Carl Czerny - Gran Capriccio in C Minor, op. 172

I. Adagio non troppo - Allegro II. Andante serioso 04:27 III. Presto 09:14 In some ways the splendid Gran Capriccio in C minor, op. 172, composed about 1828, resembles a terse three-movement sonata, but in a turbulent romantic idiom very different from the Sonatine’s serene classicism. A brooding slow introduction gives way to a hard-bitten, headlong Allegro with a contrapuntal central episode based on a form of the introduction’s theme instead of a development proper; the reprise of the main ideas is accomplished with intensified bravura, suddenly subsiding to a quiet, shadowy close. A central Andante serioso in the tonic major follows without a break, as a series of variations on a calmly glowing, hymn-like theme, presented first over a staccato bass, almost pizzicato in its effect. The middle variations plunge into a passionately afflicted C minor, creating a contrastingly agitated section whose principal figuration persists into the majorkey restatement of the theme. As this movement dies out the Presto finale starts, a fiery, whirlwind invention dominated by obsessive rapid triplet rhythms, with a grim, Alkan-like gleam in the music’s eye. It sweeps up to a sudden pause, and Czerny springs one of his contrapuntal surprises: a slower four-part polyphonic invention takes over, based on the chordal theme that first accompanied the hurrying triplets, and also on a variant of the theme of the first-movement introduction. This reminiscent episode soon rises to a rhetorical climax and the headlong scurry of the triplets is off again, driving everything before it right up to the breakneck Più Presto coda.A central Andante serioso in the tonic major follows without a break, as a series of variations on a calmly glowing, hymn-like theme, presented first over a staccato bass, almost pizzicato in its effect. The middle variations plunge into a passionately afflicted C minor, creating a contrastingly agitated section whose principal figuration persists into the majorkey restatement of the theme. As this movement dies out the Presto finale starts, a fiery, whirlwind invention dominated by obsessive rapid triplet rhythms, with a grim, Alkan-like gleam in the music’s eye. It sweeps up to a sudden pause, and Czerny springs one of his contrapuntal surprises: a slower four-part polyphonic invention takes over, based on the chordal theme that first accompanied the hurrying triplets, and also on a variant of the theme of the first-movement introduction. This reminiscent episode soon rises to a rhetorical climax and the headlong scurry of the triplets is off again, driving everything before it right up to the breakneck Più Presto coda.