I’ve tried to bring into focus a musical “type” among Czerny’s studies that I think of as “gesture” rather than “texture,” and I’ve tried to lay out my ideas in other commentaries (#'s 13, 15, 46, 48). I think of #26 as yet another type, as “declamation,” and I must apologize for my inability to bring much conceptual precision to what I mean. However, I think any musician will understand what I’m getting at and why such intellectual categorization can be a useful way to approach certain of Czerny’s studies for ballet class, as well as understand their peculiar aesthetic effect as music independent of ballet class.
Anyway, the first 16 bars of this declamatory study make an excellent one-pager for fondus, but you’d have to repeat it for two sides of a typical combination and the harmonic banality of Czerny’s opening material doesn’t wear well with repetition. That’s why it’s best to make use also of Czerny’s very interesting B section (mm 17-27).
Op 740 #26, Single Version: heavy Fondus, 8 sets of 8
This is my performance of the first two pages (mm 1-24) of #26, trimmed and squared off. I create a turnaround at m 23 (modelled on m 27) that allows me to repeat mm 9-16 with a final cadence.