THE PIANO AT THE OPERA: Fantasias [CD de audio] Portenaw Piano Duo and Czerny, Thalberg, Listz, Glinka

The piano was an essential item of musical entertainment in the 19th century, and it was through this instrument that many became familiar with opera music, as fantasias based on various operas were composed for piano, allowing those who were not regular opera-goers to be exposed to its music.This collection brings together selected opera themes adapted for two pianos. Fantasias and variations by Carl Czerny, who was a worldwide name at the time, were extremely popular; this disc includes his Introduction and Variations Op.398 based on the cavatina from Donizetti's Don Pasquale, as well as the variations on a theme of Rossini, La cornetta del postiglione Op.282. Czerny was the only teacher of young virtuoso Franz Liszt, whose characteristically elaborate Funeral March and Cavatina S398 from Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor appears in this collection, along with the Grande Fantasie S393 on Bellini's La sonnambula. Liszt's main pianistic rival and antithesis, with his calm demeanour and m