Carl Czerny Carl Czerny

Carl Czerny (German: [karl ˈtʃɛrni]; 21 February 1791 – 15 July 1857) was an Austrian composer, teacher, and pianist of Czech origin whose vast musical production amounted to over a thousand works. His books of studies for the piano are still widely used in piano teaching.

Compositions

Overview

Main article: List of compositions by Carl Czerny

Czerny composed a very large number of pieces (more than a thousand pieces and up to Op. 861).

Czerny's works include not only piano music (études, nocturnes, sonatas, opera theme arrangements and variations) but also masses and choral music, symphonies, concertos, songs, string quartets and other chamber music. 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 of many popular opera themes.

The majority of the pieces called by Czerny as "serious music" (masses, choral music, quartets, orchestral and chamber music) remained unpublished. The manuscripts are held by Vienna's Society for the Friends of Music, to which Czerny (a childless bachelor) willed his estate.

Piano music

Czerny's piano sonatas show themselves as an intermediate stage between the works of Beethoven and Liszt. They blend the traditional sonata form elements with baroque elements, such as the use of fugato, and free forms of fantasy. Recordings of these sonatas have been made by Martin Jones, Anton Kuerti and Daniel Blumenthal.

Czerny's piano nocturnes show some of the elements present in Chopin nocturnes, such as the rhythmic fluidity and the intimate character. Chopin met Czerny in Vienna in 1828 and may have been influenced by his nocturnes.

Czerny composed approximately 180 pieces that bear the title "Variations". Among them is La Ricordanza, Op 33, which Vladimir Horowitz recorded . Czerny used not only his own themes but themes from other composers as well, including Daniel Auber, Ludwig van Beethoven, Vincenzo Bellini, Anton Diabelli, Gaetano Donizetti, Joseph Haydn, Heinrich Marschner, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Niccolò Paganini, Gioachino Rossini, Franz Schubert, Carl Maria von Weber and many others. These works range from solo piano pieces to piano pieces for four, six, and eight hands, with some variations having optional accompaniment of orchestra or string quartet. Czerny sometimes combined his variations with other genres, such as fantasy, rondo, or impromptu.

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, his Diabelli Variations, Op. 120. Together with Liszt, Chopin, Henri Herz, Johann Peter Pixis and Sigismond Thalberg, Czerny was a contributor to the compendium set of variations for piano, Hexameron (1837).

Other compositions

The seven symphonies of Czerny began to be recorded in 1990s. In the 21st century, two new symphonies came to light (The Symphony Nr. 6 and a large Symphony written in 1814); also two overtures (in C Minor and E Major) and some symphonic choral music (Psalm 130 and "Die Macht des Gesanges").^{[citation needed]}

Czerny was a prolific composer of chamber music, normally including the piano: Trios for strings and Piano, Quintets for strings and Piano, Sonatas for Violin and Piano, and also Piano Variations with Flute, Horn and other instruments. However, there are many works without piano, including string quartets.

Czerny was a religious person and devoted himself seriously to religious musical production. These works include a number of Masses, cantatas and songs. There are also a number of secular songs in his output.

Publications

In 1842 Czerny published an autobiographical sketch, "Erinnerungen aus meinem Leben" ("Memories from My Life"). Other works by Czerny, apart from his compositions, include: his edition of Johann Sebastian Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier; "Letters to a young lady, on the art of playing the pianoforte" ; his "School of Practical Composition" (published as his Op. 600); and "On the proper performance of all Beethoven's works for piano" (1846).