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!

[semloh]

I certainly share your enthusiasm, John. I have always found this work, like so much of Czerny's music, joyful and uplifting. I have the Koch-Swann version, with the Kölner Klavier Duo.

[Martin Eastick]

The Czerny concerto is an time favourite of mine, ever since finding it on an obscure American LP back in the 1970's! I was also fortunate enough to attend a live performance given by Harvey Dagul and his wife a few years later. Yes, there are torrents of notes, but it is extremely well constructed for the medium. It can also be performed without orchestra for anyone interested, and it is great fun to play. It also has its more tender moments - try the development section in the first movement, which starts in the key of E minor, before some surprising sequential modulations which Czerny was most adept at! Altogether a most enjoyable work both to listen to and also to perform! It would surely bring the house down at the Proms!

[Alan Howe]

It would surely bring the house down at the Proms!

So instead they programme Sam Smith 

[eschiss1]

Belated response: maybe because he will bring in ticket purchases and Czerny (whose music, if there's any doubt, I like very much and hope to hear much more of- this is not about me...) won't, and the government contribution has been not just cut but slashed, I'm told (I don't know what chance there is that the new government is going to even slightly reverse that trend, but I doubt it.)

(And they have to pay the fees for the artists who'll perform the Czerny before people discover they enjoy it and can spread word of mouth to others who buy tickets for a second performance etc. But those who think that having a bit of a cushion, even if it has to come out of taxes, isn't an important thing for an arts agency - quite a few people, I know! - aren't going to be convinced by my arguments.)