Czerny: Piano Concerto in D Minor

Album review

A variety of 21st century releases, many of them on the Naxos label, have tried to rescue Carl Czerny from Schumann's harsh judgment that a greater failure of imagination than Czerny's could not be imagined. This one from pianist Rosemary Tuck and the English Chamber Orchestra under the venerable Richard Bonynge (86 years old when the album was recorded in 2016) comes closer than most. The main attraction is the composer's very first piano concerto, composed in 1811-1812 following Czerny's studies with Beethoven. The work has a grandiose conception that owes something to the Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 5 in E flat major, Op. 73 ("Emperor"), and even if Czerny didn't quite "get" Beethoven, he came a lot closer than other young composers at the time. The other two works are from later in Czerny's life and are both engaging. The Introduction, Variations, and Rondo on Weber's Hunting Chorus from "Euryanthe," Op. 60, is an unusually elegant example of the operatic paraphrase genre that definitely needs wider investigation from performers, with its Weber themes imaginatively broken up and treated. But sample first of all the multilingually titled Introduzione e Rondo Brillant in B flat major, Op. 233, with its unusual weaving of the piano into the slow introduction. That work has been sparsely recorded before, but the concerto and the Euryanthe paraphrase are world premieres, and the unfamiliar material receives clean, lively performances from Tuck. A good starting point for those wishing to sample the recent Czerny offerings.

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