Carl Czerny student Franz Liszt
Legacy
Influence
Czerny can be considered as a father of modern piano technique for generations of pianists, when it is taken into account that many of his students, such as Theodor Leschetizky, Franz Liszt and Theodor Kullak, also became teachers and passed on his legacy. The US music magazine The Etude presented in its issue of April 1927 an illustration (see above) showing how Czerny could be considered the father of modern piano technique and the basis of an entire generation of pianists. This list can be extended to the present day: examples of 'descent' are:Wanda Landowska: pupil of Moritz Moszkowski ← Theodor Kullak ← Czerny;
Sergei Prokofiev: pupil of Anna Yesipova ← Theodor Leschetizky ← Czerny;
Claudio Arrau: pupil of Martin Krause ← Liszt ← Czerny;
Ernő Dohnányi: pupil of István Thomán ← Liszt ← Czerny;
Georges Cziffra: pupil of István Thomán ← Liszt ← Czerny;
Daniel Barenboim: pupil of Edwin Fischer ← Martin Krause ← Liszt ← Czerny;
Van Cliburn: pupil of Rildia Bee Cliburn ← Arthur Friedheim ← Liszt ← Czerny;
Sergei Rachmaninoff: pupil of Alexander Siloti ← Liszt ← Czerny;
Leon Fleisher: pupil of Artur Schnabel ← Theodor Leschetizky ← Czerny;Czerny wrote an essay on the correct performing of the piano sonatas of Beethoven, "On the Proper performance of all Beethoven's works for piano" (1846). Johannes Brahms wrote about it to Clara Schumann in a letter of March 1878: "I certainly think Czerny's large pianoforte course Op. 500 is worthy of study, particularly in regard to what he says about Beethoven and the performance of his works, for he was a diligent and attentive pupil ... Czerny's fingering is particularly worthy for attention. In fact I think that people today ought to have more respect for this excellent man" In a letter written to Otto Jahn of 30 October 1852, Liszt wrote: "In the twenties, when a great portion of Beethoven's creations was a kind of Sphinx, Czerny was playing Beethoven exclusively, with an understanding as excellent as his technique was efficient and effective; and, later on, he did not set himself up against some progress that had been made in technique, but contributed materially to it by his own teaching and works."Czerny had an influential role in defining the canon of classical piano repertoire. Volume 4 (1847) of his Theoretico-Practical Piano School listed what he considered to be the most important piano works of the previous eighty years, including works of Mozart, Clementi, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Schubert, Mendelssohn, and works of his own.
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