Charles Valentin Alkan e la musica di Johann Sebastian Bach: un capitolo dello storicismo in Francia

In the Grande Sonate for solo piano op. 33 (1847), «Les quatre âges de la vie», Alkan employs as unifying theme of the whole cyclical form the subject of the fugue in E major BWV 878 from the second volume of the Well-Tempered Clavier. The thematic derivation is evident in the conclusive fugato of the second movement, where the whole subject becomes the principal subject of the fugato, simplified in the rhythm. In the other movements it is less evident, but the whole thematic material of the Sonata can be brought back to it. It deals with very more than a quotation, of a composition on a Bach theme or of a composition in ancient style, procedures very successful among the 19th century composers. Alkan conceives here a modern work, but founded upon the music of the Kantor of Leipzig. The relationship of Alkan with Bach will be constant in all of his artistic career, both of performer and of composer. Already his formation happened in the name of Bach. His piano and organ teachers in the Paris Conservatory were Pierre Joseph Guillome Zimmermann and François Benoist, both impassioned of counterpoint, and particularly of Bach. As performer, above all as virtuoso of the piano-pédalier, Alkan indefatigably promoted Bach music and contemporary compositions based on historical style. As composer cultivated all the declinations of historicism, always in the sign of Bach. This article aims to trace a profile of the Bach reception of Alkan that, for almost never not moving himself from Paris, succeeded in expressing in his own activity all the facets of the European musical historicism of mid-19th Century.