page_title: Le festin d'Ésope
section_title: The music
hierarchical_section_title: Le festin d'Ésope / The music
caption_attribution_description: English: Nineteenth variation of Le festin d'Ésope, composed by by Charles-Valentin Alkan
context_page_description: Le festin d'Ésope, Op. 39 No. 12, is a piano étude by Charles-Valentin Alkan. It is the final étude in the set Douze études dans tous les tons mineurs, Op. 39, published in 1857. It is a work of twenty-five variations based on an original theme and is in E minor. The technical skills required in the variations are a summation of the preceding études.
  The work requires exceptional virtuosic skills, with extremely fast overlapping octaves, fast scales with left accompaniments, enormous leaps, rapid octave chords, tremolos, double octaves and trills. A typical performance of this piece lasts 10 minutes.
context_section_description: Marked "Allegretto senza licenza quantunque" ("Rather fast, without any licence"), the piece is to be played without rubato. The absence of any tempo modifiers may suggest a rather rigid approach to the pulse. The metronome is marked at 126 beats per minute.
  Theme
  Marked piano, the eight-bar theme is stated in the treble by three-note chords, played staccato. The bass is sparse, marked staccatissimo.
  Variation I
  The bass, still marked staccatissimo, takes on the melody while the treble continues playing three note chords (also staccatissimo) in a supplementary fashion. The first four bars are marked forte, followed by a diminuendo passage where the treble figuration descends to piano, before a forte finish in the last bar.
  Variation II
  The bass continues to take on the melody, this time in sixths, marked staccato. The treble meanwhile plays an unusually notated figure – thirty-second sextuplet octave jumps where the first note is marked sforzando, while the rest of the notes are tied and marked tenuto. This results in a 'humorous' hopping effect. Thirty-second sextuplet flourishes marked forte make this variation one of the first technical challenges.
  Variation III
  Another staccato variation, requiring light touch, and quick but discrete jumps. The harmonisation is unusual – every chord in the melody is 'held back' by a B-flat and C, while the bass (playing in the treble) jumps about almost arbitrarily, increasing the harmonic tension. Pauses in the melody are greeted by staccato 'growling' in the deep bass.
  Variation IV
  Marked con duolo ("with grief"). The melody is simplified to two-in-a-bar chords marked dolce e legato. The staccato 'growling' in the bass continues however. While the first four bars are enriched by thirds and sixths, the last four are supported only by fourths and fifths. Quietly, it resolves the tension built in the first variations.
  Variation V
  A march in octaves. Triplet sixteenth octaves in both hands provide momentum while the harmony modulates through E melodic minor and F melodic minor. An ascending scale in octaves modulates to F major, before modulating back to E minor to finish the variation.
  Variation VI
  Continues the march in the bright key of C major, marked piano. A two-and-a-half bar long trill and smaller chords make the variation contrast to the preceding one. However, this is broken by a return of the forte octave passages from the previous variation, modulating between C major, B major and B minor, before finishing in the original key of E minor.
  Variation VII
  The bass takes on the melody with wide, rolled chords, while the treble engages itself with undulating sextuplet thirty-second scale runs. Again, it modulates through the melodic minor, while sevenths and ninths add colour to the harmony. The scale flourish in the last bar is the first moment in the piece where Alkan notates use of a pedal.
  Variation VIII
  A quiet trill in the bass, starting on C2 and B2, provides background tension while the melody, syncopated by a sixteenth beat, hops about the treble uncertainly. The penultimate bar is marked pochissimo [slight] cresc[endo].
  Variation IX
  This variation is in the tonic major (MAGGIORE). It is notably more legato than the previous variation, marked “dolce e sostenuto” (sweetly and sustained).
  Variation X
  This follows on from the warm tone set in the preceding variation. It is  embellished by a tinkling ostinato in the high register, marked scampanatino ("like bells").
  Variation XI
  The ostinato, now in thirds, becomes the main treble figure, marked molto legato. The ostinato switches to sixteenth sextuplets by the fifth bar. The melody returns to the bass for the first time since Variation VII, marked quasi corni ("almost like horns"). The last four bars consist of triplet and sextuplet tremoli in sixths and sevenths.
  Variation XII
  Concludes the first Maggiore variations as the undulating sextuplets move to the bass and the melody moves to the lower treble. The richness of the chords are supported by exotic modulations and references to late Romanticism and Impressionism. Meanw
caption: The nineteenth variation
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