CZERNY, CARL (1791–1857)

Nicolas Horvath began his music studies at Monaco’s Académie de Musique et de Théâtre Prince Rainier III and soon began to make an impression on a number of artists who would become his mentors. Aged 16 he caught the attention of the American conductor Lawrence Foster before coming to the notice of several distinguished international pianists, including Liszt specialist Leslie Howard. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including First Prize at both the Scriabin and the Luigi Nono International Competitions. He has become noted for hosting concerts of unusual length, sometimes lasting over twelve hours, such as the overnight performance of the complete piano music of Erik Satie at the Paris Philharmonie before a cumulative audience of 14,000 people. In 2019 he performed alongside Philip Glass at the same venue in a programme devoted to the American composer’s piano music. Horvath’s extensive and varied discography on Grand Piano includes the highly acclaimed Philip Glass solo piano music edition, Glassworlds; the complete piano works of Erik Satie; piano sonatas by the Estonian composer Jaan Rääts and music by the American experimental composer Alvin Lucier; Carl Czerny’s 30 Études; and lesser-known piano music by Claude Debussey, Anne-Louise Brillion de Jouy and Hélène de Montgeroult. Nicolas is a Steinway Artist.

Carl Czerny owed much to his father, who trained him as a pianist and musician, concentrating particularly on the works of Bach, Mozart and Clementi. At the age of nine he played for Beethoven, who was happy to accept him as a pupil, his lessons relying in good part on Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s essay on keyboard playing, the Versuch über die wahre Art das Clavier zu spielen. In spite of the irregularity of these lessons, Czerny enjoyed Beethoven’s favour and found a continuing source of inspiration in his music, which remained at the heart of his own repertoire as a performer. Attempts to embark on an early career as an infant prodigy, a travelling virtuoso, were eventually abandoned, partly owing to the disturbed political and social events of the time and partly because, as Czerny later pointed out, of his lack of brilliance and showmanship, the element of charlatanry that seemed a necessary concomitant of such a career. With his careful father’s approval, he settled in Vienna primarily as a piano teacher, with pupils that over the years included the boy Liszt, who passed on Czerny’s teaching to a generation of virtuosi, and they, in turn, to their pupils.