History of the pianoforte and pianoforte playersBie, Oskar
History
History of the pianoforte and pianoforte players
Bie, Oskar
Pianists; Piano -- History
Cramer (1771-1858) had two long stays in London, in the midst of which
a sojourn at Paris occupied the years from 1832 to 1845. He found a
secondary occupation in a London musical house, in which he was a
partner from 1828 to 1842. Kalkbrenner (1784-1849), on the contrary,
lived in Paris, but his residence there was interrupted by a nine
years’ stay in London (1814-1823). He too had secondary interests. He
was concerned with Logier in a company for the exploitation of the
“Chiroplast,” and he had also a share in a piano-factory. Moscheles
(1794-1870) had no business. His external life was made up of his
youthful time in Vienna with Beethoven and Meyerbeer, his sensational
Parisian recitals of 1820, his glorious stay in London from 1821
to 1846, and his professoriate at the Leipzig Conservatorium. At
intervals, of course, he made Continental concert-tours.
Among all the great virtuosos and teachers only Czerny had a really
fixed abode (1791-1857). As a boy of fifteen he was already a teacher
in Vienna, and as such he died there; his tours also being few and far
between.
[Illustration: Prince Louis Ferdinand. Engraved by Geiger after
Grassy.]
But Czerny is in this respect an exception. Otherwise the
international play of virtuosity led to an exchange and co-operation,
to the mutual curiosity and desire to learn, which mark the
concert-life of that age. Duet-playing by great executants, in private
or in the concert-hall, is nothing unusual throughout this time. But
the genuine interpreter does not as yet exist. The player has mostly
a personal interest in the piece performed, and the friends assist at
the christening. It is the time of the Hexameron. Exchange is often
even too self-abnegatory. Moscheles composed for Cramer (with whom,
as also with Ries and Kalkbrenner, he often played duets) a last
movement for Cramer’s own sonata for two pianofortes. Later on he
took the piece back again and tacked it on to his well-known piece,
“Hommage à Haendel!” We need not then be surprised at such gruesome
pasticcios as the programme of a London Philharmonic concert under
Weber,[121] when were played the C sharp minor concerto of Ries, the E
flat major of Beethoven, and the Hungarian Rondo of Pixis.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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