Charles-Valentin Alkan: Esquisses, Op. 63, Steven Osborne, piano

Steven Osborne and Alkan? Not a pairing one would have expected - and neither did the pianist, who confesses to having pigeon-holed Alkan as an empty showman until Hyperion’s Mike Spring suggested he should look at the Esquisses. Best-known today for his large-scale works, Alkan was also a prolific miniaturist. A systematic exploration of keys is a feature of many of his collections, and so here in the 48 Esquisses (twelve in each of four Books) we find him going through the gamut of keys twice, in each case using a different scheme. The fourth Book contains a thirteenth piece that brings the music back to C major.

One might think that 49 individual pieces on a single CD would not make for particularly enjoyable listening, but fear not - Alkan’s skills in constructing the collection are such that the progression from one piece to the next is entirely natural and logical and the variety of the music is stunning. Alkan draws his inspiration from a fascinating variety of sources; some pieces seem deliberately to evoke the world of Mendelssohn’s Songs without Words, another (the Duettino from Book 2) is marked Alla D Scarlatti. Dazzling Chopinesque studies, Brahmsian mini-rhapsodies, a Rigaudon in Book 3 which looks back to Rameau and Couperin - these give a flavour of the music. But Alkan’s music is not pastiche; each piece is highly original, and indeed several look forward to the future (e.g. Book 3’s Petit Air, which bears an uncanny resemblance to a movement from Poulenc’s Suite Française, composed seventy years later).

Steven Osborne is the perfect choice for this repertoire: capable of creating a vast range of colours and moods, coping seemingly effortlessly with the fiendish technical difficulties of some of the music, but having the intellectual rigour to deal with the more complex pieces. The booklet notes are very informative, and well worth reading before you listen. I would hope that amateur pianists are sufficiently encouraged and enthused to tackle some of the easier Esquisses - there are several relatively simple but effective pieces among them. Thank you, Hyperion, for another gem of a disc.