 unlike Wagner , Alkan did not seek to refashion the world through opera ; nor , like Berlioz , to dazzle the crowds by putting orchestral music at the service of literary expression ; nor even , as with Chopin or Liszt , to extend the field of harmonic idiom . Armed with his key instrument , the piano , he sought incessantly to transcend its inherent technical limits , remaining apparently insensible to the restrictions which had withheld more restrained composers . 
