicated, I'm reminded more of Liszt's symphonic poem, Heroide funebre (especially when it's performed on two pianos).

[komoru]

What did you expect, clair de lune or something?

[TheJgutierrez]

1-2-8th NOTES HOLY ****

[mikedeliv]

@addeex1 I think you are right. Just look at the first page of beethoven's pathetique. it's also grave and also feuatures 64ths notes . When i first saw it I said " Beethoven took ecstasy and wrote that " but then i realized that this had a point

[addeex1]

@mikedeliv No Alkan wanted the melody to be "grave", same tempo as before while the left hand makes those fast drills. Nothing sadist about that :)

[TheWanderingNight]

@eethove

I actually hear a bit of Liebestraume (the famous one) in there, but I'm sure the resemblance is only superficial.

[xtfcr7]

@mikedeliv But then it breaks the overall flow of the piece, because the performer (and consequently the listener) perceives the two different tempi. Slow 128th notes are different than fast 16ths.

[mikedeliv]

if you want to play fast when the tempo is GRAVE ( d=30-40 ) you must use 128th notes . But he must have been sadist to use them instead of indicating a faster tempo!

[OverFjell]

@OrangeSodaKing Didn't Cziffra make that remark about playing in general?

[OrangeSodaKing]

@BagelBites48 And more impressive? If you are concerned that something is too impressive, you should argue that for the first two movement, not this one! ;) The score here doesn't intimidate me the slightest bit... If anything does, it's the depth of the piece. After all, one famous pianist (I forget who) said that he can handle the fast movements fine, but he "will be sweating after the slow movement."

[OrangeSodaKing]

@BagelBites48 Yeah, but that seems to happen often, like in the second movement of Beethoven's Op. 53 Sonata or second movement of Beethoven's Op. 111 Sonata, as well as countless other examples (not with just Beethoven, either). Chopin often spared us of having to read 32nd, 64th, and 128th notes, but most of the time Alkan actually did that too (this is one of those few exceptions).

[BagelBites48]

This tempo is brutally slow; the eighth-notes feel like half-notes. Why did he choose to write it this way? Because he wants the sheet music to look more impressive than it really is. I hate when composers do this.

[Pageboy72]

Alkan WOULD use 128th notes.