https://s11.postimg.org/q5xydfq4j/Alkan_Musique_de_chambre_Timpani.jpg

Gramophone [12/1993]:
"The question ''Alkan, who was Alkan?'' (which Ronald Smith used to preface his indispensable two-volume study of the composer—London: 1976) could well become obsolete. In August alone two major releases were reviewed in Gramophone, one of them a highly praised Marco Polo disc of the chamber music. Now here is another, not ideally recorded but superbly performed; no small feat when the demands are so savage and incessant. Few composers have written music at once so virtuosic and austere, so acrobatic yet without a trace of poetic luxury or indulgence. The cello sonata's Saltarella finale provides one of several examples where the pianist is forced to play cascades of notes within a rigidly maintained rhythmic framework (Debussy's beloved sans rigueur is not for Alkan) and here Olivier Gardon, whom I first heard in a magnificent London recital some years ago, provides all the necessary unflagging impetus and momentum.
What masterly force and originality Alkan shows in all three works, whether in the Grand Duo 's hypnotic ''L'enfer'' (with its directions to play firstly lourdement, then evangeliquement ), or the more outwardly conventional but still wildly idiosyncratic twists and turns of the cello sonata's opening Allegro molto. This sonata (arguably Alkan's masterpiece) contains a Siciliano of a typically sweet-and-sour grace and an Adagio which concludes with shimmering tremolandos conveying a Biblical preface: ''As a dew from the Lord, as the showers upon the grass, that tarrieth not for man, nor waiteth for the sons of men...''. Yet every page of this extraordinary music is alive with Alkan's always unsettling genius and the performances are dazzlingly fleet and assured." --Bryce Morrison

CHARLES-VALENTIN ALKAN (1813-1888)
the chamber music

• Grand Duo concertant pour violon et piano, Op. 21
• Sonate de concert pour violoncelle et piano, Op. 47
• Trio pour piano, violon et violoncelle, Op. 30

Dong-Suk Kang, violon
Yvan Chiffoleau, violoncelle
Olivier Gardon, piano