Charles-Valentin Alkan

Charles-Valentin Alkan (November 30 1813–March 29 1888) was a Jewish French composer and one of the greatest virtuoso pianists of his day. His compositions for solo piano include some of the most fiendishly difficult and physically demanding ever written, and performers who can master them are few and far between. At the height of his fame in the 1830s and 1840s he was, alongside his friends and colleagues Frédéric Chopin and Franz Liszt, among the leading pianists in Paris, a city in which he spent virtually his entire life.