Czerny Concerto for Piano 4-hands Op.153

[Alan Howe]

...forthcoming from cpo, coupled with Bruch's Concerto for 2 Pianos, Op.88 and his Fantasie for 2 Pianos, Op.11:
https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/cpo/detail/-/art/carl-czerny-konzert-op-153-fuer-klavier-4-haendig-orchester/hnum/6096052

[John Boyer]

...and well worth getting.

[Revilod]

Yes. It is an excellent disc.

[John Boyer]

I have returned to this disc many times. The Czerny is delightful from first note to last, reminding me of the youthful Beethoven in one of his happier moods.

I also love the performers' rendition of the Bruch Concerto. They give it an heroic nobility which almost moved me to tears. I wondered if others who have encountered this concerto felt the same.  Surveying reviews of recordings and concert performances by the New York Philharmonic and the Chicago Symphony I found the critics at the Gramophone and other publications had this to say about it:

ungracious, truculent, overbearing, hasn't aged well, can wait another century to be repeated, charmless, unfortunate creation, overwrought melodrama, bizarre conflagration, vacuous note-spinning

I guess they don't share my enthusiasm. 

[Alan Howe]

I'll bet they've never tried to live with the music they're denigrating and appreciate it for what it is. Czerny may not be Beethoven, but there are other pleasures to be had, his evident joy in music-making being one of them. The same applies to Raff in comparison with, say, Brahms, but I know who I'd take to my desert island if I wanted to remain sane...

So: to all those know-it-all, high-and-mighty critics: MUST TRY HARDER!