Czerny Op 335 #38, Single Version

This is a fascinating piece to look at on the page, feel in your fingers (even if you can only play it slowly), and listen to as it unfolds: a perpetuum mobile made up of 2 voices moving in parallel at, usually, different intervals which project melodic and harmonic movement. It might be a fascinating--if experimental--piece to play for class if you have the technique to play it at Czerny’s tempo, shaping the phrases through the shifting harmony while keeping the pulse clear. I haven’t got that kind of technique, and if I did I’d be very sparing of experimenting on a class with this piece. I imagine a teacher would be loudly calling out the counts while I played. So, as homage to Czerny’s ingenious 2-voice flight of fancy I’ve created a synthetic version that doesn’t need to be counted outloud and tries to preserve at least some of the fascination.

Op 335 #38, Single Version: light, brisk march under running 16th dyads, 16 sets of 8-count phrases.

Op 335 #38 Single Version Audio

For this synthetic arrangement I’ve introduced a light bass accompaniment to keep the counts clear. I’ve rewritten the last four bars of Czerny’s B section to maintain the established texture of changing dyads in stepwise motion--at m14 Czerny dissipates that texture with broken triads.