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After some biographical information as if he wanted to prove that Kalkbrenner had not only a nasty character, but was a mediocre musician as well, Mr. Nicholas inquires and answers himself: “What was he like as a pianist? Much can be gleaned from listening to the two concertos on this disc, written specially to show off every aspect of his technique – elegant execution (can one judge Kalkbrenner’s interpretation by listening to Howard Shelley’s?), rapid, even finger-work, emotionally and dynamically limited” (and again – whose interpretation is limited – Kalkbrenner’s? H.Shelley’s??). It seems to me that now Mr. Nicholas mixes it up completely. Not because of listening too long to Kalkbrenner’s music. No, but because Nicholas tries to stretch blindly copied phrases to make his point. Compare – from Harold Schonberg’s book “The great pianists”: “His (Kalkbrenner’s) playing might have been EMOTIONALLY AND DYNAMICALLY LIMITED, but there could be no denying the polish, elegance and accuracy of his performances”.

Now for a fairer “gleaning” I suggest to use a Kalkbrenner’s contemporary opinion, made just the year when he presented his first concerto in Europe. A contemporary whom I trust – the 19 -years old Fanny Mendelssohn. From her letter to Felix Mendelssohn: “Wir hören ihn oft und suchen von ihm zu lernen. Er vereinigt die verschiedensten Vorzüge in seinem Spiel: Präcision, Klarheit, Ausdruck, die grösste Fertigkeit, die unermüdlichste Kraft und Ausdauer. Er ist ein tüchtiger Musiker und besitzt einen ertaunlichen Ueberblick.“ – „We listen to him often and try to learn from him. He unites the various merits in his playing: precision, clearness, expression, the greatest dexterity, the most surprising strength and endurance. He is a proficient musician and posses an astonishing survey.”
And this is Chopin speaking: “If Paganini is perfection, Kalkbrenner is his parallel, only in a different way.”

Last glance at the booklet and I started to feel pity not only for Kalkbrenner but for poor Howard Shelley too – for besides all the rest Kalkbrenner was “fairly merciless in his demands on both fingers and stamina – there are few opportunities for Mr. Shelley to take his hands from the keyboard once he has begun”. One could just imagine exhausted Howard Shelley, complaining over a bottle (or two?) of wine his “merciless job” to understanding, sympathizing Jeremy Nicholas…

But seriously, how was it possible to unite in the same CD presentation two completely opposite attitudes?! This will remain a mystery for me.

Nevertheless, there is one important lesson I learned from Mr. Nicholas – think twice before asking somebody to write your booklet text!! Especially if you intend to play some unknown music you are fond of.

And now it is time to listen to Howard Shelley with Kalkbrenner’s first piano concerto, first movement:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhjam_ySSQI[/youtube]

With some cautiousness I continued my reading of the booklet only to learn that Heine “lampooned him as ‘a bonbon fallen in the mud’” (by the way, not Heine’s own definition) and reported of a concert in 1843 that “on (Kalkbrenner’s) lips there still gleamed that embalmed smile which we recently noticed on those of an Egyptian pharaoh …” What Mr. Nicholas omits to say is that already in 1836 Kalkbrenner began to suffer from gout and nervous conditions, which certainly made the playing painful, so from 1836 he almost withdrew from the stage. Obviously he was quite satisfied with his life and achievements. All the sarcastic critics on him were written in these last years of his life. The same Heine wrote in 1831 about Kalkbrenner’s playing “Vollkommenheit, der nichts gleichkommt” (Nothing comes near to his perfection). Two years later, in 1833 Robert Schumann shared with his mother that he is meeting often Kalkbrenner, “dem feinsten, liebeswürdigen (nur eitlem) Franzosen.”-”with the finest, amiable (only vain) French.”

But back to the booklet – now the case was worsening: it seemed that the vanity lay in the family: “the father …whose own inflated sense of self-worth led him in 1803 not only to re-arrange Mozart’s Don Giovanni for the Parisian theatre but to interpolate fresh pieces into the opera”… In those old days (in turbulent France as elsewhere) it was not a crime to use or arrange another’s music for any purpose. Like Mozart taking some arias from Martin y Soler’s opera “Una cosa rara”, or from Sarti’s “I due litiganti “ to his “Don Giovanni”, like Steven Storace inserting in his “Siege of Belgrade” Mozart’s Turkish March… and so on…and so on… The very important author’s rights in force nowadays are a more modern conception.

Online I found an enlightening article by Richard S. Bogart, here an excerpt from it:
“Before the middle of the nineteenth century, opera was a much more fluid and dynamic art form than it is today: operas were written for specific theaters and performers, even for specific occasions. When, exceptionally, an opera proved so successful that it merited performances elsewhere or in succeeding seasons, there was no hesitation about adapting its text and music to fit the circumstances. Any significant revival of an opera, that is, one at a major opera house and in which the composer and/or the librettist had a hand, was almost certain to represent a revision. With the creators absent, even greater liberties might be taken by the performers by way of cuts, re-writes, interpolations, and substitutions from other operas…….”

How could it be that although writing on the subject, Mr. Jeremy Nicholas had never heard of that?… Well, let’s accept the inevitable, nobody is perfect.

One could assume that Kalkbrenner’s “Méthode de piano” based on the practice only for the fingers were of no use for the new generation pianists yet not lesser than Liszt wrote: “….Dank meinem eifrigen Studium der Kalkbrenner’schen Klaviermethode…”, “…thanks to my zealous study of Kalkbrenner’s piano method…” Did Charles-Louis Hanon, whose exercises are still played by the beginners today, know and use Kalkbrenner’s method? Without any doubt – how else to explain this striking resemblance?

Kalkbrenner:

Hanon:

Kalkbrenner:

Hanon:

Kalkbrenner:

Hanon:

And so on and so on…
Amazing is also the similarity with some of Alfred Cortot’s exercises, written a century later:

Kalkbrenner:

Cortot:

Another interesting aspect of the “Méthode” points D. Rowland in his important book “A history of a pianoforte pedaling”: ”In general, however, pianists of the post-Beethoven and London school era regarded the una corda pedal with some suspicion. Only one tutor speaks wholeheartedly in favour of it: the Méthode of Friedrich Kalkbrenner, a pupil of Louis Adam who spent most of his performing life in Paris: “(The una corda) produces a marvelous effect in all diminuendo passages, and may be used when a composer has marked a diminuendo, morendo, or pianissimo.” A large number of markings for una corda are found in Kalkbrenner’s music- far more than in that of any of his better-known contemporaries.”

2. The other recording is with Kalkbrenner’s 2 concertos – Nr. 1 and Nr. 4, made in 2006 and played by the renowned pianist Howard Shelley to whom we owe so many wonderful musical discoveries.

I think in most cases, when a musician records some (especially unknown) music, it is because he (or she) likes, if not loves it. According to this preference will be the accompanying text – leading us into the composer’s world, perhaps telling some intriguing facts and, of course, explaining why this music is worth playing, and even more so – listening to.

With some excitement and expectation I opened the concertos CD’s booklet commented by Jeremy Nicholas. It began thus:

“Kalkbrenner was a German pianist and composer of colossal vanity”. – Unusual introduction, I thought. But if his music is lovely enough – who cares?
The next sentence made me smile: “after my death or when I stop playing” informed the composer the young Chopin, “there will be no (more –A.P.) representative of the great pianoforte school.” Oh, yes, that is a normal life process – nearly every generation of creators (and other mortals) feels like being the last one in some way. How many older, well known singers were convinced (and have said so) that the art of singing will die with them? But was the vain Kalkbrenner that laconic? My curiosity forced me to search for more. As it came, there was another part of the statement, found in Chopin’s letters and ending with: “…and you cannot create a new school without knowing the old one” – said Kalkbrenner further……..Myself I think that Kalkbrenner was right – he was one of the last of a great pianoforte school, the older one. Wilhelm von Lenz in his book “The great piano virtuosos of our time” written in 1872 recounts:” I was personally acquaitaned with all the great pianists of the first half of the century: John Field, Moscheles, Hummel, Kalkbrenner. Now we call this the “old” school (with exception of Field, who developed in his own peculiar way) – a school of piano-playing which if not founded by Hummel, was at least essentially influenced by him, and led to the new era of the pianoforte, to Liszt and Chopin”. The constant improvement of the pianoforte demanded a different way of playing it. If Kalkbrenner (and other pianists of his generation) still played much from the wrist and fingers, now the piano keyboards becoming heavier and heavier were to be played with much more weight, from the whole arm. The improved instruments offered more but required a new method, a new approach.

It exists only one serious biography (in German) about him – by Hans Nautsch „Friedrich Kalkbrenner. Wirkung und Werk“ 1983. Some choice of scores can be found here.

And there are two recordings of Kalkbrenner’s works on the market:
1. Kalkbrenner – Romantic piano works, played by Michael Krücker on a fortepiano. Every musician who records an unknown music is like a sort of a pioneer for me – trying to find the answers to how to interpret the forgotten compositions.
What I love the most in this CD are the sonata, the three Romances op.54 (written before 1824) and “La femme du marin” op.139. Strangely enough on the CD the sonata is given as op. 28, dedicated to Cramer (before 1819), but what is really played is the sonata in a-minor, opus 48 (1828), dedicated to Cherubini: