Alkan Grande Sonate

[tompilk]

Hmmm.... looking at the score... i hope no-one has asked this before, but why is the f sharp in the key signature the one above middle C rather than the top line? I've never seen a piece that does this before... was it used only by Alkan? Or in France at the time? Can't be because I heard that Alkan lived next door to Chopin, and Chopin didn't do it... at least I didn't think he did. Or is that only because there have been so many reprints of his music that this notation has been lost, and Alkan is less-printed so has kept this?
I never noticed it until i tried playing the first movement of the Sonate and it keeps catching me out cos I think about the key, but the signature doesnt match up, but ho yes it does!!!
Tom

[tompilk]

pfft... 20mins and no reply?
Tom

[brahmsian]

I think it was just how they decided to print it. I have some Bach scores that are like this as well.

[ahinton]

Yes, indeed, this key-signature setting is rare but not unique - and Alkan didn't live "next door " to Chopin but quite close by him in Paris in the months leading to the latter's death in 1849, whereafter Alkan took on a few of his students. Just imagine studying with Chopin and then with Alkan! But then imagine what it must have felt like for Alkan - not the most public of people, even in the mid-1840s - to give the world première of his cycle of piano Préludes before an audience in which Chopin apparently sat next to Liszt!...

Best,

Alistair