<<  -- 5 --  Wilfrid Mellers    SECOND SIGHT

The other works on this disc include two fine pieces from Alkan's middle years -- Salut, cendre du pauvre, opus 45, an heroic classical landscape that generates from broken arpeggios a noble theme that is feverishly assaulted by fast but funereal music before tension is resolved in a totally transformed da capo; and a fairly well-known piece called Super flumina Babylonis opus 52, which follows the argument of its derivation from Psalm 137. It was composed while Alkan was toying with the gigantic task of retranslating the entire Bible into French, and it reveals, musically, how deeply Alkan's 'Babylonian' imagination was impregnated with the Hebraic Old Testament which -- according to the composer -- was basic to any apprehension of New Testament theology. The music falls into three sections, a grandly lamenting aria again with harp-like accompaniment for the riverside weepers, a scherzoid middle section in a vivacissimo C major, and a final section in G minor that is both tempestuous and feroce. Alkan seldom proffers happy endings to the turmoils of life; but he usually leaves us more alive [listen -- track 7, 5:37-6:26].

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