Composers are often tasked with creating from a void, an emptiness. The blank page is an easel. The parts of a structure of a piece of music – melody, accompaniment, line, harmony, tension, and release – must take shape to reach the listener’s ear. Sometimes, instead of starting with an empty sheet of staff paper, a composer creates something which is pollinated by another source. Perhaps it is a folk song, a poem, a melody, or an even larger work, such as a full-length opera. New works are then realized. In the case of this two-cd set, an East South African folk tune receives new life as a romantic piano ballade. A sonnet of Petrarch resurfaces centuries later as a dramatic declaration of love, through a solo piano work. The repertoire on these discs traces Kristin Ditlow’s own growth as a pianist and musician. Each work marks a chapter of her development and artistry to the present. The song transcriptions are pieces that have been played countless times with vocal partners: the operatic works are works that she has coached or conducted. Her passionate pursuit of travel is also a thread which weaves throughout the discs: the Samuel Coleridge-Taylor spiritual arrangements are works that she became acquainted with as a high school choral accompanist: meeting her husband while on tour in China in 2012: the Mongolian Shepherd Song is her arrangement of a traditional folksong from the Chinese Mongolian community, a work introduced to her by her husband in China originally for erhu and pipa (traditional Chinese instruments) accompaniment but transcribed for violin and piano. Kristin Ditlow has spent five summers performing, teaching, and coaching in Hungary and the Bartók selections all harken back to those times in the Hungarian countryside. Pianist, coach and conductor Dr. Kristin Ditlow dedicates her musical career to collaboration and connection. She has been seen in concert throughout North America, Mainland China, and Western Europe as a soloist, collaborative pianist, and conductor. The set of music pieces in this album is representative of her “Passages” in her career.

The theme of this release is ricordanza (reminiscence). This is established right at the beginning by “La Ricordanza“, a very thoughtful, rarely played piece by Liszt’s teacher, the important educator and composer Carl Czerny. Born in Georgia and based in Germany, the pianist Catherine Gordeladze has gained renown by virtue of her “sparkling tone,” “an original, profound musicality” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung), her “charm, brilliant technique and great variety of tone colors” (Radio Bremen) and a “performance underpinned by instinctive sureness and elegance” (Zeitung furs Dresdner Land), thus establishing herself as one of the most remarkable musicians of the younger generation.

This is a great live recital performed by Antonio Pompa-Baldi. Pompa Baldi has more piano recordings for Centaur than any other pianist. This is an exceptional recital.

Classical Music

This is a superb addition to Martin Jones's marvelous one-man attempt to record everything unjustly neglected by other pianists.

This is the third and final two-disc volume in Martin Jones and Nimbus's valuable Czerny survey. It is pretty much in every way an excellent survey of the piano sonatas of this scandalously neglected Czech-Austrian composer. Previous volumes have been warmly received - see reviews here and here.

Note that Nimbus are not claiming the 'complete' piano sonatas - there are still two or three unpublished works awaiting discovery, as well as six sonatas for piano four hands, twenty-six more sonatinas for solo piano (a further one was recorded for volume 2), and eight sonatinas for piano four hands. And if it seems from that that Czerny was a Chopin-style piano specialist, well, he was indeed, but given that he wrote more than ten times the amount of music Chopin did, he was still able to find time for seven symphonies, six piano concertos and over 300 choral works. This Nimbus series is only the beginning.

It will, nevertheless, be a long haul before Czerny is remembered for anything other his massive contributions to piano pedagogy, eternalised in his published treatises and exercises, still familiar today to all piano teachers and pupils. But now, with Jones's completed recordings of the published sonatas, the idea no longer stands up that Czerny's genius stopped at teaching, a view promulgated to his discredit by Robert Schumann in the Neue Zeitschrift Für Musik and perpetuated in the 20th century by bigoted criticism basing its precepts on received wisdom or Czerny's countless learner pieces rather than on his major works.

This CD is almost worth the asking price for Calum MacDonald's notes alone. Sixteen sides of detailed description of Czerny's music, so well written in non-technical, yet intelligent language, that the reader cannot wait to get the CD on and start listening for the myriad points of interest that MacDonald explains with obvious appreciation of Czerny's talents.

MacDonald's notes do such a fine job of describing the music in lay terms that there is no need to duplicate them in this review. But it is important to stress that all the music comes from Czerny's maturity and is of commensurately high quality. Despite - or perhaps because of - Czerny's phenomenal technique and encyclopaedic knowledge of the piano, his music does not rely on showy bravura for effect, but no pianist will get very far with the three substantial, significant Sonatas - or the majority of the other pieces, for that matter - without an abundance of virtuosic technique. Jones has shown repeatedly over a long career, and a massive discography, that he has that, and even though he is now into his eighth decade he shows no sign of faltering or slowing down. Indeed, the speed and agility of his fingers are tested repeatedly by Czerny, as in the two-handed crescendo-decrescendo tremolando towards the end of the Rondino in E flat, which has to be heard to be believed.

The three Sonatas are real finds, all quite original in different ways: exciting, intelligent, varied, unpretentious and some of the finest of their period. The B flat Sonata has a stunningly beautiful, intense slow movement that Calum MacDonald suggests might even "stand on its own in a recital programme", and a scherzo third that is "a kind of salon bonbon raised to an almost ridiculous state of virtuosity."

The hugely imaginative finale of the equally compelling F minor Sonata is worthy of Beethoven. Beethoven - Piano Sonata in F minor, op.57? Czerny did give consideration to the opus numbers he assigned to his works, so it is unlikely that the aping of Beethoven's so-called "Appassionata" is coincidental, particularly in light of the fact that Beethoven had been his teacher and was still his friend. The booklet notes have nothing to say on the subject, and in truth the work is nothing like Beethoven's, aside from its dark-hued tonality and general pianistic brilliance.

The Sonatina in G might as well be called a Sonata too - it may be diminutive, but several of Beethoven's masterpieces are as short, and the Sonatina has everything one would expect from a sonata in one concise package. Curiously perhaps, the Gran Capriccio also has the feeling of a sonata, albeit now in three movements. The title is a little misleading, in any case: this full-blooded Romantic work teems with passion and pathos.

Jones's marvellous recital is brought to a fittingly lustrous conclusion with the Sonata in G, yet another showcase for Czerny's seemingly boundless imagination. It overflows in every movement with feeling and breathtaking originality, right down to the amazing light-hearted virtuosity of the finale.

The CD booklet itself is a paragon of clarity and information. One tiny point: in both the track-listing and the notes, the subtitle of the Rondino in E flat is given an additional and ungrammatical 'e' in 'Les Jours Passées', which should be 'Les Jours Passés' ('The Olden Days'). The error may well have been Czerny's or his publishers', but the extra 'e' is still bad French.

Sound quality and general production values are very high. This is a superb addition to Martin Jones's marvellous one-man attempt to record everything unjustly neglected by other pianists.

- Byzantion, MusicWeb International

CZERNY Piano Sonatas: No. 5; No. 6; No. 8; No. 9. Nocturne in E? • Martin Jones (pn) • NIMBUS 5832 (2 CDs: 150:56)


The name Carl Czerny is hardly an unknown one, but for most he exists as a sideline figure and program-note reference, one of a tight circle of Beethoven’s younger friends and pupils (including Ferdinand Ries and Ignaz Moscheles) who formed a critical core of early Romantic keyboard composers. Their music isn’t often performed, although most piano students have fond (or not so fond) memories of Czerny’s technical exercises.



Pianist Martin Jones has already given us complete accounts of the works of Granados, Szymanowski, Grainger, Mendelssohn, Debussy, and others, and is now embarking on a thorough examination of the sonatas of Czerny. Nimbus has released Volume 1 of the set, and while there is much to admire here (most noticeably the composer’s workmanlike consistency), we will have to wait for future volumes to determine if there are any hidden masterpieces in this corner of his vast repertoire.



This double-disc set contains four of his 13 sonatas as well as an attractive filler piece, the Nocturne in E?. The opus number 647 (!) of this work gives an indication of the protean task a cycle of his complete piano works might provide for a future devotee of this Viennese composer of Czech extraction. For reasons that remain unclear, his sonatas largely date from an eight-year span beginning in 1820 at the age of 29. Though he was a dedicated disciple of Beethoven, he appears not to have emulated the older master’s compositional style to any significant degree. While his mentor preferred to construct works from smaller motives and their subsequent exhaustive development, in these sonatas, at least, Czerny prefers more expansive melodies and extended key sections. This is evidence of a kinship with such close contemporaries as Hummel, Schubert, and especially Mendelssohn. This latter composer seems particularly relevant when Czerny reaches back to resuscitate fugues and chorales from earlier times. When trying to summon dramatic stress in minor keys, such as the opening to Sonata No. 9, the resemblance to Schubert can be uncanny, but only for short stretches. The same composer’s lyricism is evoked in the slow movement of this and other sonatas, although Czerny’s melodic gifts are decidedly inferior. There is one superficial resemblance to some of Beethoven’s late piano sonatas and string quartets, and that is a disinterest in maintaining the traditional four-movement structure of a sonata on a consistent basis. All four of these sonatas have between five and seven movements, with a duration in this recording of 32 to 50 minutes each. Calum MacDonald’s excellent notes don’t suggest the possibility, but could this predilection for length reflect the influence of the classical divertimento? While it’s possible that their duration could be one factor in their lack of acceptance into the canon, that explanation doesn’t account for the hundreds of his shorter pieces that posterity has also been unkind to.


Sonata No. 6 is the one work that suggests a composer not entirely satisfied with the status quo. With six movements and clocking in at over 50 minutes, it surely ranks as one of the most ambitious piano works from any era, a status underlined by the fast tempos in nearly every movement (in fact, slow movements are quite rare in all four of these sonatas). It boasts far more than mere length; there are sections that foreshadow titans from later in the century, most notably Brahms and Liszt. This seems to be the only sonata with some notable parallels to the music of late Beethoven (especially the quartets), more in the outward structure of some movements than the inner mechanics.


There is a smattering of music (piano and otherwise) by Czerny on disc, but only Daniel Blumenthal (on Et’Cetera) and Anton Kuerti (for Analekta) have tackled the sonatas. Martin Jones, as usual, is embarking on this latest project with admirable aplomb and gusto. One can’t expect the same level of finish on projects of this type as with recordings of works in a pianist’s regular concert repertoire, but the playing is solid and engaging throughout. Jones plays with enough color and flexibility to give shape to the melodic content while avoiding impediments to the classical architecture favored by Czerny. On rare occasions, he overpedals and compromises clarity, normally one of his strong suits. Development sections in minor key sonata form movements in particular seem to cause him some difficulty, as do a few thorny passages in the scherzos and the treacherous variations of Sonata No. 5. The recorded sound is clear and present, fairly close but not overbearing.


FANFARE: Michael Cameron


Important, intelligently conceived and very rewarding.

This looks set fair to be a valuable corrective to the partial, more generally held view of Czerny as a composer of an exhaustive number of pedagogic studies. In the first volume of a promised complete run we have four sonatas written between 1824 and 1827 and a single Nocturne, dated provisionally to around 1840.

Czerny certainly proves to have operated on a wide canvas – his Sixth sonata, in D minor, lasts over fifty minutes in Martin Jones’s impressive sounding performance. It might be as well to start there because here we feel his striving for a heroic canvas at its most palatial, its most extended. It was written in the year of Beethoven’s death and its six movements might be seen as an analogue of the older man’s own multi-movement writing in the late quartets. After an opening Adagio sostenuto ed espressivo and a correspondingly fast capriccio, Czerny unleashes an Allegretto, a Scherzo and trio, a Bohemian Chorale, a Presto and finally an Allegro con fuoco. The indications alone give some idea as to the sweep and drama enshrined in the work. From a tense almost crepuscular opening we are launched on the driving excitement of the Capriccio Appassionata; from there an alternately stately and lyric Scherzo and Trio; and from there to the heart of the work, a noble unfolding of the theme and five variations. Extensive, finely laid out and warmly played this is a particular high point of the two discs. It shouldn’t be forgotten that, despite his Viennese birth, and as his name so obviously suggests, Czerny’s first language was Czech.

The Fifth sonata is a more concise work though in five movements which again features a penultimate Theme and variation device. Despite the proximity of Beethoven and Hummel stylistically – or at least in terms of potential influence this is the sonata that sounds most completely Schubertian. Although Schubert is often quoted as one of the strongest influences on Czerny’s more extended compositions, its influence is not always direct; here, one feels, it is, and unashamedly too. The placid theme that launches the variations is a genial case in point. The whole work in fact though hardly small scaled is very amiable, though not especially personal.

The Eighth sonata was another product of 1827 and again is cast in six movements, this time ending with a Fuga. Here we find Czerny serious, even at points rather gruff, though it’s a gruffness matched by a perky march theme. The Scherzo sports abrupt injunctions and phrases and alternates them with a lyric Trio. Even the Adagio is unsettled with volatile moments. There’s a second Scherzo and – my favourite and I think the most admirable movement – a forward-looking and quite complex Rondo before the final fugue. The Eighth sonata opens in standard sonata form and does rather flirt with salon sentiment in its not-terribly-serious Adagio; marked con sentimento to reinforce the point. The agitato mutterings that later emerge in this movement seem out of place in respect of the thematic material – but never mind, there’s a pert and witty Scherzo to enjoy. So too the later Nocturne.

Over a decade ago Anton Kuerti recorded the First and Third sonatas for Analekta [FL23141] and Daniel Blumenthal has recorded the first four for Etcetera [KTC2023]. Other than that things have been pretty quiet. So Jones’s splendid playing, the good Nimbus sound and extensive booklet notes stamp this out as an important, intelligently conceived and very rewarding start to the series.

-- Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb International

The Viennese-born Carl Czerny, student and confidant of Beethoven and teacher of Liszt, found fame in his native city by writing a series of fashionable pieces, among which numbered fantasies and potpourris as well as a series of important pedagogic studies. His large-scale pianistic works are of great interest and include the First Piano Concerto, in D minor, which expertly balances foreboding, pastoral richness and exuberant brio, a bravura Introduzione e Rondo Brillant and a vivacious salute to Weber’s Euryanthe. “Tuck is dazzlingly articulate and secure in the countless runs and fast passagework Czerny asks of her,” wrote MusicWeb International.

Pupil and friend of Beethoven and teacher to Liszt, Carl Czerny, whose pedagogical works are still widely in use today, was a key figure in European musical life. Dzerny's organ music builds on teh traditions of J.S. Bach and Mendelssohn, revealing his mastery of contrapuntal technique in the Prelude and Fugue, Op. 607. Czerny visited England in 1837 and his Op. 698 collection of organ voluntaries, apparently intended for the English market, varies in mood from quietly meditative to the triumphant. The Op. 627 set, dedicated to the Bath organist James Windsor, adds contrapuntal elements and cleverly includes anthems such as God Save the Queen.

Most of us as children were probably partial to elaborate cream cakes, well before obesity became a household word. Even at the time there was often the wise parental admonition not to eat too many at once, or face the inevitable consequences quite soon afterwards.

In a way this is what we’re offered here on this equally naughty-but-nice CD from Naxos. For most listeners, the name Czerny is synonymous with hundreds of perhaps tedious studies for young and emerging pianists at every level of technique from the ‘School of Velocity’, to the later ‘Art of Finger Dexterity’. The fact that these two volumes – Opp. 299 and 740 respectively – have such high opus numbers, attests to the Austrian composer’s prolific output. That said, Carl Czerny wrote so much more than just studies, and it is great to have more and more of it become available on CD.

Not surprisingly, Czerny was an immensely organised composer who, according to the most informative sleeve-note by Allan Badley, grouped his works into four distinct categories: 1) studies and exercises, 2) easy pieces for students, 3) brilliant pieces for concerts, and 4) serious works. The distinction between the last two categories is important, because it confirms the essential purpose of the kind of work recorded here.

The Irish composer, John Field, stayed with Czerny in Vienna in 1835, and described Czerny’s study as a ‘composition factory’, simply because he kept samples of every conceivable type of passage-work filed there in a large cupboard, which was used both for teaching purposes and in his own works. As Badley explains, ‘(Czerny’s) students, or assistants, would be given instructions to transpose selected passages into the appropriate key and incorporate them into the works they were busily copying for their teacher’. This formulaic approach to composition was nothing new, and Czerny’s rigorous application of it sat well with the new industrial age. It is not light years away from modern practices using a music-notation programme to effect some basic transpositions, or copy and paste processes. A composer like Schumann, for whom purity in art was paramount, wrote exceedingly scathingly about Czerny, his music, and methods.

The four items on the CD – which bears the title ‘Bel Canto Concertante - Virtuoso Variations for Piano and Orchestra’ – are typical of the time. They draw their inspiration from themes from the most popular operas of the day and are simply designed as ‘brilliant pieces for concerts’, as per 3) above. Badley informs us that the ‘Variations on Swedish National Airs’ by Czerny’s contemporary, Ferdinand Ries, appears to be the first work of its kind in the genre, subsequently cultivated by Hummel and a host of other pianist-composers. Czerny’s works were composed between 1828 – Introduction, Variations and Polacca, Op 160 – and 1833 or so, the Introduction, Variations et Presto finale, Op 281. In each case the work was written within a few years of the opera upon which it is based. Each one is essentially similar in overall design, and follows Ries’s pattern: a slow, often pompous yet lyrical introduction, and the presentation of the theme and its variations, the last of which becomes extended to form a finale. Like those of Ries and Hummel, Czerny’s introductions are freely composed, whereas the quotation of thematic material from the respective opera forms the basis of the main body of the piece. As the works essentially need to be effective in performance, the choice of theme is more down to its popularity and recognisability, than its intrinsic music interest. Czerny often adds a little codetta (add-on ending) to the theme, which is played by the orchestra. The variations start out by following the theme’s contours pretty closely, becoming more freely ordered as the work progresses. Equally, they tend to become more virtuosic with each successive variation, to which Czerny adds a little extra zing by increasing the tempo proportionately. A slow, expressive variation is included – never overlong, but strategically placed for the best overall effect. In a work like Brahms’sVariations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, the theme is organically developed, taken apart and virtually reformed. By contrast, Czerny’s modus operandi is simple variation. He explores a succession of figurations that are only really loosely connected with the themes, somewhat confirming Field’s notion of a ‘composition factory’ approach. Czerny does, however, become a little more adventurous in the longer variations.

This is not to detract in any way from the sheer enjoyment of these works which set out, and certainly very much achieve what it says on the tin. They have an immediate appeal and that was Czerny’s sole intention. He varies the way in which he describes each work on the present CD, but effectively it’s only in the third example that he specifically mentions the inclusion of a closing Polacca (Polonaise). This does achieve an effective change from duple to triple meter, seemingly giving it a new lease of life towards the conclusion.

The recording quality is good, and the English Chamber Orchestra provides a secure, but not intrusive accompaniment. Australian pianist, Rosemary Tuck, despatches each work with real panache and élan, making light of the often complex pianistic gyrations and fireworks. She is also well able to treat the more serious parts with appropriate, if not necessarily tongue-in-cheek, solemnity. Richard Bonynge is the ideal choice of conductor here, as he directs proceedings with the same stylistic empathy he had when wielding the baton over the singing of his late wife, Dame Joan Sutherland, in many similar coloratura roles, except here the soloist is now the pianist.

At Naxos’s bargain price, it would be virtually impossible not to welcome this charming CD. After all, each work is both attractive and uncomplicated to listen to and gives a good insight into the art of simple variation. The music also elucidates the origins of some of the more-extended pianistic figurations found in later similar display-works by Chopin, Mendelssohn and Saint-Saëns.

If you find that listening to all four works in succession, is just a bit too much for one sitting, then return to your parents’ advice above, and perhaps try them one or two at a time – that way there’s no chance of overindulging.

– Philip R Buttall, MusicWeb International

Quite simply exemplary and splendidly recorded as well.

The in this series was what I called ‘a valuable corrective to the partial, more generally held view of Czerny as a composer of an exhaustive number of pedagogic studies.’ This view is simply reinforced by volume 2 which is, similarly, a two disc set and which offers the same tangible musical rewards as the earlier volume.
 
There is nothing in the second volume quite as extensive as the massive Sixth Sonata of 1827. Nevertheless we do get four powerfully proportioned sonatas from his maturity played, as before, with powerful eloquence by Martin Jones, one of the most exploratory and energising pianists before the public. The interesting thing about Czerny’s sonatas is that the primary influence is not that of Beethoven. Rather it often sounds to have been Schubert who exerted the greater pull. The opening movement of the Eleventh Sonata, for example, sounds like a Schubert finale, though Brahms’s name is evoked by sleeve note writer Calum MacDonald. The sonata’s slow movement is a romantic soliloquy, its finale a songful, almost Schumannesque one played with warmth and clarity. This sonata dates from 1843. Nearly a quarter of a century earlier his first effort shows similar virtues. It’s a sonata that was admired by Liszt, who dedicated his Transcendental Etudes to Czerny, and is a powerful, exciting and generous spirited five-movement work. In this nourishing piece the central Adagio is hard to overlook, so richly cantabile is it, and so finely played too. Czerny is careful to balance the two faster inner movements; his Prestissimo agitato is galvanically brisk, whereas the Rondo is altogether more relaxed.
 
The Second Sonata is not unlike the First in that it too has five movements, one fewer than the Sixth where, one feels, Czerny did at least emulate Beethoven’s multi-movement example in his late string quartets. It is however much more concise than the earlier work. It has a most touching slow movement and an Allegro agitato that reminds one of the similar movement in the First. Another link comes from Czerny’s schema which is to end both these sonatas with a Fugue. In the First sonata the fugue is linked to earlier material, but not in the Second where the fugue stands, in effect, as a separate entity. The effect is grand, but it does lessen the sense of cumulative tension that the earlier work generated. The Sonatine is more compact still, but belies its name by virtue of its elevated and highly personal powers of reflection. And there are two small pieces. The Chanson sans paroles is spiced with delicious filigree, whilst the Character Etude Op.755 is a lissom and decidedly lovely effusion.
 
There is one remaining volume in this series, and one awaits it with anticipation. Jones’s playing is, quite simply, exemplary and he has been splendidly recorded as well.
 
-- Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb International

Carl Czerny’s prodigious output as a composer included numerous sets of variations on operatic themes, both with orchestra [Naxos 8.573254] and, as with the Trois Rondeaux, Op. 347 on themes by Rossini and Bellini, in the form of entertaining chamber music. With its cadenza and technical flourishes the Introduction, Variations and Finale, Op. 80 is composed in true concerto style, while the elegance and refined artistry of the Rondoletto and Duo concertant are both characteristic of a Classical master whose works have only recently started to gain wider recognition.

Carl Czerny, a student of Beethoven- whose music remained an inspiration- occupied an important place in the musical landscape of his time as both performer and pedagogue. His own students, such as Liszt, transmitted his teaching principles which were available in a large number of groundbreaking exercises and etudes. Carl Czerny wrote his 30 Etudes de mecanisme, Op 849 (’30 Studies of Technique’) at a time of exceptionally high demand for teaching material. The Studies make use of a limited range of keys but are intended as an introduction for students to the ‘School of Velocity.’ Perfectly placed between his simpler and more virtuosic Studies, Czerny’s Etudes have remained in demand to the present day. The works are performed here by Nicholas Horvath, who is known for his boundary-less musical explorations and his enthusiastic promotion of contemporary music.

Carl Czerny, one of Vienna’s most illustrious musicians, was Beethoven’s student and devoted friend. Renowned today for his piano treatises, he was also a prolific composer in almost every genre, but it is the music for his own instrument that has aroused the most curiosity. The Grand Concerto in A Minor, a work both serene and spirited, is historically important as one of the first romantic concertos ever written. The lyricism and playful bravura of the Grand Nocturne Brillant is balanced by the delicious Rossini Variations de Concert.

A delightful disc. Tal and Groethuysen play with passion and complete unanimity, and their sure-fingered techniques suggest the "velocity exercises" are well behind them.

Of all the composers whose names are far better known than their music, Czerny must be the most famous. Czerny? Oh yes, he was the chap who wrote those 'velocity exercises', the medicine pianists must take if they are to get better. True, but that wasn't all, his opus numbers leave little change out of 850! So why the neglect? Maybe there are two reasons. First, as a pupil of Beethoven, a teacher of Liszt and a contemporary of Schubert, he was born at the wrong time, surrounded by compositional giants. Second, it was his large output of didactic works and his eminence as a teacher that shaped his image, and his emphasis on technical brilliance was not always helpful to the balance of his music. I can see that, but it's hard to believe he wrote virtually nothing that is worth hearing! No, it's not that, it's probably that his academic image has been so strong that his music has simply been overlooked—if you try this record you'll see what I mean.

Despite his success Czerny was a tortured depressive and it reflects in his music; abrupt and extreme changes of mood, with correspondingly sudden changes of pace, volume and touch, and high-tension cascades of notes lie in wait for the tandem-pianists in the works on this recording. Echoes of Beethoven and Schubert rub shoulders with pre-echoes of Liszt. Czemy was not a great composer but he was a fluent one and, though you may be excused for thinking that he might have been wise to prune some of his lengthy utterances and to abate the firework displays, he often touches the heart-strings.

Yaara Tal and Andreas Groethuysen are new names to me (and to the catalogue) and the insert booklet offers only two photographs as enlightenment; what does seem clear is that this first recording is unlikely to be their last. They play with passion and complete unanimity, and their sure-fingered techniques suggest the 'velocity exercises' as being among those things that are well behind them. The piano itself is not of the kind Czerny would have used, but it has an appropriately clear sound—crystalline cantabile and fortes that are strong but not thunderous. The recording copes well with the wide dynamic range of the music. A delightful disc, to be sure.

-- John Duarte, Gramophone

Carl Czerny’s instructional exercises may be his lasting legacy but there remain numerous largely forgotten pieces that reveal important elements of his compositional range. The four Romantic Fantasies named after Sir Walter Scott’s famous Waverley novels are piano duets of epic breadth. In them Czerny ingeniously develops popular Scottish melodies, including the use of the ‘Scotch snap’, to generate a vivid programmatic quality that explores numerous genres. Scherzos, fugal passages, chorales and marches are all featured, and raise the music – full of beauty, virtuosity and unpredictability – to orchestral proportions.

REVIEW:

Though the majority of Czerny's more than 800 works were for solo piano, there were also works intended for use in public concerts, such as the four Romantic Fantasies for piano duet composed in 1832. Each is of sizeable proportions and based on a novel by Sir Walter Scott, Czerny having been an avid reader. They used the stories that were recounted in Waverley, Guy Mannering, Ivanhoe and Rob Roy, and in his thematic material he appropriately used Scottish and English traditional melodies. Technically they are highly demanding, particularly in the many mercurial passages for the right hand of the ‘Primo’ pianist, and proved a very testing time for Pei-I Wang in Waverley. The second Fantasy, in a mood of quiet suspense, leads to the military atmosphere that opens Ivanhoe, and finally he cast Rob Roy as a weighty finale. Mid-way through the disc the North American-based duo exchange places, Samuel Gingher becoming the ‘Primo’, the young duo here offering World Premiere Recordings made in 2019. A discovery that has given me considerable pleasure.

– David's Review Corner (David Denton)