Krähmer: Two Original Themes with Variations, Op. 24

Description

Excellent practice material of medium difficulty.

Ernst Krähmer (1795-1837) was the greatest virtuoso of the csakan, or “romantic recorder”, which enjoyed a vogue in Vienna in the early 19th century.  For this instrument he composed a wealth of highly entertaining salon music, which transfers perfectly to the baroque recorders played today.

Although much of this music, including several of the pieces published in the present series, is of great technical difficulty, Krähmer also wrote a number of studies and instructional pieces for the keen amateur player.  The two sets of variations published here fall into this latter category, although they also make excellent concert pieces, cleverly figured to sound rather more difficult than they actually are!  The pieces form part of Krähmer’s Opus 24 collection, published in 1830 by Joseph Czerny of Vienna, and are described on the title page as “Original-Thema mit leichten und fortschreitenden Variationen” (Original Themes with simple and more difficult variations).

The csakan is pitched in Ab and sounds one third lower than written.  As such instruments are rare these days, the works can be played on a descant recorder, or on the treble recorder reading as for a descant.  All articulations and expressive markings are as in the original edition, with the exception of the occasional inconsistency which has been corrected without comment.

(Piers Adams)