Scan 167
The New Grove Dictionary Of Music And Musicians 5 Ed. 2nd, 1904
14 lines. Read by computer on 18 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1Carl Czerny Lithograph by S Parmenter
3about tempo, expression, dynamics and phrasing. Having accepted Czerny as a pupil, Beethoven concentrated on material in C P I: Bach's Versuch and on legato playing, which was particularly appropriate for the forte piano as opposed to the Mozartian non-legato style of playing. Czerny was nevertheless deeply impressed by the clarity and precision of the latter style when, several years later, he heard Mozart's and Clementi's pupil Hummel perform at one of the musicales given by Mozart's widow.
5In 1800 Czerny made his public début as a pianist in the Vienna Augarten concert hall, performing Mozart's C minor Concerto. He gained special renown for his interpretation of Beethoven's works, playing the C major Concerto in 1806 and giving an early performance of the 'Emperor' Concerto in 1812; and for several years beginning in 1816 he gave weekly programmes at home devoted exclusively to Beethoven's piano music, programmes which Beethoven himself sometimes attended. He was able to play all Beethoven's piano music from memory, he had done so 'once or twice each week' in 1804-5 for Prince Lichnowsky, to whom Krumpholtz had introduced him. One of his most valuable legacies is a commentary on the interpretation of these works based on his observations of Beethoven's own performances and on his studies. His autobiography and chapters 2-3 of the supplement to op.500 contain some of the most enlightening of these observations. Although Czerny's playing was held in high esteem by the critics (Schilling described it as 'uncommonly fiery' and Hanslick considered him the most important of the native Viennese pianists after Hummel and Moscheles), he gradually lost his taste for performing in public, explaining that his 'playing lacked that type of brilliant, calculated charlatanry that is usually part of a travelling virtuoso's equipment'. The single planned concert tour, for which he had made arrangements in 1805, was cancelled on account of political unrest.
7Physical frailty and natural preference led him to spend his entire life quietly in Vienna. He nevertheless kept in contact with all the significant figures of the musical world who came to Vienna to win professional acclaim. As well as Prince Lichnowsky, Hummel and Beethoven's intimate circle, Czerny became a close friend of Mozart's son and of the piano manufacturer Andreas Streicher, and in 1810 he met Clementi, whose teaching methods and compositions he so admired that, as a gesture, he entitled his op.822 Nouveau Gradus ad Parnassum. One of Chopin's first visits on his arrival in Vienna in the summer of 1829 was to Czerny, with whom he frequently played duets and whom he considered to be 'warmer than all his compositions'.
9Czerny began his distinguished career as a piano teacher at the age of 15. As well as Beethoven's nephew Karl he numbered among his pupils virtuosos and child prodigies (many of them young girls) including Döhler, Kullak, Jaël, Thalberg, Stephen Heller, Ninette von Bellevile-Oury, Leopoldine Blahetka and Liszt. Liszt's father had brought him to study with Czerny at the age of nine (1820), and although his playing was 'completely irregular, careless and confused' he was an excellent sight-reader and improviser. Recognizing Liszt's enormous natural talent, Czerny concentrated on harnessing these gifts by making him work intensively on Clementi's sonatas, as well as pieces by Bach, Beethoven and Hummel. While Liszt was impatient with the disciplined ways of his teacher, as a renowned virtuoso he gratefully and frequently acknowledged that he owed his 'talent and . . . success' to Czerny. He regularly performed Czerny's Sonata no 1 in A♭ op.7 and dedicated the Transcendental Studies to him. Although Czerny's soaring reputation as a teacher attracted such large numbers of pupils that he was obliged to become highly selective, he taught as much as ten hours a day, occupying himself at other times with composing, apparently at a feverish pace.
11As Beethoven's pupil he acquired experience in proofreading, arranging (mostly for solo piano and piano duet) and constructing scores from orchestral parts (by 1802 he had copied the scores of several Mozart and Haydn symphonies, as well as Beethoven's first two symphonies and C major Concerto); these skills contributed to his exceptional speed and facility in notating musical ideas. The ease with which he improvised explains further his remarkably prolific output of over 1000 works. In an autobiographical sketch of 1824, he maintained that between the Variations for violin and piano op 1 (1806), on a theme by Krumpholtz, and the Rondo for piano duet op.2 (1819), dedicated to Diabelli, he had written many works, including operas, but that since these works were immature 'nothing became known'.
13Czerny composed in all forms, but it is in his thousands of studies and exercises that he made his most significant contribution. These are the result of his industry and his uncanny ability to codify and systematize the diverse styles and techniques for the piano at a time when the mechanics of the instrument – and its capabilities – were in a highly fluid state. His Complete Theoretical and Practical Pianoforte School op.500, published in 1839 and dedicated to Queen
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