Maître et élève

Description

Melvyn Tan remains closely associated with Beethoven after his acclaimed recording of the Piano Concertos and the Choral Fantasy for EMI alongside Sir Roger Norrington and his London Classical Players. He has also recorded many sonatas on the recently restored personal Broadwood piano of the composer. To illustrate the theme Master and Student, Melvyn Tan plays a modern Steinway. He shines a light on three famous pianist-composers of the 19th century who are the origin of a long tradition of masters and students that continues today from Martin Krauss and Edwin Fischer to Alfred Brendel and Paul Lewis. The young Carl Czerny was long alongside Ferdinand Reis a student and friend of Beethoven, whom he met at the age of 10 and whose concertos he performed. A virtuoso and highly specialized composer, he left Studies that all pianists must practice. He is held in high esteem by Brahms, Debussy, and Liszt; he actually took the latter under his wing as early as 1819 and would be the dedicatee of his Transcendental Studies. In 1823, Beethoven heard the young Liszt (12 years old) in concert. The monumental Sonata in B minor by the Hungarian is in the direct lineage of the master's late sonatas...