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Carl Czerny edit
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Carl Czerny

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Carl Czerny, lithograph by Josef Kriehuber, 1833

Carl Czerny (German: [kaɹl ˈtʃɛrni]; 21 February 1791 – 15 July 1857) was an Austrian pianist, composer and teacher. He is best remembered today for his books of études for the piano. Czerny's music was profoundly influenced by his teachers, Clementi, Hummel, Salieri and Beethoven.

Contents

Early life

Carl Czerny was born in Vienna to a musical family of Czech origin (Černý, lit. "Black"). His grandfather was a violinist and his father was an oboist, organist, and pianist. His family came to Vienna from Nymburk, Bohemia and Carl himself did not speak German until the age of ten. A child prodigy, Czerny began playing piano at age three and composing at age seven. His first piano teacher was his father, Wenzel Czerny, who taught him mainly Bach, Mozart, and Clementi. Czerny began performing piano recitals in his parents' home. Beethoven, attending one such recital, was so impressed with Czerny's performance of his Pathétique Sonata that he took on the 10 year old as a student.1 Czerny remained under Beethoven's tutelage for the next three years. Czerny went on to take lessons from Johann Nepomuk Hummel and Antonio Salieri. Czerny also attended courses which Muzio Clementi held in Paris, Vienna, St. Petersburg, Berlin, Prague, Rome and Milan.

Czerny made his first public performance in 1800 playing Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor. However, Czerny was never confident in his abilities as a performer and resolved to withdraw permanently from the stage.2 At age 21, in February 1812, Czerny returned to the public to give the Vienna premiere of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5, "Emperor".


Teaching

At age fifteen, Czerny began a very successful teaching career. Basing his method on the teaching of Beethoven and Clementi, Czerny taught up to twelve lessons a day in the homes of Viennese nobility.1 His notable students included Sigismond Thalberg, Stephen Heller, Alfred Jaëll, Theodor Leschetizky, Theodor Kullak, Theodor Döhler, and Anna Caroline Oury. Czerny's fees were so steep that some students, such as Stephen Heller, were unable to afford it and had to switch teachers.

His most famous student was Franz Liszt, who began studying with Czerny at age nine. Czerny was Liszt's only teacher. Upon taking him on as a student, Czerny forced Liszt to abandon all repertoire for the first few months, insisting he play only scales and exercises to strengthen his technique.

As a concert pianist, Liszt went on to include several Czerny compositions in his repertoire. Liszt also dedicated his twelve Transcendental Études to Czerny, who was among the first composers to pioneer the "étude" form. Liszt also collaborated with Czerny on the Hexaméron; a joint work along with fellow composers Frédéric Chopin, Sigismond Thalberg, Henri Herz, and Johann Peter Pixis.

Composition

Czerny composed a very large number of pieces (up to Op. 861), including a number of masses and requiems, and six symphonies, concertos, sonatas and string quartets and other chamber music. Many of these pieces remained unpublished. The manuscripts are held by Vienna's Society for the Friends of Music, to which Czerny (a childless bachelor) willed his estate. A number of these works received their world premiere performance in June 2002 at a Carl Czerny Music Festival mounted by the Wirth Institute for Austrian and Central European Studies at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, under the artistic direction of the Canadian pianist Anton Kuerti. The better known part of Czerny's repertoire is the large number of didactic piano pieces he wrote, such as The School of Velocity and The Art of Finger Dexterity. He was one of the first composers to use étude ("study") for a title.

Czerny's body of works also include arrangements for eight pianos, four hands each, of two overtures of Gioachino Rossini. He also left an essay on performing the piano sonatas of Beethoven. He published an autobiographical sketch, "Erinnerungen aus meinem Leben" (1842; "Memories from My Life").

Czerny was one of 50 composers who wrote a Variation on a theme of Anton Diabelli for Part II of the Vaterländischer Künstlerverein (published 1824). He also wrote a coda to round out the collection. Part I was devoted to the 33 variations supplied by Beethoven, which have gained an independent identity as his Diabelli Variations, Op. 120. Czerny maintained a relationship with Beethoven throughout his life, giving piano lessons to Beethoven's beloved nephew Carl, and proofreading many of Beethoven's works before they were published.1

Beethoven's influence can also be seen in Czerny's Variations on "Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser", Op. 73, for piano and orchestra (1824; also a version for piano and string quartet), which were based on a theme by Beethoven's teacher Joseph Haydn.

A complete reevaluation of Czerny's compositions was undertaken at an academic conference mounted by the Wirth Institute for Austrian and Central European Studies, held in conjunction with the Czerny Music Festival in June 2002. The proceedings of the conference were published by the University of Rochester Press in 2008 as "Beyond the Art of Finger Dexterity: Reassessing Carl Czerny," edited by David Gramit. The volume contains a catalogue of autographs held by the archive of the Society for the Friends of Music in Vienna.

Death

Czerny remained in Vienna for most of his life, only leaving three times (he visited Leipzig in 1836, Paris and London in 1837, and Lombardy in 1846).2 He died in Vienna at the age of 66. He never married and he had no near relatives. Shortly before his death, he disposed of his considerable fortune with the help of his friend and lawyer Leopold von Sonnleithner.2

Recordings

Signum Records recently issued at least three CD recordings of Czerny's symphonies and concerti, including a concerto for piano four hands in C major. In fact, the view of Czerny as primarily a composer of didactic works is being challenged, as can be seen in the review cited below of a Sony Classical CD of some of Czerny's four-hand works. Nimbus Records is in course of issuing recordings of all 11 of Czerny's solo piano sonatas, played by Martin Jones. His Symphony No. 1 ('Grand Symphony') was even issued on a CD supplement to an issue of BBC Music Magazine.

Sony Classics issued a recording of Piano Music for Four Hands by Czerny [SK 45936] with the piano duo Yaara Tal and Andreas Groethuysen in 1991, and the CD label Analekta released a recording of two Czerny Piano Sonatas, as well as his Funeral March on the Death of Beethoven, Op. 146, with the Canadian pianist, Anton Kuerti in 1997 [FL 2.3141].

In June 2002 the Wirth institute for Austrian and Central European Studies of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, mounted a three-day "Carl Czerny Music Festival," under the artistic direction of the Canadian pianist Anton Kuerti. The Festival included (according to best research available) a number of world premiere performances from Czerny manuscripts held by Vienna's Society of the Friends of Music, and most of it was recorded and subsequently broadcast by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. In the wake of the Festival Kuerti and the Canadian violinist Erika Raum recorded Czerny's Sonata for Piano and Violin in A Major of 1807 and his twenty Variations for Piano and Violin on a Theme by Krumpholz, Op. 1, for CBC Records [MVCD 1150], which they had initially premiered at the Festival. In 2006 Grzegorz Nowak, the then conductor of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, who premiered the Czerny's 6th Symphony at the Festival, recorded the same work with the SWR Rundfunkorchestrer Kaiserlauten on Hänssler Classic [CD 93.169]. Finally, in 2012, as part of a cooperative venture between the Wirth Institute for Austrian and Central European Studies, CBC Radio and the record label DOREMI, a three-CD set of live performances of works performed at the Festival was released by DOREMI [DHR-6011-3]. The DOREMI set includes two string quartets, two fugatos for string quintet, a Piano Trio, a Piano Quartet, a Serenade Concertante, two Overtures, an Offertorium, five Lieder, and etude for piano and Variations Brilliantes on a theme of Bellini for Piano 6 hands.

Media
Duo Concertante, Op. 129
1. Allegro
2. Scherzo – Allegro Molto
Andantino Grazioso
4. Rondo – Allegretto
Performed by Alex Murray (flute) and Martha Goldstein (piano)
Problems listening to these files? See media help.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c Ingrid Jacobson Clarfield, Carl Czerny, Charles-Louis Hanon, 2001. Burgmuller, Czerny & Hanon – Piano Studies Selected for Technique and Musicality, Alfred Music Publishing, USA. ISBN 0-7390-2030-7, ISBN 978-0-7390-2030-2
  2. ^ a b c Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 5th ed. 1954, Eric Blom ed.

External links

Books and sheet music

Sheet music



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