BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Thursday, May 2, 1822

Today’s Wiener Zeitung includes an advertisement by S.A. Steiner & Co. for the newly released Rondeau brillant sur un Menuet favori op.17, for piano, by Beethoven’s former student, Carl [here called Charles] Czerny. The advertisement makes no mention of the fact that the work is written for the peculiar grouping of piano six hands, i.e., three performers at a single piano.

This oddity is performed here by the ‘Landsberg Piano Twins’ Melanie & Franziska Überreiter und Lukas Igel (albeit at two pianos).