Charles-Valentin Alkan is one of the most talented French romantic composers and pianists yet his music has rarely been recorded, and too little performed. Fascinated by the piano, Alkan showed great interest in the progress of instrumental manufacture and composed many works for solo piano; the programme chosen by Yury Favorin includes two of his major compositions. First, the Symphony for Solo Piano. With it's intense, deep, dense style, exploring and shaping the colorful timbres, it is indeed a symphony that Alkan has written for the piano and not a transcription for piano of an orchestral work. The Grand Sonata 'The Four Ages' is worthy of Beethoven's sonatas; this is a masterly work, one of the most accomplished sonatas of the romantic piano and herald of the Liszt Sonata In it's four movements Alkan describes four ages in a man's life: 20 years old, 30, 40, and 50, explaining that these "correspond to a given moment of existence, to a particular disposition of thought, of the imagination."