Czerny - Piano concertos; Rondo brillant

The Guardian 60

Howard Shelley (piano), Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra
(Hyperion)

Carl Czerny (1791-1857), born the same year as this newspaper, studied with Beethoven and taught Liszt. He produced vast quantities of music, much of it for piano but also symphonies, overtures, oratorios, masses and string quartets – most all but forgotten today. Howard Shelley and the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra do their best to persuade us that two of his piano concertos and a Rondo Brillant are worth resurrecting. They certainly require a formidable keyboard technician such as Shelley, but for all the finery both the concertos feel hurriedly manufactured and the Rondo too mannered and cliched for modern tastes.