The sheer volume of works by the Czech-Austrian composer Carl Czerny has made appreciation difficult, and most pianists know him only through his School of Velocity piano exercises, still in common use. Howard Shelley here turns to Czerny in his magisterial series of Romantic piano concertos, which reaches its 71st volume with this release. The highlight is probably the Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 214 (sample the first movement), where Shelley nails the brilliant passagework at the top of the keyboard. This kind of thing ...
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The sheer volume of works by the Czech-Austrian composer Carl Czerny has made appreciation difficult, and most pianists know him only through his School of Velocity piano exercises, still in common use. Howard Shelley here turns to Czerny in his magisterial series of Romantic piano concertos, which reaches its 71st volume with this release. The highlight is probably the Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 214 (sample the first movement), where Shelley nails the brilliant passagework at the top of the keyboard. This kind of thing is what kept pianists playing Czerny throughout the first half of the 19th century, even as more progressive composers came on the scene, and Shelley's performance is entirely idiomatic. The expansive Piano Concerto in F major, Op. 28, was designated in the 1830s as an arrangement of a guitar concerto by Mauro Giuliani, a fact mentioned in Hyperion's online notes for the album, but not in its printed booklet. It's not certain who the original author was, but the unusually variegated...
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