Martin Jones (piano)Nimbus NI 5863/4 (2 CDs) ***

When Percy Young's Critical Dictionary of Composers(1954) began its article on Carl Czerny (1791-1857) with the statement "composed a vast amount of bad music", it's unlikely there were many voices raised in protest. Czerny, a pupil of Beethoven and teacher of Liszt, churned out a huge amount of fodder in the form of piano studies, so much of it, in fact, that his more substantial pieces are now quite forgotten. Martin Jones's ongoing survey of Czerny's piano sonatas (Vol 2 contains Sonatas 1, 2, 7 and 11) shows a composer who, like, say, Weber (whose sonatas remained in the repertory into the 20th century), straddled classical and romantic styles in ways that seem oddly uncomfortable to modern ears – not sufficiently cogent on the one hand, nor quite free enough on the other. Jones's sturdy performances allow for a fresh assessment.

See wyastone.co.uk