Fantasy Op. 77

Description

The fantasy played a relatively small role in the piano music of Viennese Classicism. Beethoven’s sole contribution is perfectly suited to its genre designation in that the work, written in 1809, provides a faithful portrayal of the way he used to improvise (to use the words of Beethoven’s student Carl Czerny). Meandering through keys and tempos, the piece presents a variety of different musical ideas that only relatively late in the piece flow into a self-contained Allegretto in B major and reveal its real goal to be a set of variations. This section could hardly be more distant from the gloomy G minor opening. The challenging work is now available as a separate Hene Urtext publication.