charles-valentin alkan (30 november 1813 - 29 march 1888) was a french-jewish composer and pianist. his real name was morhange. he was a virtuoso pianist who wrote a lot of piano music. most of the pieces he wrote are extremely difficult to play. franz liszt, busoni and other people of his day thought he was a great composer. despite this, most people have only discovered in recent years how good his music is. his piano music is mostly tonal, but it changes key in unusual ways. the story was told by many people that he died when a bookcase collapsed on top of him, but that story is proved not to be true.