Search - Daniel Blumenthal - piano, Carl Czerny, None :: Carl Czerny: Piano Sonatas / Variations

Full many a gem

Vagn Lyhne | Risskov Denmark | 11/26/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Would it today be possible to find three who have played Carl Czerny's "Divertimentos à 6 mains"? Two that are acquainted with "Impromptu sur la Romanesca, à 4 mains" or just one sweating over "L'Infatigable, Grande Etude de Vélocité". Generations of students have played Czerny's studies, which in endless series deal with all the problems of modern piano technique. Many have cursed him as an initiator of torture, while others have blessed him as the benefactor who gave the daughters of the house an instrument for emotionalism and decent eroticism. But few have imagined that Czerny apart from the pieces that were designed for the marketplace made compositions in what he called "serious style". Here he made it evident to himself and all who had ears that he could compete with anyone in skill and originality.



"The boy has talent", Beethoven said when the ten-year-old Carl in 1801 was introduced to the phenomenon, who aiming to climb the peaks of originality was dressed in hair on end and trousers and jacket of longhaired goat as had he just arrived from Robinson's island. That day the boy played Mozart's piano concerto no. 25, with the master's assistance, and his "Sonate pathétique", by heart, while Papa Czerny, accompanied by his Sprössling, uplifted his tenor in the forenamed gentleman's "Adelaide". The firepower was overwhelming: "I will teach him myself."



Armed with an infallible memory and a vivid learning ability the boy soon made progress, benefiting from the advanced musical setting of Wien and the encounter with virtuosos of international stature such as Hummel and Clementi. Fifteen years old he started thirty years of teaching twelve hours a day. From an early age his father had carefully kept him away from other children and induced the secluded boy to develop industry as his main habit. Now he left it to his son to provide for the family. "In the year of 1827 I lost my mother and five years later (1832) my father and was now totally alone, as I did not have any relatives at all." Here Czerny abruptly ends his short autobiography.



Under the scourge of duty and the glorification of work that spread like a social disease he toiled hour after hour, seeing composition as sheer production transforming Kunststücke to ducats. He often worked on four compositions at a time, helped by assistants who by means of a big collection of samples were able to complete the sketches with passages in different keys. His work list comes to an end at opus 861, not including scores of additional compositions. Thus he amassed a considerable fortune. But the price was loneliness, the never fulfilled yearning for nearness and love. Even if he to a certain extent lived secluded, he showed friendliness and warmth towards the people, he got into contact with - towards Beethoven, who put him highly, towards the little Liszt, whom he in his autobiography draws an irresistible portrait of. When Liszt, who now appeared as an "Honorable Sir and friend", in 1852 dedicated his "Etudes d'exécution transcendante" to his mentor, Czerny felt honoured and praised them lavishly, but basically he felt uneasy about Liszt's development of the piano technique as well as his music.



Many composers have been outshone by giants as Czerny's teacher Beethoven or his pupil Liszt, among them two other students of Czerny's, Sigismond Thalberg and Stephen Heller. Their works have been forgotten, and in an apotheosis of the singular, the superhuman, the paroxysms of genius, they are often met with scorn or bizarre suspiciousness, as were they persons of dubious character. Consequently the repertoire has been thinned out and amputated. The expectations of the audience have forced pianists to limit themselves to the well-known and recognizable, and even great performers have invalidated their career by specializing in certain composers or felt attracted by the spectacular and sensational.



"Full many a gem of purest ray serene/ The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear", the English poet Thomas Gray wrote. Such gems are the piano works, which Daniel Blumenthal has salvaged.



The compositions in case are four sonatas for the piano and two variation works, all from Czerny's younger years. They demonstrate a superior technical skill, which Czerny more and more should exploit in his works for practical use, but also a highly developed formal consciousness in the tradition of Mozart, Clementi and Beethoven. The musical power and beauty are surprising for those who solely know Czerny from his studies, and a revelation for the happy who play the piano themselves and now get new and original material at their disposal.



Lyrical themes alternate with passages of violent dynamics, passionate movements where the fury of the subject is domesticated by musical laws it itself has given, with fugues which involute as small adornments. The "Prestissimo agitato" of Sonata opus 7 sounds like a free rearrangement of the third movement of Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata", a magnificent piece, which I myself play under the application of Robert Schumann's great German invention: "So rasch wie möglich - schneller - noch schneller". Exactly this Prestissimo created a furore when the eighteen-year-old Liszt in 1830 played the sonata in Paris. - The "Allegro agitato" in Sonata opus 13 demonstrates Czerny's ability to create a highly dramatic development on the basis of a simple but lovely theme. By itself stands "Fantasie et Romance variée pour le Pianoforte", a work, which it must certainly have required keen eyes to spot in Czerny's huge output - and which suggests treasures still to be found. The piece consists of a fantasy on a minimalistic motive, followed by a dancing theme, which from variation to variation pours over the musical sheets in cascades of notes in childish joy at the opportunities this monster of modernity - the pianoforte - creates.



All this is masterly played by Mr Blumenthal, who has not only presented us with first recordings of the majority of works represented, but also opened a new field for everyone, who loves the piano. "The boy has talent." À 6 mains, à 4 ou à 2.

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