★/★★★★
It’s a brave pianist indeed who opens a recital with a 13-minute piece by Carl Czerny, the composer most hated by anyone who has ever tried to learn the piano. Czerny is the author of hundreds of Etudes and exercises that would drive a saint to suicide. He was unstoppably prolific, with 861 published works. In any score I have seen, he’s a crashing bore without a spark of original thought.
In the opus 33 played in this collection, he takes a theme by the French violinist Pierre Rode and doodles variations on it. All very virtuosic and empty-headed. Go to the kitchen, make yourself a cup of tea, take a biscuit and by the time you return … he’ll still be at it. Check your watch. It may be going backwards.
The irritation that Czerny engenders spills over into whatever is played next. In this case Liszt’s Après une lecture de Dante takes a while to warm up from its left-hand adumbrations before it begins to convey a sonata-like structure. Once it does, it’s Liszt at his most flamboyant, arms waving, almost drowning, arguing the toss about eternity, then emerging triumphant.
Debussy’s Suite Bergamesque offers a tranquil contrast. Stravinsky’s 3 movements from Petrushka are eminently danceable and the Adagio from Brahms opus 119 is the perfect goodnight piece. The recital as a whole is profoundly unusual. Behzod Abdurimov, 35, from Tashkent, is a captivating pianist with a personal approach. If he can get over Czerny, he can do anything.
