Charles-Valentin Alkan wrote many pieces for piano solo during his whole life, "Trois grandes études, Op.76", "Douze études dans tous les tons majeurs, Op. 35" and "Douze études dans tous les tons mineurs, Op. 39" included, mostly reflect his extraordinary keyboard playing skills and paranoid personality. But, instead of emphasizing the dazzling nature of the basic skills of the fingers, he pushed the expressive power of piano music to the boundless endlessness, and kneaded classical training and the use of counterpoint in the Baroque period from Alkan's early education, contemporary composer Chopin's ornamental language and Liszt's romantic style, traditional Judaism thinking, showing more dramatic and high-tensive ups and downs of music, and reflecting his own personality and inner emotional expression simultaneously. Thus, these pieces are with high artistic value and uniqueness and also suitable for public performance at concerts.

"Le festin d’Ésope, Op.39 No.12" is the last piece of "Douze études dans tous les tons mineurs, Op. 39", which is variation form of E Minor, 2/4 beat with 8-bar original theme & 25 variations entirely. Such title is from the source of "Aesop's Fables": According to ancient Greek legend, Aesop was a slave of the Xanthus family. One day, Xanthus asked Aesop to arrange a grand festival that includes all kinds of cuisines in the world. Maybe Xanthus' original intention was to cause problems for Aesop, but Aesop spoke a train of fables which are anthropomorphic, vivid, easy-to-understand, yet profoundly far-reaching, and inspiring various knowledge, humanity, and emotions in seemingly empty seats, to make the guests listen with much interest and return fully loaded. This piece is just composed under such pre-set storyline of the program title as above, which is very interesting while each variation has different situations like animals or scenes. This article will introduces Alkan's life and music creation ideas, and then analyzes and discusses the theme, the harmony, the creative methods of each variation, the description of the situation, and the interpretation of the piece "Le festin d’Ésope."