Search - Cramer, John Khouri :: Johann Baptist Cramer: Seven Late Sonatas

A major event

Vagn Lyhne | Risskov Denmark | 06/16/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Johann Baptist Cramer (1771-1858) was one of the leading pianists and composers of the first half of the nineteenth century. Of his rich output only his Studies, which were highly praised by Beethoven, have survived, while the rest of his production has been almost forgotten. And this to the degree that the scores of Cramer's sonatas and other pieces - apart from Nicholas Temperley's photographic re-edition, valuable but difficult to read - have been unavailable to the amateur and kept, as it may seem, under lock and key at the university libraries.
The music of Cramer is one of the summits of classical music in the passage from Haydn and Mozart to Romantic music. Rich in melody, development, passageworks, a firework of ideas, sometimes incorporating popular tunes and given them the special Cramer-treatment.
Only a few of Cramer's sonatas have been recorded. John Khouri's recording of seven late Cramer-sonatas is therefore an event, a beautiful and loyal rendering of this great music of the past. Mr. Khouri, a specialist of the music of this period, plays a 1813 Broadwood Grand Fortepiano. Its sound is lighter, softer than that of the pianos, used by the leading virtuosos later in the century, and gives full credit to the aspirations of the composer. And to a form of music, which even at its most dramatic moments retains a certain noble purity. As Mr. Khouri rightly states in the album-notes, the Adagio Patetico from the sonata op. 69, "Amicitia", is a masterpiece, a dignified statement of grief with a touch of those manners, which were once called "of the old school".
Cramer was called "Glorious John" in London, and glorious he is. In a sense he was murdered by the amusing but derogatory description of him as an old man by Liszt-pupil Wilhelm von Lenz. You have to go back a generation and read the report of a concert in London, written by Mendelssohn's friend, the pianist and composer Ignaz Moscheles. Now one lady rose to her feet whispering: "What trills", then two ladies, "with right hand", then a whole company of the sort gasping, "with both hands", mesmerized by this Glorious Revolution of the Piano. Thanks to the efforts of Mr. Khouri, Johann Baptist Cramer is back to occupy his legitimate position as a major composer for the solopiano."