Free Alkan sheet music
6 Alkan scores on Artform's shelf, ordered easiest to read first. Every score here is public domain, free to read, print and keep.
Open the sheet music libraryCharles-Valentin Alkan (1813-1888)
French virtuoso who was, by the account of everyone who heard him, the equal of Liszt and Chopin, and who withdrew almost entirely from public life for decades at a time. What he wrote in that retreat is some of the most difficult music ever put on paper, including a concerto and a symphony for solo piano with no orchestra anywhere near them. He was a scholar of Hebrew and lived surrounded by books. The story that a falling bookcase killed him is a myth that has comfortably outlived his music, which deserves better.
Start with these
The easiest Alkan on the shelf, in order. Nothing here is graded and nobody is ranked: the shelf simply puts the pieces that ask less of your hands before the ones that ask more.
How the reader works
Each score opens as engraved notation you can read from the stand, and it plays: hear the piece first, then slow it down and loop the bar that is not working. There is nothing to install and no account to make. When you want paper, print it.
Every file is MusicXML, so MuseScore, Sibelius, Finale and Dorico open them too.
Where to go next
If you are learning Alkan rather than only reading, the scale pages cover fingering in every key, the chord pages spell out every chord, and the symbol dictionary explains any mark on the page you do not recognise.