Posters in an Italian piano forum have been playing the same game as me – trying to identify the Czerny studies used in Riisager’s ballet Etudes. In my post on the subject, I managed to trace all of them (leaving aside any short quotes that Riisager may have thrown in along the way that I failed to recognise as quotes).
The one that I couldn’t trace was the tarantella – but those Italians have found it. Or nearly. They’ve found a score of it, in an anthology of Czerny studies published by Presser in 1906, freely available at Open Library. The tarantella is on page 66-67. The only trouble is, Emil Liebling may have “revised, edited and fingered” the studies “with annotations”, but he didn’t bother to identify them. Someone (like me) has been through with a pencil, marking the opus numbers of each study, but (also like me) couldn’t identify the tarantella.
The Italians found my page on Czerny and posted a link to it, noting that I hadn’t – (unlike them) – found the tarantella. “Per solidarietà, potrei scrivergli e dargli il suo pezzo mancante” says one of the posters – out of solidarity, you could write and give him the missing piece (message 50). Yes, out of solidarity, you could have done, that would have been very nice. But it would be even nicer if you could actually identify which book/opus number the study is.
Hi Jonathan,
thank you for your wonderful blog! Your posts are extremely interesting for me. First because I’m a ballet teacher, and second because I play myself piano (actually as adult beginner. I’ve been playing the piano only for 2-3 years). But I think that’s really useful when having to work with a accompanist without experience. More I know about music and more I’ll be able to help my pianist. But that’s no the main reason to learn to play the piano. I just have always loved it! Unfortunately as professional dancer I didn’t have time for it before.
Yes, as you noticed, I get interested by finding the “Ballet Études” original score. I’ve got the idea because I have a young pianist (with no experience) playing in my ballet classes. I gave him some basic material, but I’m trying to find new suitable sheets. My pianist got particularly bored about “polkas” for battements tendus. Therefore the idea to look for some Czerny’s studies. Little by little I became interested in collecting all Ballet Etudes’studies. Actually many others Czerny’s studies are great for ballet class.
It was my intention to write you during this week! I’m sorry, I didn’t before. I’m not really good in english (I rarely use it), therefore I need time to write. I was looking for a good moment.
Meanwhile, I can see, you found pianoforum first! You was faster. I’m surprised, how could you find it?
About the tarantella. Unfortunately I don’t know more than that. You are right, we have the score, but we don’t know the original opus of the study. Therefore our research is not finished. But we don’t give up 🙂
Sorry for all my mistakes in english.
Have a nice week!
Gabri
Hi Gabri,
Thanks for dropping by! I found the post because in the statistics for my site it tells me where people have come from if they’ve pressed a link on another page. It doesn’t happen that often, so I notice it quickly. I was delighted to see that the tarantella score has finally been found, but it’s so frustrating that we don’t know where it’s from! But as you say, we don’t give up.
I think Czerny is great for class, once you realise that he’s so much fun. A lot of pianists think of him only as boring exercises, but the music is very dance-like, and always has a good rhythm to it. Great to hear that you’re playing the piano yourself. Good luck!
(and your English is just fine by the way!)
Hi Jonathan,
yes, yeeeeessssssssss, I’ve got it ! And yes, that’s unbelievable!
One of my friends in the Pianoforum found out the Tarantella’ s book !!!
It was a cosmic mission to find it: a funny and very long story !!!
It was not easy to find it.
Here:
Op. 834, n. 27
Kind regards
Oh that’s wonderful, thank you SO much! Would your friend be willing to share the story so I can add it on here?
Mr. Still,
If I am duplicating information that you already have, please accept my apologies, but in the complete list of Czerny works (https://imslp.org/wiki/List_of_works_by_Carl_Czerny) I found the word tarantella (or the French version) by 3 opus numbers:
Opus 754 – 6 Études de Salon, no 2 – Tarantella
Opus 763 – Scherzino alla Tarantella
Opus 853 – Étude en forme de tarantelle
Plus there was no occurrence of the word in the works without opus number.
I hope this makes your search easier.
Best regards,
George Stallings
Dear George,
The answer is in the text above—it’s Op. 834 No. 27
Best wishes,
Jonathan