Description

Beethoven's sole fantasy work for piano, composed in 1809, played a relatively small role in the piano music of Viennese Classicism. As Beethoven's student Carl Czerny described, the piece provides "a faithful portrayal of the way he used to improvise," meandering through keys and tempos with a variety of musical ideas. It is not until the latter part of the work that these ideas coalesce into a self-contained Allegretto in B major, revealing the piece's true nature as a set of variations - a stark contrast to the gloomy g minor opening. This challenging work is now available as a separate Henle Urtext publication.