Alkan's notoriety was beginning to blossom into genuine distinction when he abandoned public performance after an enthusiastically received concert on March 3, 1838, at which his friend Chopin had appeared as a guest artist. When he reappeared some six years later in an April 29, 1844, recital including works of Bach, Scarlatti, Beethoven, Weber, his arrangement of the minuet from Mozart's Symphony No. 40, his own "Second Concertino" (a piece not otherwise identified), he also offered a sheaf of new compositions: Air de ballet, Nocturne, Saltarelle, and Alleluia. With its ecstatically throbbing chords, the last-named piece—playing under three minutes—touches for the first time that vein of religious sentiment that was to crop up in Alkan's music throughout the remainder of his career, in works ranging from miniatures to monuments: "Prière du soir," "Psaume 150me," "Ancienne mélodie de la synogogue" (all from the Préludes (25), Op. 31); the exquisite Adagio of the Cello Sonata, Op. 47; or the grandly imposing (if misleadingly titled) Impromptu sur le choral de Luther "Un fort rampart est notre Dieu." Publication of the new pieces quickly followed, and several were taken up by other pianists, sparking a short-lived but frantic vogue and demonstrating that, had Alkan been less reclusive and disdainful of his audience, he could easily have enjoyed a brilliant concert career rivaling those of Chopin and Liszt.

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